MarTech Podcast ™

Episode: One workflow that completely eliminated a painful manual handoff

Host: Benjamin Shapiro
Guest: Christine Royston, Chief Marketing Officer at Wrike
Date: February 3, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, Benjamin Shapiro sits down with Christine Royston, CMO at Wrike, to discuss how her team leveraged workflow automation—particularly approval routing—to eliminate a painful, manual handoff that often bottlenecks creative collaboration. The conversation highlights the intersection of AI and human-centered creativity, focusing on practical steps for streamlining marketing operations and keeping teams aligned and efficient.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Challenge: Manual Handoffs in Approval Processes

• Common Issue: Managing roles, responsibilities, and approvals in creative work is complex. Teams often get bogged down by unclear approval chains, conflicting feedback, and delays when reviewers are unavailable.
• Insight: Lack of clarity leads to wasted cycles and friction, making it challenging to achieve final outcomes efficiently.

The Solution: Automated Approval Routing with Wrike

• Automated Workflow: Christine describes how her team has deployed clear, automated routing for content approvals, tailored to specific asset types and responsibilities.
  • Pre-defining approvers for different work types.
  • Automated notifications ensure that the right people receive requests at the right time.
  • Set turnaround times for reviews to avoid bottlenecks caused by absences or unclear deadlines.
  • Centralized commenting and decision-making within Wrike enhance visibility and accountability.
• Result:
  • Elimination of “who should I send this to?” confusion.
  • Reduction in conflicting input and review cycles.
  • Streamlined, transparent process that keeps momentum without overburdening collaborators.
  • All orchestration and approvals take place in Wrike for full traceability.

Human Creativity Still at the Center

• While automation streamlines logistics, Christine emphasizes that the creative work itself remains a human endeavor, with AI assisting in the orchestration.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the biggest workflow transformation:

  “It is probably approval routing … Many people want to approve something, review something, provide their input. … We are being really clear for certain types of work, who is the approver, when does the approval go to that person or request for input, how much time do they have to turn it around. … That has taken a lot of the manual ‘who should I send this to for review?’”
  — Christine Royston [01:55]

• On the impact of automation:

  “…setting up that routing so that you're able to say, all right, it's ready to go to the next step and it gets routed and people can review it … all orchestrating in Wrike. People can do it in Wrike, they can approve it in Wrike, they can add commentary on visuals if they don't approve it…”
  — Christine Royston [02:26]

• On clarity and ownership:

  “Roles and responsibilities and clarity of who owns what … is one of those key pieces to a successful system so that you’re not … getting way too much input that’s kind of conflicting so you can’t actually get to the end result.”
  — Christine Royston [02:48]

• Host’s humorous take:

  “I just want a no button that you can smash. So whenever anybody comes with some sort of an approval or request… one AI automated button that just says no and then slams the door on everybody. But maybe that's something we could build later.”
  — Benjamin Shapiro [03:24]

Important Timestamps

• [01:15] — Introduction of Christine Royston & episode’s central topic.
• [01:47] — The one workflow that eliminated a manual handoff: Approval routing.
• [02:26] — Explanation of the automated workflow, specific benefits, and Wrike integration.
• [02:48] — Discussion of why roles and responsibilities matter in collaboration.
• [03:24] — Host’s lighthearted commentary and episode wrap-up.

Tone & Takeaways

The conversation is candid, relatable, and actionable, reflecting both the practical frustrations and the innovative solutions that define modern marketing operations. Christine’s insights are clear and grounded in real-world experience, while Benjamin injects humor and summarizes key takeaways for listeners interested in reducing workflow friction in their own teams.

For more actionable marketing and technology insights, subscribe to the MarTech Podcast or explore Wrike’s resources at wrike.com.