Between Product and Partnerships

In this discussion, Cristina sits down with Faria Anzum, Developer Experience Product Design Lead at Canva, to explore her approach to SaaS integrations, developer experience, as well as the impact of AI on building scalable partner ecosystems.

Faria’s Role and Canva’s Ecosystem Approach

Faria leads developer experience within Canva’s ecosystem team, focusing on optimizing the end-to-end journey for developers—from discovery and docu...

In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, we sit down with Indy Sen, Product Marketing Manager for Ecosystem at Canva, to explore what it really takes to build a thriving SaaS platform and developer ecosystem.

Indy shares hard-earned lessons from his career shaping ecosystems at Salesforce, Box, MuleSoft, Google, and now Canva. From launching on the early Salesforce AppExchange to scaling developer engagement at...

In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Cristina Flaschen sat down with Shrijit Patel, Technical Product Manager at Chronograph, to talk about building integration infrastructure, developing anti-fragile systems, and bridging the technical gap as a backend-focused PM. 

Drawing from his experience at Accenture, FIS, Amazon, and now Chronograph, Shrijit broke down what most PMs miss when thinking about integrations and ba...

As SaaS companies navigate 2025, building integration strategies that drive growth, retain customers, and adapt to evolving partner ecosystems is essential.

In this conversation, we spoke with Product Managers and Technology Partnerships Leaders at Justuno, Triple Whale, and Gorgias who’ve successfully tackled integration challenges.

Our panelists share:
- Why a robust integration strategy important in 2025 in...

In this episode, we’re joined by integration experts Venkat Iyer (Talkdesk), Shon Urbas (Pandium), and Trevor Schueren (Workable) for a deep dive into the strategies behind successfully scaling SaaS integration efforts.

Moderated by Pandium CEO Cristina Flaschen, this conversation highlights real-world experiences and offers insights on building scalable, reliable integration infrastructures that run smoothly while offeri...

Justuno is a website marketing automation platform that's tried a lot of different strategies for speeding up the development of integrations their customers need.

From building integrations in-house to outsourcing to different varieties of embedded integration platforms, Justuno has tried a variety of integration strategies.

Their CTO and Director of Partnerships share the pros and cons of each strategy, an...

In this podcast interview we sat down with Marco De Paulis, Director, Ecommerce Partnerships at Ryder.

Marco stresses the importance of being prescriptive and detailed in integration proposals. By engaging with customers early on, gathering feedback, and incorporating their ideas, the partnership team ensures a more successful integration development.

He also shared the long-term impact on customer retention, em...

We interviewed Lindsey Traub, the Sr. Director and Head of Partner Programs and Operations @ Simpro Software. 

Hear her take on: 

• Making the pitch for resources: How to effectively advocate for the resources your team needs, using data-driven insights and strategic communication.
• Advocating for partner operations: Why the role of Partner Operations is pivotal from the start to build scalable, robust programs. 
• The state ...

On this episode of our podcast Between Product and Partnerships we interviewed Swetha Kolli, Head of Integrations Engineering and Technical Services at Bolt. In this interview she shared: 

• Frequently neglected parts of the integration and technology partnerships building process.
• Her perspective on the partner technology landscape and pain points that remain unaddressed.
• What to include in an integration proposal for technical tea...

We interviewed Gary Ballabio, the VP of Technology Partnerships at Cloudinary. In this interview he shared: 

*A framework for choosing strategic partnerships optimized for joint value.
*Where he believes tech partnerships bring the most business value.
*Advice for managing expectations around ROI.
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To access more content on integrations, APIs, and technology partnerships, check out our blog and resources...

Richard O'Connell is the Head of Partner Growth at Atlassian, and has been working on product partnerships at Atlassian for a little over a decade.

In this interview Richard shares: 

• How he suggests partner managers and leaders objectively assess new partnerships to get ahead of potential problems. 
• What to keep in mind when partnering with competitors and how to structure those partnerships. 
• Why lack of executive a...

In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, we spoke with Katherine Tooley, a Technology Partnerships Manager at LogicGate, a modern risk management platform.

An an engineer turned technology partner manager, she now serves as a liaison between sales, CX, and product teams to collaboratively identify integration solutions that provide value to their market base.

In his interview Katherine shares:
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In this episode we spoke with Caitlin Teed, an integration partner manager at Ryder Ecommerce by Whiplash, a 3rd party logistics provider for enterprise and fast growing Ecommerce brands. 

In this episodes Caitlin shares: 

• Skills from her time in customer success that helped set her up for success in as a tech partner manager 
• Skills that new partnership managers should focus on developing early on
• How she align...

Sonal Uban is the Director of Marketing for Technology Alliances at Fortinet, a global leader for cybersecurity services. In this interview she shares:

• How smaller companies can get the attention of larger partners
• Underutilized methods for co-marketing 
• How she’s scaled co-marketing & attribution tracking 
• What to do before taking joint-solutions to market
• A framework for assessing the compatibility of a tech partners...

Rachel Collie is the Director of Technology Partnerships and App Marketplace at Unanet. When Rachel initially joined Unanet, she realized that there were a lot of barriers to entry for tech partners, specifically when it came to building, accessing, and deploying integrations. In this interview Rachel shares: 

• Barriers to entry that negatively impact technology partners engagement. 
• Advice for working with the product org and tec...

Kalen Kimm is currently launching the partnerships program as the Strategic Partnerships Director at Jebbit,  the leading software to capture zero-party data. Kalen has worked in SaaS partnerships and sales for the past 10 years, and shares his thoughts on: 

• Why sales teams should be leveraging second-party/partner data 
• Best practices and pitfalls for enabling sales teams to leverage partner data
• Processes, systems, and technolog...

Rish (Rishabh) Bhandari is the Founder and CEO of  Content Beta,  a content studio for B2B SaaS companies.  In this episode Rish shares: 

• Why B2B SaaS companies should be investing in video marketing in particular. 
• How SaaS companies can ensure that their content and video marketing not only educates potential customers, but translates into more conversions, sales, and higher product adoption.
• Types of content and video marketing...

Ian Cugniere is the Program Manager for the App Marketplace at Aircall, a cloud-based call center and phone system that integrates seamlessly with popular productivity and helpdesk tools.

In this interview, Ian talks about his transition into technology partnerships and shares:   

• Features of app marketplaces that are attractive to customers and partners. 
• How app marketplaces and other processes can aid in identifying d...

Steve Rodda is the CEO of Stoplight, a global API design and documentation platform that helps SaaS companies design, test, mock, & document APIs. 

For several years he has held various leadership roles in engineering and product management, leading large organizations like SolarWinds and Cherwell. 

Along with discussing trends in how companies are designing and documenting their APIs, in this interview Steve shares: