Top 19 Martech Leaders to Follow in 2026
The martech leaders you follow shape how you think about tools, channels, and strategy. With so much noise in the space, it's worth being selective. I've pulled together the voices worth your attention—practitioners and thinkers who share ideas you can actually use, not just trends to watch.
Top 19 Martech Leaders
Below are the profiles of the top martech leaders, covering who they are and the impact they've made in this space.
Scott Brinker
Scott Brinker is the analyst, advisor, and author behind chiefmartec. Since 2008, he has explored how marketing, technology, and management connect and mapped the marketing technology landscape.
Brinker developed Martec’s Law and…
Scott Brinker is the analyst, advisor, and author behind chiefmartec. Since 2008, he has explored how marketing, technology, and management connect and mapped the marketing technology landscape.
Brinker developed Martec’s Law and helped shape agile marketing. His research with Frans Riemersma, including State of Martech 2026 and the Marketing Technology Landscape, helps leaders understand how marketing tools and capabilities are changing.
Frans Riemersma
Frans Riemersma founded MartechTribe, GrowTechHQ, and MartechMap.com, combining martech research, consulting, benchmarking, and teaching to help organizations make smarter technology investments.
Riemersma studies real-world technology stacks to understand which capabilities create value…
Frans Riemersma founded MartechTribe, GrowTechHQ, and MartechMap.com, combining martech research, consulting, benchmarking, and teaching to help organizations make smarter technology investments.
Riemersma studies real-world technology stacks to understand which capabilities create value in different business contexts. Through the Apex Martech Score, industry reports, workshops, and books such as A Small Book on Customer Technology, he helps businesses decide which technologies to invest in.
Jon Miller
Jon Miller is co-founder and CEO of Phave and previously co-founded Marketo and Engagio. These companies helped shape modern B2B marketing automation, demand generation, and account-based marketing.
Miller is rethinking marketing automation…
Jon Miller is co-founder and CEO of Phave and previously co-founded Marketo and Engagio. These companies helped shape modern B2B marketing automation, demand generation, and account-based marketing.
Miller is rethinking marketing automation with AI that can reason and adapt. Phave uses AI to group and score prospects, identify buying groups, coordinate campaigns, and personalize customer journeys, building on his work at Marketo and Engagio.
Mayur Gupta
Mayur Gupta leads global growth at Kraken. He previously held senior marketing and growth roles at Spotify, Freshly, Gannett, and Kimberly-Clark, where he was its first chief marketing technologist.
Gupta combines experience…
Mayur Gupta leads global growth at Kraken. He previously held senior marketing and growth roles at Spotify, Freshly, Gannett, and Kimberly-Clark, where he was its first chief marketing technologist.
Gupta combines experience in engineering, marketing, product, brand, and growth. At Kraken, he focuses on using AI, technology, and data to improve customer experience and drive measurable growth.
David Raab
David Raab is founder and strategic advisor at the CDP Institute and leads Raab Associates. He has decades of work as a marketing technology analyst and consultant focused on customer data.
Raab…
David Raab is founder and strategic advisor at the CDP Institute and leads Raab Associates. He has decades of work as a marketing technology analyst and consultant focused on customer data.
Raab named the Customer Data Platform category in 2013 and built the CDP Institute around vendor-neutral education on customer data management. His analysis helps marketers distinguish platforms, architectures, and use cases, making customer-data infrastructure understandable as both a technology and marketing-management problem.
Kipp Bodnar
Kipp Bodnar is HubSpot’s chief marketing officer, setting global marketing strategy after previously leading the company’s demand generation, international marketing teams, partnerships, and social.
Bodnar connects marketing strategy and technology at a…
Kipp Bodnar is HubSpot’s chief marketing officer, setting global marketing strategy after previously leading the company’s demand generation, international marketing teams, partnerships, and social.
Bodnar connects marketing strategy and technology at a major CRM company. His work covers building demand, global marketing, SaaS growth, and adapting to AI, giving him insight into both running marketing teams and the platforms they use.
Kim Myers
Kim Myers is senior vice president and head of marketing technology and data at U.S. Bank. She brings together marketing, operations, technology, and data to improve customer experience.
Myers focuses on making…
Kim Myers is senior vice president and head of marketing technology and data at U.S. Bank. She brings together marketing, operations, technology, and data to improve customer experience.
Myers focuses on making enterprise technology useful in complex, regulated environments. Her recent industry work covers agentic AI, marketing platforms, data, operating models, and team culture, connecting technical transformation with the people and processes needed to turn martech investment into business outcomes.
Michael Donnelly
Michael Donnelly is executive vice president of AI, MarTech, and Marketing Futures at the ANA. He leads industry programs helping marketers navigate technology, AI, innovation, and change.
Donnelly helps brand leaders use…
Michael Donnelly is executive vice president of AI, MarTech, and Marketing Futures at the ANA. He leads industry programs helping marketers navigate technology, AI, innovation, and change.
Donnelly helps brand leaders use emerging technology through practical guides, training, research, and peer discussions. He leads ANA initiatives on AI, martech leadership, innovation, better workflows, and the MarTech Mastery Awards, with a focus on improving marketing results.
John Hardy
John Hardy is senior vice president of marketing technology at ANA, where he leads marketing technology, industry education, capability building, and emerging systems.
Hardy brings together and supports brand-side martech professionals through…
John Hardy is senior vice president of marketing technology at ANA, where he leads marketing technology, industry education, capability building, and emerging systems.
Hardy brings together and supports brand-side martech professionals through ANA conferences, committees, awards, and leadership programs. He helps marketers build skills and teams, organize their work, make technology investments, and prepare for AI so they can use their tools effectively.
Mike Rizzo
Mike Rizzo is founder and CEO of MarketingOps.com and MO Pros, offering education, research, events, and career resources for marketing operations professionals.
Rizzo helps professionals learn, share ideas, and build their careers.…
Mike Rizzo is founder and CEO of MarketingOps.com and MO Pros, offering education, research, events, and career resources for marketing operations professionals.
Rizzo helps professionals learn, share ideas, and build their careers. Drawing on his marketing operations experience, he focuses on the systems, skills, and connections that help martech teams work effectively.
David Edelman
David Edelman advises CEOs, CMOs, and boards on growth and marketing transformation through Edelman Advisory Services. He also teaches at Harvard Business School, drawing on a career in digital strategy.
Edelman explores…
David Edelman advises CEOs, CMOs, and boards on growth and marketing transformation through Edelman Advisory Services. He also teaches at Harvard Business School, drawing on a career in digital strategy.
Edelman explores how businesses use data and technology to personalize customer experiences and improve how teams work. His recent writing argues that martech delivers value when teams turn customer insights into coordinated action.
Darrell Alfonso
Darrell Alfonso is a marketing operations and technology leader with experience at Indeed and AWS. He is also the author of The Martech Handbook, an instructor, speaker, and co-host of Humans…
Darrell Alfonso is a marketing operations and technology leader with experience at Indeed and AWS. He is also the author of The Martech Handbook, an instructor, speaker, and co-host of Humans of Martech.
Alfonso helps teams make marketing operations a core part of business strategy. His frameworks cover teams, planning, technology, data, performance, oversight, and AI, helping leaders use martech effectively and achieve measurable results.
Ariel Kelman
Ariel Kelman is senior vice president and chief marketing officer at AMD. He leads global brand, communications, events, developer relations, and go-to-market strategy after roles at Salesforce.
Kelman has more than 20…
Ariel Kelman is senior vice president and chief marketing officer at AMD. He leads global brand, communications, events, developer relations, and go-to-market strategy after roles at Salesforce.
Kelman has more than 20 years of technology marketing experience, including leadership roles at Salesforce, AWS, and Oracle. At AMD, he leads global marketing for a growing range of AI and high-performance computing products, helping explain their value and bring them to market.
Jittipong Loespradit
Jittipong Loespradit is a Thailand-based martech and enterprise AI practitioner, speaker, consultant, and president of the Martech Association of Thailand. He works across data, technology, and AI.
Loespradit connects marketing technology with…
Jittipong Loespradit is a Thailand-based martech and enterprise AI practitioner, speaker, consultant, and president of the Martech Association of Thailand. He works across data, technology, and AI.
Loespradit connects marketing technology with data foundations, AI workflows, customer behavior, and organizational transformation. Alongside advisory and speaking work, he has helped build Thailand’s martech community and uses his writing and industry programs to make emerging technologies more practical for marketers.
Luke De Landelles
Luke De Landelles is a martech leader whose recent work at Flight Centre Travel Group led Leisure MarTech across customer data, loyalty, CRM, personalization, and cross-channel engagement.
At Flight Centre, De Landelles…
Luke De Landelles is a martech leader whose recent work at Flight Centre Travel Group led Leisure MarTech across customer data, loyalty, CRM, personalization, and cross-channel engagement.
At Flight Centre, De Landelles helped build a connected customer-engagement capability across multiple leisure brands, combining Salesforce, unified customer data, loyalty, personalization, and journey orchestration. His work emphasizes a useful principle for martech leaders: define the customer experience first, then choose the technology.
Ricky Busby
Ricky Busby is director of marketing data and technology at Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products. He leads work across first-party data, marketing platforms, audience activation, and customer engagement.
Busby helps businesses improve martech by…
Ricky Busby is director of marketing data and technology at Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products. He leads work across first-party data, marketing platforms, audience activation, and customer engagement.
Busby helps businesses improve martech by simplifying their tools and processes. He shares lessons from Georgia-Pacific’s use of first-party data, focusing on better workflows, reliable data, reaching target audiences, analytics, and preparing for AI.
Jason Pallant
Dr. Jason Pallant is director of the MarTech Lab and a senior marketing lecturer at RMIT University, connecting emerging technology, customer experience research, teaching, and industry engagement.
Pallant bridges martech practice and…
Dr. Jason Pallant is director of the MarTech Lab and a senior marketing lecturer at RMIT University, connecting emerging technology, customer experience research, teaching, and industry engagement.
Pallant bridges martech practice and education through RMIT’s purpose-built Marketing Technology Lab, which brings live platforms and industry partners into teaching and research. His broader work explores emerging technology, omnichannel retail, augmented reality, privacy, and how technology changes customer decision-making.
Pawan Verma
Pawan Verma is head of MarTech and Delivery at Bupa Health Insurance, leading marketing technology and customer decisioning while writing about data, personalization, and real-time engagement.
Verma argues that modern stacks need…
Pawan Verma is head of MarTech and Delivery at Bupa Health Insurance, leading marketing technology and customer decisioning while writing about data, personalization, and real-time engagement.
Verma argues that modern stacks need a decisioning layer between customer data and engagement channels. His work explores how signals, context, rules, models, and actions come together to make real-time customer choices, shifting martech from campaign delivery toward more adaptive, AI-assisted engagement.
Juan Mendoza
Juan Mendoza is CEO and founder of The Martech Weekly, an independent industry publication and community that has expanded into research and the Martech World Forum event series for martech leaders.
Mendoza…
Juan Mendoza is CEO and founder of The Martech Weekly, an independent industry publication and community that has expanded into research and the Martech World Forum event series for martech leaders.
Mendoza built The Martech Weekly to help practitioners cut through technology hype and focus on consequential industry shifts. Its work now spans analysis, enterprise research, webinars, and global forums designed around practitioner discussion, giving Mendoza a broad view of the issues shaping martech teams and their leaders.
Selection Methodology
I selected the leaders on this list based on their relevance, demonstrated expertise and impact, professional credibility, and ongoing contributions to the field.
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I looked for evidence such as leading meaningful initiatives, delivering notable organizational results, developing influential ideas or practices, publishing research or educational resources, speaking or teaching, and making other contributions that demonstrate impact in their work or the broader field.
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