208. Lisen Zethraeus, CMO at Stratsys - How to Make Your Experts the Face of Your Brand

Summary

The SaaSiest Podcast — Episode 208

Guest: Lisen Zethraeus, CMO at Stratsys
Theme: How to Make Your Experts the Face of Your Brand
Date: March 19, 2026
Hosts: Daniel Nackovski & Thomas Sjöberg

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Episode Overview

In this engaging episode, Daniel and Thomas sit down with Lisen Zethraeus, CMO at Stratsys, to explore how SaaS companies can elevate their internal experts to become the recognizable and trusted "faces" of the brand. Lisen shares hands-on insights into building a thought leadership engine around subject matter experts, structuring effective events, leveraging partnerships, fostering authenticity, measuring impact, and navigating practical challenges such as team turnover and balancing personal brand-building with corporate interests. They're direct, informal, and dive deep into tactical strategies that are accessible for SaaS leaders looking to boost their market presence through credibility and trust.

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Meet the Guest & Company Context

Get to Know Lisen (05:00–07:00)

• CMO at Stratsys; lives near Stockholm with husband and two children; has seven younger siblings.
• Avid skier, cheese enthusiast ("Gorgonzola you eat with a spoon!"), padel player.
• Loves being the family connector.

About Stratsys (07:57–12:13)

• B2B SaaS platform focused on compliance, risk management, and operationalizing strategy for complex organizations.
• Deep focus on regulations: ESG, GDPR, CSRD, GRC (governance, risk, and compliance).
• 300M+ SEK ARR (approx. €30M), 19% YoY growth, profitable ("Rule of 41"), 600+ customers, 170 employees, 97% gross retention, 116% net retention.
• Customers mainly in Sweden and Nordics, some presence in Europe.
• Notably, some clients even ask for exceptionally long contracts (10+ years), especially in the public sector.

The Marketing Team

• Team of 8 + Lisen, driving thought leadership and brand initiatives.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining Thought Leadership (13:07–14:07)

• Lisen's Definition: Thought leadership is about having a point of view and creating content that helps customers make decisions and take action. It's NOT just marketing content repackaged.

"It's people you trust and you need to personify that expertise... It's not just the logo."
— Lisen Zethraeus (03:32, revisited 13:07)

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2. Structuring Thought Leadership: Roles & Collaboration (14:07–17:46)

• Personifying Expertise:
  At Stratsys, product roles like "GRC lead" or "ESG lead" include an explicit expectation to represent the brand externally. These subject matter experts are the outward face of the company’s expertise.
• Connecting Dots:
  Marketing, product, and sales are coordinated; marketing manages platform and distribution, product brings substance, sales provides customer pain points.
• Intentional Collaboration:
  Task forces for events; clear ownership and project management; leveraging sales to bring real-world customer issues into content.

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3. Tactical Execution: The Studio Event Model (16:24–18:51)

• Studio Broadcasted Events:
  Regular 1.5–2 hr events (4–5x per year), focused on education and pain points, never selling products directly during the session.
• Guest Mix:
  Internal experts, partners, and customers share the stage, increasing credibility.
• Separation of Value & Sales:
  No product pushing; the goal is pure value. Sales follow-up happens after.

Learning:

"We really focus on the pain points... We talk about the subject, we don't push product at all. It's a firm rule."
— Lisen Zethraeus (17:03)

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4. Lessons & Key Success Factors (18:51–21:18)

• Clear Process Ownership:
  Early challenges came from unclear roles; solved by defined task force and role responsibility.
• Follow-up is Key:
  Soft, value-driven follow-ups like "Did this answer your questions? What could we do better?"

5. Potential Challenges: The Personal Brand Dilemma (20:12–21:18)

• What if Thought Leaders Leave?
  Embrace the risk—it’s impossible to separate personal from corporate brand. Departed experts still speak well of Stratsys, often increasing long-term goodwill.

"Helping people build their own persona but still connecting the message to what Stratsys is all about has been a real success factor..."
— Lisen Zethraeus (20:38)

• Retaining Talent:
  Providing expert employees with public platforms increases retention and motivation.

• Authenticity over AI:
  Authenticity and passion are irreplaceable, even with AI-generated support.

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6. Building New Thought Leaders: From Unknown to Trusted (22:25–26:28)

• How to Amplify Introverts or Unknowns:
  • Invest in high-credibility stages (buy keynote slots early, then earn them).
  • Use professional production to give experts "gravity" and command attention.
  • Encourage team members to show up in brand colors, making appearances memorable.

"Give them a stage that looks professional... people will actually put one extra level of attention to listen."
— Lisen Zethraeus (25:43)

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7. Continuous Presence & Content Cadence (26:28–28:54)

• Maintaining Momentum:
  Between big events, use channels like LinkedIn for ongoing expert presence, mixing organic and sponsored posts.
• Personal Voice vs. Corporate Messaging:
  99% of content is in the expert’s own words. Occasional support for ideas and tone, but authenticity is key.

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8. AI’s Role in Thought Leadership (29:17–31:19)

• Accelerating Content, Not Replacing Humans:
  AI helps with idea generation, drafting, and prepping material in the experts’ own tone—but doesn’t substitute real expertise or passion.

"AI has really helped us to accelerate that work... now we can put out, you know, 80% in a suggestion and then we fine tune from there."
— Lisen Zethraeus (30:17)

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9. Measurement & KPIs (31:19–34:11)

• Early KPIs: Signups and attendee engagement, ICP match, contacts reached.
• Longer-term: Percent of deals touched by events (now 44%), retention of records to lead tracking.
• Attribution limitations: Don’t (yet) track interactions at the individual thought leader level.

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10. Not Everyone Can Be a Thought Leader (34:13–36:37)

• Finding the Right People:
  • Not everyone is suited; credibility, expertise, and connection to customer pain points matter.
  • Often experts are from product, customer success, or those with deep client relationships.
  • Leverage ecosystem partners for varied perspectives.

"Not anyone can be a thought leader. I will die on the sword here."
— Daniel Nackovski (34:13)

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11. Content Format Effectiveness (36:37–38:37)

• Webinars & Studio Events Drive Most Value:
  • Ungated content for broader reach.
  • Email is the top signup driver (70% of signups).
  • Significant value in sharing recordings and related materials with team/followers.

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12. Tips for Getting Started (40:21–41:39)

Lisen's Top 3 Tips:

1. Commitment: Must be a company-wide decision, with executive/management buy-in.
2. Cross-Functional Involvement: Involve sales, product, and CSMs early and throughout.
3. Enjoyment & Buy-in: Let enthusiasm and positive momentum spread; when done right, it energizes and bonds the organization.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Personalization over Logos:
  "People will not follow you as a company or only the logo. It's people you trust."
  — Lisen Zethraeus (03:32, 13:07)

• On Building Expert Brands:
  "If nobody wants your colleagues, you have the wrong colleague!"
  — Daniel Nackovski (22:25)

• On Thought Leadership vs. Content Volume:
  "What stands out is not necessarily the content itself, it's the person or company delivering that content."
  — Daniel Nackovski (41:56)

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Behind the Scenes: Future & Inspiration

• Stratsys Acquisition News:
  • Stratsys is being acquired by Hypergene (backed by Thoma Bravo), pending regulatory approval. (42:53)
• Lisen's Inspiration:
  • Follows both entertaining and foundational marketing voices (Corporate Natalie, Ehrenberg-Bass, Mark Ritson).
  • Believes in connecting scientific marketing fundamentals with day-to-day SaaS realities.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [07:57] — About Stratsys and the Nordic SaaS market
• [13:07] — What is thought leadership?
• [16:24] — Studio event model and strategic collaboration
• [18:51] — Ownership, process, and follow-up learnings
• [20:12] — Risk and reward of building personal thought leaders
• [22:25] — Building new public expert personas
• [26:28] — Turning stage wins into ongoing relevance
• [29:17] — AI’s role in content acceleration
• [31:19] — Metrics and KPIs for thought leadership
• [34:13] — Who should be a thought leader?
• [36:37] — Which content formats work best?
• [40:21] — Lisen's top tips for getting started
• [42:53] — Acquisition news and inspiration sources

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Summary Takeaways

• Thought leadership is a strategy, not a campaign: It requires cross-functional alignment and commitment beyond marketing.
• People beat products in building trust: Audiences connect with real experts, not just brands.
• Elevate, don't fake: True experts with passion, real customer knowledge, and consistency become the most credible voices.
• Professional platforms matter: Give your experts credible, high-quality stages.
• Measure what matters: Focus on real engagement (signups, ICP fit, impact on pipeline), not just vanity metrics.
• AI is an enabler, not a substitute: Use it to scale and support, but don’t lose the human touch.
• Getting started? Secure executive backing, embrace cross-departmental ownership, and make it fun—enthusiasm is contagious.

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Final Word:
As AI-generated content explodes, the differentiator will increasingly be the authenticity and trust vested in real people—your experts. Invest in them, give them platforms, and reap compounding returns in brand equity and customer loyalty.

Transcript

[Lisen Cetrius]

You are listening to the Sassiest podcast in the world. Born in the Nordics, democratizing B2B SaaS knowledge everywhere.

[Daniel]

Hi, I'm Daniel.

[Thomas]

And I'm Thomas. And we are experienced SaaS professionals that are curious about how other successful SaaS companies go to market scale, build winning teams and great products.

[Daniel]

Join us on our journey as we speak to SaaS leaders trying to get hold of their secret sauce.

[Thomas]

And today's guest is Lisen Cetrius, the CMO at Stratsys.

[Lisen Cetrius]

People were level, this is a common saying, but they will not follow you as a company and trust you as the company or only the logo. It's people you trust.

[Thomas]

Hello there. Welcome to another episode of the Sassiest podcast. And Daniel, how are you today?

[Daniel]

I'm very good, thank you. Very good. Excited about everything that's about to happen. I feel energized. Just, you know, we've had a lot of opportunities to meet people. We kick started February with our executive networks. We had a session in March here as well. Then we got to meet quite a few of them in person with some of the executive dinners that we have just launched.

[Thomas]

Yeah, we did three dinners last week, so that's really fun.

[Daniel]

Yes, yes, yes. And now we have almost a handful, at least three of our bigger events happening within the next two months. So I feel alive, we keep busy and yeah, sometimes, I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little bit stressed, but hey, if it was easy, everybody would do it. But I still enjoy these digital sessions with you, Thomas. So how are you?

[Thomas]

I'm good. I'm in full focus here on celsius Malmo in May 5 and 6. But also since we have our two events, the Beer vs Wine Week in mid June when we do Sassiest Munich and Sassiest Paris the same week. Also excited about that and that we're going to go together down to Paris and Munich and look at the venues on Monday, Tuesday. So that's also going to be nice to get that change of scenery.

[Daniel]

Definitely. It's going to be fun to launch the concept that has worked so well in some of the other regions now officially in. In a couple new regions. So that, that's exciting, but there's still some time for that and you're certainly going to hear and see more about that as we get closer here. If in any way you think you want to be part of it, contribute or have some ideas how we make the launch in Munich and the launch in Paris super successful, do let us know you find us at danielsas.com or Thomas Sass. And one of us spends more time on LinkedIn than the other one, but you can always try us there as well. Now, moving on to today's discussion, we have actually a member from the executive network here. She hangs out with you, Thomas, quite frequently in your marketing groups, right?

[Thomas]

Absolutely. And this is one of our absolute favorite CMOs in the network and so happy to be able to do this podcast with her. So let's go in and talk to Lisen.

[Daniel]

Let's do it.

[Thomas]

Today, we are super excited to have no other than Lisen Cetrius here as a guest in the Sassyest podcast. Great having you here, Lisen.

[Lisen Cetrius]

Thank you, Thomas. And great to be here. Love being here.

[Daniel]

Love having you here. And Thomas, I think you're probably thinking what I'm thinking. Like, it is time for us to start doing something with not just the audio files that we get from the podcast, but also the video files. Now, you're listening to this and you're probably thinking, like, where the hell is Daniel going with this? Leeson is wearing a smart pink jacket. I mean, this is like, she looks like a million bucks. It's amazing. And I don't know if it's on purpose because you speak to the pinkest sassiest people on the planet or this is just how you go to to work on Wednesdays, but it's like, it's really cool. I think. I encourage you. You should post this smart pink suit jacket on LinkedIn.

[Lisen Cetrius]

Yeah, we should do a print screen at least. I mean, I am dressed for the occasion. Yeah, this is, this is a tribute to sasius. But also, I mean, this also happens to be one of our favorite colors in the Stratzius color scheme that we also call smart pink that you were mentioning.

[Daniel]

Daniel, do you know by heart what the code the pink code is? The color code?

[Lisen Cetrius]

No. Our designer will kill me now, but no, I don't.

[Daniel]

Okay.

[Thomas]

All right. FF3399X we have. But also, is it a coincidence that you have this small pink lamp in your, like, cupboard?

[Lisen Cetrius]

Yep, same reason. Smart pink, that was the first lamp that I bought for our new office here in, when we moved in in November. Love it, love it, love it. So.

[Daniel]

So we've established that we both love the same colors. And I happen to know also that you're big into disco. So we're going to talk a little bit more about that at the very end here. Now, for people that might not know you other than pink and disco, other than working for Stratsys. What else do you want to tell us? Like, who is Lee Sin?

[Lisen Cetrius]

So who am I? I currently work as CMO at Stratsys. On the personal side, I live in Stockholm, right outside of Stockholm with my husband bjorn and my two beautiful kids. They're 8 and 12 years old. And I love everything that has to do with being close to family and my closest friends. I have seven siblings.

[Daniel]

Oh, wow.

[Lisen Cetrius]

All of them younger.

[Thomas]

I thought you were gonna say I have seven friends.

[Lisen Cetrius]

Yeah, that too.

[Daniel]

I don't even have seven friends.

[Lisen Cetrius]

You should be so lucky. So keeping my family close, often the one that kind of hoards everyone together. Love being the center of that.

[Daniel]

Like, what's a go to family activity for you guys?

[Lisen Cetrius]

I mean, it's not that often that we get all seven together, but then we want to play a lot. Like, we're celebrating when the youngest sister turned 18 so she can drink and we can all together. So we. We try to do activities and have fun. Otherwise, it's everything from coming to my house and using our laundry room or guest bed if they've had a fight with someone or just, you know, keeping them close and playing with. My kids love it, so they love it. Young. Young and hip aunts and aunties or uncles.

[Thomas]

Any hobbies or fun facts about you?

[Lisen Cetrius]

I love skiing. We passed the whole milestone that me and my husband had to have. We are now officially a skiing family where both our kids love it as well.

[Thomas]

Nice.

[Lisen Cetrius]

So that's one key activity. I tend as often as I can to play padel when I don't have a stupid tennis elbow that I have at the moment. But soon back in the game and other than that. Yeah, I had to answer that to one of your LinkedIn question once, but I love cheese is. It's actually a part of my DNA, so I think it's somewhere in my bloodstream.

[Thomas]

All right, so do you have a special cheese that you can recommend our listeners here?

[Lisen Cetrius]

There's one kind of gorgonzola, which is not really. It's more liquid than it's firm. So you kind of eat it with a spoon.

[Thomas]

Okay.

[Lisen Cetrius]

Or I eat it with a spoon. But you're supposed to have some sort of bread or crackers, probably, but yep, that's a Achilles heel. Otherwise, cheese doodles.

[Daniel]

Okay, Cheese doodles. That's a good one.

[Lisen Cetrius]

That's also cheese.

[Daniel]

Yes, also cheese. And very snacky for a Friday. I love if anybody cares. Grier.

[Lisen Cetrius]

I care.

[Daniel]

Thank you. I appreciate that. Thomas, what's your favorite Cheese.

[Thomas]

Yeah, I like Prima Donna.

[Daniel]

Okay, there we go.

[Thomas]

Nice, eh?

[Daniel]

On that happy note, we're going to leave the cheeses behind us and let's dig into some of the. Not that this wasn't important. Super important. Thank you for, for allowing us to an insight into your world and your cheese preferences. But tell us a little bit about Stratis. What do you guys do and for whom do you do it?

[Lisen Cetrius]

So Stratsys is a B2B platform. We help companies with kind of complex processes and everything dealing with compliance and risk management. So it's best fit for complex organizations, private or public, but that need to operationalize their strategies, make sure that they're compliant, keep track of their risks in one place and actually making it happen, kind of delegating to the organization. So really linking that strategy with what you actually do and what kind of impact you actually have, what kind of

[Daniel]

compliance work is it, Is it like the ESG work that you're talking about?

[Lisen Cetrius]

ESG is one key part of it. A lot of EU regulations, but everything from GDPR to csrd, which is one of the key EU ones, but also within the whole area of grc, so needs to cybersecurity, information security, risk management, a lot of different regulations and standards that companies need to comply with.

[Thomas]

All right, so to put some numbers on strategies just so people understand what kind of company you are, what can you say about the ARR? Number of employees, number of customers, something like that.

[Lisen Cetrius]

Currently an ARR of over 300 million sec, so 30 million euros roughly. Growing really nicely. We're doing that for many years now, but around 19% growth. Nice.

[Daniel]

And you guys are also profitable, right?

[Lisen Cetrius]

If I'm not mistaken, we are profitable, yes.

[Daniel]

Nice.

[Lisen Cetrius]

That was a fantastic milestone reached a while back. But we are finally a rule of 40 company. It's been an aim of ours for a long time. Rule of 41 last month. So bit of soft corn for you.

[Daniel]

Keep it coming, keep it coming.

[Lisen Cetrius]

But in terms of customers, we have over 600 customers at the moment. Thousands and thousands of users, over 100,000. And we are very proud of our both net retention and gross gross retention numbers. So 97% in gross retention and 116 in net. So just making sure that we grow with our customers and they stay with us and keeping them happy.

[Daniel]

And I heard a crazy rumor that. And please tell me if the rumor is completely off here and not right at all, but While the entire SaaS world, their customers at least are asking their SaaS vendors for shorter contracts, easier way to get out of the contracts and so on. We also now have EU regulation potentially supporting this. I heard the crazy rumors that you have customers asking you for even longer contracts that you offer. That you had one customer asking you for a 10 plus year contract. Is that true?

[Lisen Cetrius]

That might be true, yes.

[Daniel]

Wow.

[Lisen Cetrius]

But I would say primarily this is in the public sector where we come from a long tradition of really solid relationships and trusts and just knowing that this is how we want to expand and how we want to work in the future.

[Daniel]

Talk about stickiness. I like it.

[Lisen Cetrius]

We're not being asked about it right now. I think like you're saying, it's in the climate we're in. Nobody's asking for a 14 year contract with anything related to software, I would say.

[Thomas]

And on that, in what geographies do you work? Because you know, when we talked about 10 year contracts, I thought you China. But I guess not. Right.

[Lisen Cetrius]

We are very much rooted in Sweden and the Nordic markets. So we have a sales office in Oslo, otherwise very much based in Sweden, Nordic presence. And then some customers also out in Europe that are spread out. So some international presence as well. But it's all run from Sweden.

[Thomas]

All right, cool.

[Lisen Cetrius]

And yeah, founded in 2000, so been around for over 25 years and still going strong.

[Thomas]

And how big is the team?

[Lisen Cetrius]

So total team strategies, 170.

[Thomas]

Okay.

[Lisen Cetrius]

And me, myself and my marketing team, we have eight people plus myself.

[Daniel]

All right, okay, cool, cool. And that's what we're going to talk a little bit about. What your team is, I'm not going to say ultimately responsible for, but where you guys, at least in my mind, I'm thinking you guys are the driving engine in this and getting everybody involved. We're going to talk a little bit about thought leadership, how to become a trusted source in your space. And I know that you guys have been around for many years. People look at you when there's new regulations, they come to you to learn to be advised and so on. I want to know all about how you become a thought leader driver here, if you may. But before we go there, Thomas, I know you had a question when you and I prepared a little bit about this. I was like, yeah, that's a really good question.

[Thomas]

Yeah, I'm starting with a stupid question. What is thought leadership? And how do you, I mean, differ that from just whatever kind of information you get out there?

[Lisen Cetrius]

Yeah, I mean, that is a good question, Thomas. It is an important one. Yeah, you're welcome. Well, I mean, thought leadership, I think probably many are tired of hearing the phrase and a lot of things has been built up around it that it more just becomes, you know, marketing content is thought leadership. But to me and something how we look at it is how you can really make a point of view, create your content around a point of view that also helps your customers make decisions and act on that information. So kind of helping customers and prospects in the direction where we think the market should go and make a mark, basically.

[Thomas]

So when you decide that we really want to double down on thought leadership as a way of gaining trust within our industry and so on, how do you go about that?

[Lisen Cetrius]

So for us, I think a real deal breaker for us has been what makes us experts and what really displays our expertise. Because we have some fantastic subject matter experts at Stratsys and we, we are in the business of quite complex stuff. It's regulations and they keep changing and companies are never really sure what does this mean for us, what do I need to tackle? They know that it's their responsibility, but they're not really sure of where do I start and what's really expected of me. So there's a clear need there for guidance and we wanted to make sure that our experts are the face outward for our expertise. So people will never, and this isn't a common saying, but they will not follow you as a company and trust you as the company or only the logo. It's people you trust and you kind of need to personify that expertise. So it's in. We have a role within our product organization that is called a lead, a GRC lead or an ESG lead. And they have in the role description that you are also expected to be the face outwards for our expertise and that they also set aside time for actually doing that work together with us so that we create that kind of content. So that's one, one key pillar, I would say to thought leadership, but that's also anchoring in the knowledge of what's happening in the regulatory market, for instance. But then we also have the sales side of things, which is equally important because the sales guys are the ones that are out there talking to the customers and hearing their problems and pain points every day. So we also need to connect the dots to does this also resonate with the problems that they're facing right now and what they're asking us about? So that we connect those two and then you get some real magic happening.

[Thomas]

Okay, so how do you connect these two? I mean you have the product people that knows everything about the regulations and, and so, and Then they have the salespeople that meets the customer. So how do you connect these and make sure that both of them are aligned and that you take both of these inputs as a part of it.

[Lisen Cetrius]

I could exemplify it with one of our strongest thought leadership plays, which is a bigger kind of studio broadcasted event that we do regularly. And it's a concept now that everybody's familiar with and how we tend to set them up. And then we can apply that concept to whatever area we want to promote. But we do quite regularly or at least four or five times a year, studio broadcasted events. And they are like an hour and a half, two hours long. And in those events, everybody knows that this is an awareness play, a thought leadership play where we really focus on the pain points of our customers and our prospects. We talk about the subject, we don't push product at all. It's a firm rule. You never sell in these events, but really focus on what are they thinking about right now, what kind of answers can we give them, what kind of guidance and set the agenda for that event together with product and sales, so with our experts. And then marketing kind of provides that. The platform and the distribution and the promotion and making things even kind of crisper and sharper, but putting everything together.

[Thomas]

And how long have you been doing those studio webinars?

[Lisen Cetrius]

So I came in about three years ago now and this is one of the first things that we put into motion. It was a combination of something that had been done in the past at Stratsys, but then it was always kind of combined with a product demo or something that was also like. And this is what you do. So wanting to separate and really clear cut, show that expertise. I was previously working in a ad tech company directed to the US market and one of our biggest successes there was really about kind of displaying and talking about the category we were creating and what we were doing and what we were helping people with, and then getting our customers up on stage and just really not talking about us as a company, but really about the topics. And you gain so much more credibility and traction by sticking to the topic. So that was one of the things that we wanted to really explode when we got started here in Stratsys.

[Thomas]

And what have you learned over the years running these both from potential hiccups and when you have followed this up? I guess you do that in various ways. Yeah. Could you just tell us something that you learned over the years?

[Lisen Cetrius]

One clear thing is really about the ownership, being clear about who owns what in the process. So I think that was from the beginning. It was still something that marketing was pulling every detail of. But you learn as you go that you kind of need solid project management and clear ownership. So we have a task force kind of working on every bigger event, and then sales is represented, and then that person knows that you represent, you know, bringing the. The opinion of the. The prospects and their pain points forward. They also know that you're expected to maybe recruit a speaker if you have a relationship with somebody you think is good, but also follow up with your sales team in terms of how can you help, you know, getting more signups, how can you help? And. And what is actually every salesperson expected to do in terms of follow up afterwards? Because even if it's thought leadership, there's no harm in following up and just asking, what did you think about the event? Did this answer your questions? Did you lack anything? What should we do better next time? So just having kind of a soft entry point to talk with your prospects about.

[Thomas]

So can it be a problem to, I mean, build up a person as a thought leader and then that person quits the company and worst case, go to a competitor?

[Lisen Cetrius]

Yeah, we've had that discussion. And I know that it's always this, you know, person versus company thing, but to us, we think it's, first of all, you can't really shy away from it. Like it's. If we help. And that has happened, we've had some experts leave the company and gotten great jobs afterwards and really happy for them as well, and they also still talk good about us. So I think helping people build their own kind of Persona and their own voice, but still connecting that message to what Stratas is all about has been a real success factor for us. And I think it has more driven the retention part and wanting to stay because we create a lot of different stages for these people to stand on, and they like it as well.

[Thomas]

And soon we can have AI thought leaders instead that will stay with the company forever and we'll not get any gray hairs.

[Lisen Cetrius]

And that's where I never want to go. But I think this whole authenticity, getting the real voice from people, and you can really tell because each and every one of our subject matter experts are really passionate about their subject, and that also spills into the product because they are really close into what our product does. So I think it shines through. But then on that note, I mean, just through our events, for instance, having our Stratsus logo visible at all times during the event is really important. So. So you don't afterwards, you know, was I watching just a really professional broadcast here on tv or was it actually coming from somewhere? So we want to be connected to that.

[Daniel]

Yeah.

[Thomas]

And everyone in the smart, pink, like, attire.

[Lisen Cetrius]

Everybody should be memorable. Yes. That was actually one. In terms of learnings, one of our first broadcasts was, are we watching a funeral here? Because nobody was. They were afraid to kind of be too. If I have some color that will, you know, not match with anything else. So then starting to really encourage colors on your clothing. Yeah, Very important.

[Daniel]

I want to get a little bit tactical here and go back to what you said early on here. Like, people follow people. And now Thomas also asked you about, like, if you're afraid of some of these thought leaders leaving you. And I would say to that, like, heck, if nobody wants your colleagues, you have the wrong colleague. So that's just part of the game. But what I do want to ask you now, I'm imagining I don't want to speak for everybody listening, but I'm imagining there's somebody listening here and thinking, like, I have a great person here. Let's call her Sassy. She knows a lot about our space. Like, she's really great, but she hasn't been out there. And nobody knows Sassy. Like, how do I actively build up Sassy's to become this public figure that eventually people will trust? Because I think what a lot of people struggle with, there's plenty of people out there that have the right type of competence, but if they don't have the right type of audience, it's a little bit useless.

[Lisen Cetrius]

Yeah.

[Daniel]

So how do you. How do you help that person become somebody that people trust? Amplify him or her to get that stage while at the same time, you're not building personal brands here, you're building the brand of Stratas.

[Lisen Cetrius]

Yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]

They have 157 followers on LinkedIn or something.

[Lisen Cetrius]

And. And that is something that we've been also building over time. But I would say for us it's been a combination of how we spend our event budget that we make sure that we have in certain key events where we know that our target audience are present. Then if we have to, we buy the speaking slots and we buy the whole sponsorship packages so that you have somewhere in a booth where you can kind of catch whatever conversations that follow the keynote. The keynote is also same rules. Never talk about strategies and have that hidden sales pitch on stage, but really talk about what matters and then use the booth to continue that conversation. And that had also become so that I've been at trade shows otherwise where you just salespeople are standing and just hoping for people to, to step in. And then when you get eye contact and they get afraid and they move the other way. But here it's more, you know, coming close and talking about not do you want a demo? But how did you find this right? Having that until when you earn that trust. We have some really solid partners now that eventually came back to us and said that we're looking for a speaker and we're willing to offer this for free. Like we won't charge you anymore because usually that segment got the highest rating last year. So we know that this is something that the audience appreciates so that you kind of, you first buy the space until you show that you can earn the space. So that is one method.

[Daniel]

It's a pay to play exercise. And I mean, we see that also in our world that once you give people the right stage with the right audience, if they can shine in front of that, then people will be like, holy shit, I learned a lot from Thomas or Lee Sin or whomever it is. I want to follow them on LinkedIn and so on, or I want to see the next time they speak.

[Lisen Cetrius]

I have so many things to say about this. I'm going to jump in with one thing. What I was also saying is that I think you should never underestimate the kind of stage you put your experts on because that also gives one extra level of credibility. I think you guys know this with your Celsius events of just how you show up, people share pictures from the stage because it looks so cool. But also with our studio events, it looks so professional. And a lot of our speakers, even the ones that we are recruiting externally, so we have often partners talking and we have external experts and our customers talking and they enjoy just the professional production of everything to just saying, like give them a stage that looks professional and then people will actually put one extra level of attention to listen what you have to say.

[Daniel]

Yeah. And I think I 100% buy that now in my mind, I think where a lot of people struggle is the transition from that element to maintain that relevancy until the next time you have an in real life stage opportunity. Like, how do I become somebody that people come to? Whether it's on my LinkedIn or there's a blog post or I have a newsletter or wherever I keep dropping knowledge on people. Like, how do I go from the initial step to becoming this step? Because you said something along the that you have in your product, you have A GRC lead, you have an ESG lead and so on?

[Lisen Cetrius]

Yeah.

[Daniel]

How do you make sure that they become this trusted source all the time and not just between the five events you do?

[Lisen Cetrius]

Well, for us, LinkedIn has been a good, really good platform for that. And in that we also have incentives and just chats and encouragements to make sure that we keep on being visible through our thought leaders on LinkedIn. And then some of them we sponsor and then some of them are just organic but making sure that some of the key points that are being made, that we also put some ad money behind it and use the kind of thought leadership ads format to just get that known.

[Daniel]

Do you then to what extent do you encourage them versus hand them an assignment being like here's a text I need you to push right here, right now, it needs to go out on Tuesday at 9 o'. Clock. Like where's the balance there to make sure you don't drop the balls because your, your GRC lead is maybe working on something and this becomes a little bit of a secondary thing.

[Lisen Cetrius]

So far I have to double check if that's really true. But I would say in 99% of the cases we never put anything exactly like this is what you're supposed to say. It's more also connected to how these subject matter experts work, but they have really high integrity and this is what I want to say and it's my voice, so it's putting it into their words. But then I would say more in times of having this chat, being enthusiastic about it, also encouraging that it can be short sometimes. It doesn't even have to be this big project. So just rather having this regular presence than building up these like it has to be a perfect post and whatever that is.

[Thomas]

But I totally agree. I know at the previous company I got from marketing, they wanted to push me out a little bit more as a thought leader and they served me some material and said basically that can you just give your okay on this and we can sort of publish it under your name. And I remember that I reacted bad on that, that I didn't want that, but I don't know if it would have happened today. I might have been more open to it if it really resonated with what I thought. And now with AI and so on, it's easier to produce a text that has my voice that you can train on my voice instead for being some other copywriter writing it. So I think it might be easier today to do it right.

[Lisen Cetrius]

I think that's a really good point. And especially when it comes to sort of the. If you say a blog post, for instance, then putting together like this is how you usually. This is your tone of voice. With everything we know from previous blog posts, previous texts, and what's happening in the market, this is what we suggest that we talk about. It will look something like this, and then it's more about tweaking, putting your own final touch on it and then sending it off.

[Daniel]

Yeah.

[Thomas]

Or just getting on a call and interview the person and then you can transcribe it and then you can do something with it. Right, yeah. Which is much easier than.

[Lisen Cetrius]

Yeah, so it doesn't have to be every single word anymore.

[Thomas]

Exactly.

[Lisen Cetrius]

That's really true.

[Thomas]

Yeah.

[Lisen Cetrius]

Yeah. And AI has really helped us to accelerate that work in terms of how much we can put out there and also webinar concepts. And before we had to kind of rely on the experts to almost create that from scratch, but now we can put out, you know, 80% in a suggestion and then we fine tune from there. So it makes us much faster.

[Thomas]

Yeah, I was thinking about that. How has AI changed how you work with thought leadership?

[Lisen Cetrius]

It has primarily, I would say, in the idea generation phase, because just saying, like, okay, what should next webinar be about then? That always takes way too long. So it's just getting over that first threshold, really putting together different concepts, rewriting it really quickly, and then quite early on in the process agree on, this is the agenda. This is the type of content, this is the type of speaker we want to invite so that we can move forward. Because then we have our amazing project leader and then she just picks up the ball and runs with it. And then we can produce quite a lot of these, both webinars and studio events just rolling after one another.

[Daniel]

Great, that makes a lot of sense. And I'm curious, like, when you started with this project, if we may call it a project initially, like, how do you keep track of are our thought leadership exercises and the efforts we're putting into this and the people that we're involved that are involved in this and we consume quite some resources and time and so on. What was the KPI that you tracked that would ideally show you we're moving in the right direction? Or for that matter, we're definitely not moving in the right direction. Like, what are you tracking?

[Lisen Cetrius]

We initially, I think the first time we did it, it was also the ratio of how much time you put into it when you do it the first time. Then everything took longer. But we got a really good. The very first studio event we did had over 800 signups. So then we knew that, okay, this is something that is apparently relevant. Our hypothesis kind of checks out and we see on the titles and the type of businesses that are signing up that this is also something that fits our ICP and the type of people that we want to have. So one clear thing is just the number of contacts you're able to engage. And then we always have a dashboard following how many of these are existing customers, how many are opportunities, how many are leads, how many are new contacts altogether and cross matching that with our ICP definition, how many are spot on in our icp. So then we know already, is this a relevant audience? Because then we have their attention and that alone has a high value that we can then continue to nurture in different ways.

[Daniel]

Yeah. So, okay, so click signups and followers to simplify it and downloads, I guess, to a certain extent of registration.

[Lisen Cetrius]

So that's kind of the first metric. But just saying like, okay, this is worth. Just reaching this stage alone is worth the effort. And then afterwards is like, how many of these have in any way interacted with us afterwards in a demo meeting? How many actually ended up as customers? And now after a few years, we can track, thanks to our kind of attribution platform, just seeing all of our deals, how many of them have been touched by any of our events so far? And that number is around 44% at the moment. So really like seeing that they have. It's a part of the buyer journey.

[Daniel]

Right. And does that include also them being touched by any of the content created or curated by the individuals, like your leads in this case?

[Lisen Cetrius]

That we're not tracking as in that level of detail. So that's more kind of emphasizing everything we do, but we're not tracking exactly. You know, this person was interacting with this thought leader and then we saw them coming up here.

[Thomas]

Yeah.

[Lisen Cetrius]

So, yeah.

[Daniel]

How would you define. Because I will say that out loud and I get shit for some of my opinions sometimes. But like, not anybody can be a thought leader. Like, let's just face it. No, that is my firm opinion and I will die on the, on, on the sword here, that not everybody in anybody can be a thought leader. Like, I don't know if you agree with me, but if you agree with me, how would you define if you're a marketer listening to this or you're for CEO and founder. You think, like, we need to double down our thought leadership exercise. I need to hand pick three people in my organization. Like, what are the criteria for those three people to have an honest chance at succeeding at this, the long game

[Lisen Cetrius]

is of course, how are you going to organize in the future? Because I firmly believe that you need a role that is actually having that hat as the expert saying this is somebody that's credible enough that can actually be the face outward. So that's something that I'm lucky enough that we have those roles in our organization. I would also say that usually the ones that has had a long relationship with our customers, they sit on a lot of knowledge. So just being able to be the voice of many customers is a strength in itself. And they, the ones that on our side that work with our customers are really passionate about making our customers happy and understanding what they need. So I think that is a great way to start because it's something that automatically becomes relevant content because it's something that many care about and it's happening right now. So it's like what can your kind of, if it's customer success, who is closest, who has the best insights and what's important for them right now? And can they also be one of those that recruits speakers from the customer side? Because that's something we always try to do, to let the customer talk about not only what do you do in our product, but how do you work with this area, how do you tackle this, what are your hacks, what do you use? So that's one thing, but then also leveraging what you have in your ecosystem. So for us, and I think many of Us in the SaaS business have integration partners, consultation partners, referrals, different types of partnerships. Where in that ecosystem do we have experts that we would like to invite and talk about the same topics, but from different perspectives? So they also lend the expertise in a way that also makes sense in your. That it also fits with your product.

[Daniel]

Yeah. I have one more question for you on the thought leadership. What type of content? And I'm not saying how it's written or how it's recorded, but what type of file delivery, if you may, is consumed most? Is it a webinar that does best? Is it a vlog somewhere or is it a blog post? Like what is what works the best versus you know, if you measure that, you know, effort versus return on investment.

[Lisen Cetrius]

For us, it's by far webinars and these studio events. Yeah, that's what's being consumed the most. Then we have chosen to ungate everything. So everything we do is ungated on our website. So we don't track. Of course, it's Kind of page views but we don't track that in detail. It's more important that people share and we often get that like this was so valuable. Can I share it with my team? And then it's like here's the link, you can share it to anyone. So it's a hidden number, but even more viewers I would say.

[Thomas]

And how do you get people to sign up and even more show up.

[Lisen Cetrius]

Showing up, that's a ratio of kind of. You lose about 40% in all these online events. But then we have their contact, we share the recording. We usually manage to kind of keep that relationship even just showing the interest in the event. But signing up, it's through standard like LinkedIn post, through our experts, through the speakers so that you get out into their networks. It's advertising. Sometimes it's on kind of industry specific sites and just like doing some takeovers and really like creating some visibility there. But otherwise LinkedIn ads and, and then our own networks and emails and usually emails is the biggest source for signups because we have them in our CRM already. So that's the, the absolute biggest source.

[Thomas]

How big percentage comes from emails?

[Lisen Cetrius]

I would say around 70%.

[Thomas]

Yeah.

[Lisen Cetrius]

Comes from emails.

[Thomas]

Yeah.

[Lisen Cetrius]

And then we top up from other sources. But it's kind of getting those new contacts in and then you can see what triggers like that's getting into your partner's networks and to your invited guests networks and that's where you start spreading every time.

[Daniel]

I've seen some people, I'm not sure if I'm always liking it, but I've seen some people there's sometimes a perk if you show up live and that goes beyond the live Q and A. Like you know, show up live and I'm going to give you access to this file that then people are going to get access to the file probably anyway. But at least they threaten with that. Like do you have an incentive like that that encourages me not just sign up and then get the recording after the fact. But so I show up on the dot that hour and sit through the session.

[Lisen Cetrius]

It's not something we use in the communication but usually we have the whole material, the presentations being shown. We have those after you kind of submit your, what do you call it, your evaluation when we share the share reform. What did you think? And if you pursue that whole, all those questions then you get the presentation at the end. So I think that's the only kind of hook. But that's also to make sure that we get clear feedback in which parts of the event did you enjoy the most? What would you like next time so that we improve the content?

[Thomas]

Yeah. So if someone is listening here and think that, oh, we really should try to get this going, we don't really have any internal thought leaders that is public and yeah, maybe thought this webinar thing sounds intriguing as well. What would be your three tips of getting this off the ground?

[Lisen Cetrius]

I would say apart from as an organization deciding that this is something we want to do, it has to be a commitment that we believe in.

[Thomas]

Yeah.

[Lisen Cetrius]

So it's of course in the long run organizing around it, which roles should have these responsibilities. But other than that, making sure that you have management buy in is this is something that we want to also spend time on. Because when you do it right, you involve sales, you involve the product organization, and you involve your CSMs in, in the whole like preparation process of not only putting together the content, but it's also getting the right speakers that kind of complement your message and getting your customers, not to mention into the game. So I would say upfront commitment is a really important part. And I would say, and that's usually for me, I've been such a strong believer of this from the beginning. So kind of just show, show engagement around it, show how fun it is. Everybody that's been a part of this has really enjoyed it and they see the value on the other end. So that you let your own also engagement and your team's engagement rub off on the organization, that this is something we enjoy and then that we kind of make business while doing it.

[Daniel]

All right, that's exciting. And we all want to become more relevant and more trusted. And then unlike Thomas, I believe in a future where the bots don't completely dominate, but the humans. We also have a role here.

[Thomas]

I'll tell Thomas that when I report.

[Daniel]

Yeah, I appreciate that. Thomas, do you want me to take this in a more professional or more relaxed tone of voice? Now, all jokes aside, I mean, it's an exciting time and I think personally this is the right way to go. Because in the world of AI, when it is easier than ever to spit out a bunch of content, seemingly content that looks good, I think what stands out is not necessarily the content itself. It's the person or the company that delivers that message that is going to stand out. And how do we make our companies or our people to become these trusted sources? Because I can ask ChatGPT or Claude for anything these days and most of the time it will give me a good answer. Yeah, all right. Now that's the future. Let's see what the future holds. What is the future for you, Leeson and your team and for the company as a whole? I know you guys have been shaking up the market a little bit there and there's some news that have been announced not too long ago.

[Lisen Cetrius]

Yeah. So we are currently in an exciting acquisition process. So a document has been signed to acquire Stratsys. It's Hypergene, backed by Thoma. Bravo.

[Daniel]

Congratulations.

[Lisen Cetrius]

Thank you very much. So, exciting times. So right now we're in the process of working together with the Swedish Competition Authority. So that's the kind of step you need to go through before we can make it official and close the deal. So in a few months I can tell you more.

[Daniel]

That's exciting. So, like, the last piece doesn't sound that exciting, but I guess it's admin work that you have to go through now while you're building out the organization there and the thought leadership exercise and waiting for this new future of the business. Like, where do you go to get inspired? Are there certain people that you feel like, oh, I love reading his or her blog posts or listening to them. I'd love for you guys to have them on the podcast. Is there somebody like that or is there a topic that you think we should address that would make you feel, I got to listen to this one?

[Lisen Cetrius]

Well, I think you're doing a good job already in recruiting. Good speakers, I would say. But thank you.

[Daniel]

Thank you.

[Lisen Cetrius]

Yeah, you're welcome. But, yeah, who do I follow? A lot of people. Everything from just like the funny ones. I love the ones that really managed to entertain, like corporate Natalie and like some of these profiles on LinkedIn. But other than that, I would say the kind of craft of marketing, I mean, I'm really schooled in the consumer marketing side of things. I come from a lot of years in consumer marketing at Mars Inc. That was a fantastic school of branding there we had. The whole philosophy was built on the Ehrenberg Bass Institute. They've been mentioned by Kate from LinkedIn, for instance, on the SASA stage. But I think there's really something there in connecting science and actual proof with what works in marketing. Because scrolling through LinkedIn, there are so many hacks and so many things what you have to do. But there's also some fundamentals in psychology and how just make people feel something and remember you and what is it that you need to do systematically for that to build your brand and not only just grab some temporary attention. So I think digging into that would be really interesting. Mark Ritson is another one on the kind of school of marketing. So just like good voice and just the fundamentals of what it means to know your, your marketing for real.

[Thomas]

Right.

[Lisen Cetrius]

So yeah, marketing nerd, as you hear.

[Daniel]

Love it. Marketing nerd. And we love you for that and we love you for your pink jacket. Thank you. And we hope that you will, you will bring this pink jacket in a couple of months when we see. It's actually less than two months now at Sassy's 2026 when we have our five year anniversary.

[Lisen Cetrius]

Yeah.

[Daniel]

So we're gonna go all pink, we're gonna go all disco. This has been a super fun exercise. Thomas and I, we don't try to be thought leaders ourselves here, but we try to highlight members of the community such as yourself as the thought leaders you guys are. And we try to do a good job here. But we have certainly a few things to learn and I was inspired today. So I appreciate you for taking the time to jump on a call here or on our recording, I should say.

[Lisen Cetrius]

Thank you very much. Really enjoyed this conversation.

[Thomas]

Cool. See you.

[Lisen Cetrius]

See ya.

[Daniel]

Bye bye now. All right, Thomas, do we go into a debate here on thought leadership and AI's role and AI's role in consuming it, or do we just start? Let's just keep it simple first, like what is your big takeaway here before I challenge you?

[Thomas]

Well, I think that if you're going to do something like this, doing thought leadership and do it for real, it cannot just be a thing that you come up as an idea within marketing or within somewhere else. It has to be something that you really decide as a company and get the full buy in from because it's going to involve many people in the organization. So you don't want to be the one that that is, you know, trying to drag people that it has to be a strategic decision. And as I say, usually in many cases, you know, there are people within product, customer success. It could also be the founder people that you want to get on board with this. So I think that should we say executive buy in or mandate for that? I think that that's sort of the first that you have to get in place.

[Daniel]

Yeah, that sounds like a good takeaway. I agree. I mean, for me this is the current, it's the future. We are all in the business of trust. It's not about the product, it's about who has the most trust that wins. And one way to win the trust is by showing up to whomever is going to potentially buy my products. Or services and just giving them a lot of stuff. Give, give, give, and then give some more before you ask for something in return. And if you can establish that role as a trusted source, somebody that's always there in a general perspective for in this case, the clientele's, they're going to come back to you. It's a long play. It's a long run. You're going to win. I do have some firm opinions though that I'd like to share. Not anybody can be a thought leadership expert. I mean, I can take myself as an example here. Like, yes, I might be by some maybe considered to be like, oh, he's pretty trustworthy when it comes to how to build a community. Maybe there will be some people that will buy that notion. Like, yeah, Daniel could be somebody that I can listen to when building a community. Maybe they'll even listen to me. Some people out there feel like how to build a small business business with your friend, if that's your goal in life. Maybe there will be a few people that will find interesting what I have to say. But just because I meet a bunch of CPOs on a regular basis, it doesn't mean that I can be a thought leadership in the CPO community. It doesn't help that I meet them on a regular basis. I've never been a cpo. I've never held a product role in any way. It doesn't matter that I want to be it. I just can't. There's like, you have to have some fundamental basis in order to become a trusted source. And sometimes I see this where companies fail, they decide like, everybody in my business is going to be a thought leadership expert here and I'm going to have my salespeople play like the experts here. I hate to say it, I hate to break it to you. They're not the experts. Maybe they're great, great at how to run a sales process, but they're not the security experts or whatever it is that you're selling. So you got to find the right people in the organization that are fronting this piece. And I promise you, if you don't, you're just going to waste a bunch of energy and time like you got to find the right people. Otherwise it's wasted energy and mind and time and people that you put out there like they're going to die on a sword because they never had a chance to succeed.

[Thomas]

Then it's better to have an AI thought leader out there than have the wrong person.

[Daniel]

Let's take a few minutes here so I can talk you out of it.

[Thomas]

We have a meeting now, so we have to stop this. But let's get back to that sometime.

[Daniel]

Saved by the bell.

[Thomas]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you, everyone, for listening. We'll get back to you in a week. Hope we see you at Cecius in Malmo. And so on. Bye. Bye.