November's Off the Record: AI in Marketing, What's Working, What's Not
The pace of change in AI is overwhelming, even for those living it daily. Staying competitive requires direct, honest access to the practitioners actively building, deploying, and wrestling with these technologies.
Join TiE Silicon Valley for Off the Record, a recurring series for entrepreneurs featuring candid, behind-the-scenes conversations with front-line practitioners—product leaders, engineering heads, founders, and enterprise operators. Rather than polished keynote speeches or corporate marketing, this series offers frank, practical insights on what is actually changing, what works, and how to navigate it.
Event Details
Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2026
Time: 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM PST
Location: TiE Silicon Valley Office, Palo Alto | Interactive Zoom session via Live Video Conference
Curators: Smita Hashim & Shivani Govil
Format Policy: Off the record — Chatham House Rule applies. Nothing will be recorded or attributed to ensure open, candid dialogue. No slides—just direct conversation.
Session Overview: AI in Marketing & Enterprise GTM — What Worked, What Flopped
At our first Off the Record session, we heard that as engineering builds faster, the bottlenecks are shifting. Marketing is one of them.
How is marketing using AI today? Where does it make sense and where does it not? What are the specific use cases, the successes, and the failures, and how is ROI actually measured?
Marketing encompasses product, field, prospecting, nurturing, and account-based marketing (ABM). In this session, we go beyond press releases to take a 360-degree view of the unvarnished realities of AI marketing and GTM strategy. Join two candid, grounded CMOs who are doing this work every day as they share their firsthand lessons on brand positioning, customer acquisition, and market expansion in the age of AI.
Featured Speakers & Curators
Chandra Rangan — Chief Marketing Officer at Shield AI
Chandra Rangan is the Chief Marketing Officer at Shield AI, a defense technology company building autonomous AI systems for defense and unmanned platforms, last valued at $12.7B. A seasoned technology executive, Chandra brings extensive leadership experience from prior roles including CMO at Neo4j, as well as enterprise leadership at Google Cloud, Google Maps Platform, Symantec, and HP.
Juergen Lindner — Chief Marketing Officer at Calix
Juergen Lindner is the Chief Marketing Officer at Calix, driving go-to-market strategy, product positioning, and brand momentum for cloud and AI-driven platform solutions. He brings decades of global enterprise technology experience, having previously served as CMO at ServiceNow, CMO for Oracle Cloud Applications, and spending nearly two decades in senior leadership at SAP.
Shivani Govil (Moderator & Curator) — Senior Advisor, McKinsey & Co.
Shivani is currently a Senior Advisor at McKinsey. Prior to this, she held CPO and senior executive leadership roles at Google, CCC, and SAP.
Smita Hashim (Moderator & Curator) — Partner, Disruptive Ventures
Smita is a Partner at Disruptive Ventures and a strategic advisor to founders and venture companies. Previously, she was Chief Product Officer at Zoom, where she led products across the platform, and earlier held product leadership roles at Google and Microsoft.
Agenda / Schedule
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM: Doors Open, Snacks & Networking
6:00 PM – 6:45 PM: Moderated Conversation (Featured Speakers + Moderators)
6:45 PM – 7:15 PM: Open Q&A (In-person & Interactive Remote)
7:15 PM – 7:30 PM: Post-session Networking
Registration Note: In-person seats at the TiE Silicon Valley office in Palo Alto are limited. Remote participants will join by live video and have access to interactive Q&A.