Cocktails & Commerce Podcast
by Brian Walker & Bill Friend
Common sense for commerce tech, washed down with great cocktails. Hear from great guests from around the enterprise commerce tech landscape as they share nuggets of wisdom between sips, just like at the hotel bar... cocktailsand.substack.com
Episodes
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C&C Pod: Adam Bujak, Founder & CEO of KYP.ai
This week Bill and I are joined by our guest Adam Bujak, to mix up a Polish-inspired cocktail and have a conversation about the intersection of process intelligence, agentic workflows, and enterprise commerce transformation. Adam is the CEO and co-founder of KYP.ai - a company that helps large...
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C&C Pod: Bryan Mahoney, Co-Founder & CEO of Chord Commerce
This week Bill and I are joined by Bryan Mahoney to mix up a Negroni riff and talk about something we think is under appreciated in the agentic commerce conversation: the data foundation and context layer that are key to enabling agentic commerce operations. Bryan is the co-founder and CEO of…
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C&C Pod: Peter Sheldon, Co-Founder & CPO of ShopVision
This week Bill and I are joined by our guest Peter Sheldon, to shake up a Vesper cocktail and talk about ShopVision, Market & Competitive Intelligence, his vision for how commerce become’s increasingly autonomous, and what it’s like leading Product for an AI-native company. Peter is co-founder…
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C&C Pod: Tomasz Pindel, Founder & CEO of Voucherify
This week Bill and I are joined by our guest Tomasz Pindel, co-founder and CEO of Voucherify. Voucherify is a Customer Incentive and Loyalty Engine that has built a reputation for enabling businesses to rapidly deploy and test promotions, discounts, and loyalty solutions through its API-first,...
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C&C Pod: Steve Papa, Commerce OG - Endeca, Toast, and Parallel Wireless
Another episode with a true Commerce OG. This week Steve Papa joins us to explore the founding and growth-path of Endeca — the commerce search and guided navigation platform that became the de facto standard for retail eCommerce discovery in the 2000s. Endeca climbed to powering roughly half of…
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C&C Pod: Steve Kramer, Founder & CEO of Workjam - and Commerce OG
Bill and I are both saddened and excited about this episode. This is the first of a series we are calling the “OG Series”, where C&C talks to a commerce OG about the early days, what they are up to now, and where the party is joining to be when the robots take over. First up: Remembering Jon...
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C&C Pod: Rob Garf, Head of Strategy, Cordial
Bill and I have been looking forward to this one. Rob Garf joins us to mix up a great riff on his beloved Espresso Martini and dig into the transformation happening at the intersection of marketing technology, agentic systems, and customer experience. Rob is Head of Strategy at Cordial, a...
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C&C Pod: Nitin Mangtani, EVP of Agentforce Commerce & Retail Cloud at Salesforce
This week Nitin Mangtani joins Bill and I to mix up a delicious C&C bespoke mocktail and give us an update on Salesforce Commerce Cloud, their recent acquisition of Cimulate, and share his point-of-view on agentic commerce, and what the rise of AI-driven agents means for the future of B2B and...
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C&C Pod: John Williams, Founder, Co-CEO & CTO of Amplience
As we get the pod back up and rolling after a bit of a break, we are excited to bring you a great conversation. John Williams joins Bill & I to shake up a Dark & Stormy - which one is ‘dark’ and which one is stormy? - and dig into a topic we’ve been wanting to explore for a while: what AI is…
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C&C Pod - Bjarke Sejersen, Founder & CEO of Go Autonomous
For the last episode of 2025 - or the first of 2026, depending on when you listen - Bill and I have a great episode and the perfect cocktail for you. Bjarke Sejersen joins the pod to mix up some Bloody Mary riffs and talk about the transformation AI is bringing to B2B Commerce - and perhaps most...
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C&C Pod - Kailin Noivo, Co-Founder & President of Noibu
Bill and I are joined by Kailin Noivo to mix up a NA cocktail and talk about eCommerce analytics and what is happening ‘for realz’ with Answer Engine traffic and impact today. Kailin is the co-founder and President of Noibu, where he leads the company’s mission to help eCommerce businesses…
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C&C Pod - Jim Herbert, CEO of Patchworks
This episode Bill and I are joined by Jim Herbert, CEO of Patchworks to mix up a few too many Pisco Sours - complete with reverse dry shakes and a bit of history - and talk about the evolution of composability, integration, MACH architectures, and agentic commerce systems. Patchworks is a…
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C&C Pod - John Andrews, Founder & CEO of Cimulate
This episode Bill and I are joined by John Andrews to mix up a smoky, balsamic riff on an Old Fashioned and talk about the evolution of commerce product discovery, the rise of CommerceGPTs, and how agentic commerce will really work. John is CEO of Cimulate, a generative-AI native solution that...
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C&C Pod - Jason Cottrell, CEO of Orium & President of the MACH Alliance
This episode Bill and I are joined by Jason Cottrell to mix up a great bespoke cocktail and talk about the evolution of commerce services, composability, the rise of agentic commerce ecosystems, and the future of the MACH Alliance. Jason is the founder & CEO of Orium, a leading consultancy for...
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C&C Pod - Bryan House, CEO of Elastic Path
This episode Bill and I are joined by Bryan House to mix up a bespoke Manhattan riff, check in on Elastic Path, discuss the state of the commerce tech market, and look forward to the impact of agentic commerce. Bryan is now CEO of Elastic Path, having taken over the leadership role in May 2025....
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C&C Pod - Eli Finkelshteyn, Founder & CEO of Constructor
This episode Bill and I are joined by Eli Finkelshteyn to mix up some Boulevardier riffs and talk about the evolution of commerce product discovery in the Gen-AI and agentic era, Agentic Commerce, and hear Eli’s perspective on where this market is headed. Eli is founder & CEO of Constructor, a...
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C&C Pod - Scott Mager, CMO of Deloitte U.S. - The future of consulting in the age of AI
This week Bill and I are joined by Scott Mager, CMO of Deloitte U.S. to mix something up - ostensibly some Margarita riffs, though Scott had his own ideas - and talk about the world of consulting and systems integration and how all that is evolving in the face of AI. Scott is now CMO of Deloitte...
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C&C Pod - Dirk Hörig, Founder of Commercetools
This week Bill and I are joined by Dirk Hörig, founder and CEO of commercetools. We warned Dirk that we would ply him with drinks and ask him some tough questions, and that’s just what we did. We talked about what is happening with Commercetools, the state of the market, MACH Alliance, and the...
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C&C Pod - Scot Wingo, Founder & CEO of ReFiBuy & Retailgentic
This week Bill and I are joined by Scot Wingo, founder and CEO of early-stage agentic commerce start-up, ReFiBuy and the podcast and Substack Retailgentic - where he focuses on Agentic Commerce. When we wanted to focus on the topic of Agentic Commerce, we could think of no one better than Scot to...
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C&C Pod - Maju Kuruvilla, Founder & CEO of Spangle
This week Bill and I are joined by Maju Kuruvilla - founder and CEO of commerce AI start-up, Spangle AI. Spangle is one of a number of early stage companies that have emerged over the past year leveraging advances in Generative-AI - large language models and transformers - to impact the commerce...
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C&C Pod - Bobby Morrison, CRO at Shopify
This week Bill and I are joined by Bobby Morrison, Chief Revenue Officer at Shopify We invited Bobby on the show to respond to our recent article on Shopify, and talk about a number of things we shared there. Bobby goes deep, sharing insights into their momentum to the enterprise commerce…
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C&C Pod - Raj De Datta, Founder & CEO of Bloomreach
This week Bill and I are joined by Raj De Datta, Founder and CEO of Bloomreach to mix up a Kir Royale cocktail and talk about Raj’s perspective on the market, his many lessons from founding and leading Bloomreach, and AI’s impact on the future of commerce experiences, digital marketing, and how...
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C&C Pod - Travis Hess, CEO of BigCommerce
This week Bill and I are joined by Travis Hess, CEO of BigCommerce to mix up a C&C original cocktail with us and talk about BigCommerce - his vision, where BigCommerce fits, contrasting BigCommerce & Shopify, and where the commerce platform and technology market is headed. Travis took the reins…
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C&C Pod - Talking Retail Media with Kiri Masters
Welcome everyone to another episode of Cocktails & Commerce. This week Kiri Masters joins us to mix up a ‘Walk in the Park’ mocktail and talk about the world of retail media and how it is poised to change quickly. Kiri was the founder of Bobsled Marketing, an agency focused on helping marketplace...
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C&C Pod - Rick Nash, Founder & CEO of Spotlight
This week Bill and I are joined by Rick Nash, Founder & CEO of Spotlight, to mix up a Horsefeather from Rick’s hometown of Kansas City, and talk about analyst relations and how to think about that. Spotlight is among the leading analyst relations firms that help technology and services companies...
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C&C Pod - Jamie Anderson, President of User Testing
This week Bill and I are joined by Jamie Anderson, President of UserTesting, to mix up a legendary Scottish cocktail - the Bobby Burns - and talk about the importance of customer feedback, testing, and balancing qualitative and quantitative customer input. We also touch on Jamie’s unique career...
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C&C Pod - Scott Silverman, Co-Founder of CommerceNext
This week Bill and I are joined by Scott Silverman, Co-Founder of CommerceNext and long-time commerce community builder, to mix up some classic Sazerac cocktails and talk about the keys to building a vibrant professional community and hosting a great event. We also gain Scott’s perspective on the...
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C&C Pod - Roy Rubin, Co-Founder of R-Squared Ventures & Magento
This week Bill and I are joined by Roy Rubin, Founding Partner of R-Squared Ventures & Co-Founder of Magento, joins the C&C Pod to mix up a classic low-ABV classic cocktail - an Americano - and talk about Roy’s lessons from founding and growing one the seminal commerce platforms of all time. We...
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C&C Pod with Adrien Nussenbaum, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Mirakl
This week Bill and I are joined by Adrien Nussenbaum to mix up the delicious, refreshing, matcha-based On a Misty Morning mocktail and talk about the origin story of Mirakl, pioneering their marketplace solution, and the future of marketplaces, growth strategies, Retail Media Networks, and much...
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C&C Pod - Wandering Path Mocktail with Andy Peebler, former VP of Product at Salesforce Commerce Cloud
This week Bill and I are joined by Andy Peebler to mix up a delicious mocktail and discuss the commerce platform wars, the role of suites moving forward, B2B commerce, the influence of AI on commerce, and much more. Andy has an impressive background, spanning both the services and product sides…
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Larry Ramponi, Oaxacan Old-Fashioneds & Commerce Process Orchestration
This week Bill and I are joined by Larry Ramponi to mix up some delicious Oaxacan Old-Fashioneds and discuss the emergence of process engines - what they are, how they fit into the enterprise commerce stack, and what problems they solve. Larry is co-founder and CEO of Viax, where he and his team...
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C&C Pod - Fauxgronis with Filippo Conforti, Founder & Co-CEO of Commerce Layer
Fauxgronis with Filippo Conforti - Founder & Co-CEO of Commerce Layer. Filippo joins us to discuss his perspectives on an API-first commerce tech approach and what led him to found Commerce Layer. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to...
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C&C Pod - Sharpie Mustaches with Chris Hauca - SVP Commerce, EXM & Strategy at Hero Digital
This week, Bill and I are joined by Chris Hauca - SVP Commerce, Experience Management, & Strategy at Hero Digital. Chris is SVP of Technology Solutions at Hero Digital - working closely with Hero’s clients on their technology journeys. Chris has a unique background in commerce, having been a...
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C&C Pod - Caipirinhas with Zia Daniell Wigder - Chief Content Officer at eMarketer
This week, Bill and I are joined by Zia Daniell Wigder, Chief Content Officer at eMarketer. Prior to her role at eMarketer, Zia has held many notable leadership roles in the commerce research and content sphere, including Chief Global Content Officer at Shoptalk, co-founder of Groceryshop - both...
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C&C Pod - Breakfast Martinis with Moritz Zimmermann - hybris Founder & Venture Capitalist
With us on the pod this week: Moritz Zimmermann This week Bill and I are joined by our long time friend Moritz Zimmermann to mix up some Breakfast Martinis, and talk about a Venture Capitalist’s perspective on the commerce technology market. We also dive into Moritz’ lessons learned from the long...
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C&C Pod - Cocojillos with Alex Atzberger - CEO of Optimizely
Alex Atzberger joins Bill and Brian on the C&C Podcast to mix up a Cocojillo - a C&C original - while we discuss the future of marketing solutions, personalization, and commerce. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes,...
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C&C Pod: Negronis with John Rossman - author, transformation advisor, & former Amazon leader
A conversation with John Rossman - author, advisor, keynote speaker, former leader at Amazon. Welcome to another episode of the Cocktails & Commerce Podcast. This week, we continue our inaugural series of the C&C Pod with another great episode. Bill and I are joined by the insightful and charming...
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C&C Pod Episode 2 - Margaritas with Vicki Cantrell from Vendors in Partnership
We are back with another great episode of the C&C Pod, this time with the delightful Vicki Cantrell, founder of Vendors in Partnership. Many of you know Vicki, not only did she found Vendors in Partnership, she has held many key leadership roles in the commerce and retail community, including...
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Announcing the first C&C Pod! Kelly Geotsch joins us to talk MACH Alliance, commercetools, and more
Well, we are finally here, dropping our first episode of the C&C Podcast. We have a whopper of a first guest, none other than the venerable Kelly Geotsch. Many of you know Kelly well - he is a commerce thought-leader, multiple-time author, Chief Strategy Officer at commercetools, and co-founder…
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About this show
Common sense for commerce tech, washed down with great cocktails. Hear from great guests from around the enterprise commerce tech landscape as they share nuggets of wisdom between sips, just like at the hotel bar...
cocktailsand.substack.com
Hosted by
Brian Walker & Bill Friend
Categories