The Global ABM Conference opened with a warm welcome from our B2B Marketing CEO, Richard O’Connor, who reminded delegates that ABM is now a driving force of commercial growth and business transformation. His remarks set the tone for a day defined by strategic insight, practical frameworks and a shared belief in marketing’s ability to influence the broader business agenda.
The morning began with the Propolis Leaders Roundtable, where senior ABM practitioners shared insights and the discussion captured the collaborative, forward-looking energy that underpinned the entire event.
From there, the conference unfolded across four core themes: Design Your Strategy, Successful Stakeholder Alignment, Turn Data into Pipeline, and Innovation and AI. Each explored how ABM continues to evolve as a commercial growth engine. Delegates moved seamlessly through sessions, exploring the latest ABM developments.
With such a rich and varied agenda, it’s impossible to cover every session in detail. What follows instead is a selection of standout sessions from each of the four themes, highlighting how today’s B2B marketing leaders are harnessing ABM to drive measurable business impact.
Propolis Leaders ABM Roundtable
Hosted by Robert Norum, our Propolis ABM & Demand Strategy Expert, and Jon Moger, VP EMEA Marketing, Genesys, the discussion focused on a fundamental question: How can B2B marketing leaders lead the transformation to account-based businesses?
Senior ABM practitioners from a range of industries shared perspectives drawn from organisations at different stages of maturity, from early adoption to fully integrated GTM models. Jon reflected on Genesys’ own transformation during a period of cloud transition and intense competition, highlighting how a customer-first mindset underpinned every step of the journey.
Three themes emerged from the roundtable: context matters, executive buy-in is essential, and AI is becoming a key enabler of scalable ABM. The discussion reinforced that success depends as much on mindset and leadership as on strategy or technology. For the most advanced B2B organisations, ABM has evolved and is now a commercial growth engine, aligning sales, marketing and customer success to deliver tangible business results.
1. Design Your Strategy
Following the insights from the roundtable, the first theme explored how ABM has evolved from buzzword to business-critical growth engine. Marketers are moving beyond targeting a handful of accounts to designing scalable, customer-centric strategies that directly support commercial objectives.
Robert opened the thematic sessions with ABM Now: The Operating System for the Commercial Marketer, highlighting how ABM coordinates cross-functional teams around the customer. By combining AI and data insights, marketing can scale personalisation without losing authenticity, delivering measurable business impact.
Building on this, Genesys’ journey demonstrated how transformation relies on leadership, accountability, and purpose-driven execution. As Jon noted, “Every transformation starts with one question: why change? For us, it began by refocusing on our customers.”
The ABM Repair Shop panel, featuring marketers from Verizon, Palo Alto Networks, Splunk, and TMP, emphasised shared accountability between marketing and sales. As Grace McLaren, Associate Director, Head of EMEA ABM Marketing, Verizon, explained:
“Decision-makers need to be included throughout the programme, but you really need to roll up your sleeves at pivotal points. It depends on the strategy, the opportunity, and where the customer is in their buying journey.”
The session concluded with a clear directive: move beyond superficial personalisation and let accounts guide engagement strategies, aligning marketing more closely with commercial objectives.
2. Successful Stakeholder Alignment
Cross-functional alignment remains one of the biggest challenges in B2B marketing. Sessions explored securing executive buy-in, building shared goals and maintaining momentum through organisational change.
The Demandbase panel with The Access Group and Riverbed Technology, demonstrated how sales and marketing can progress from alignment to genuine partnership. As Lucy Waterer, Head of Marketing, The Access Group, observed:
“One game changer for us was giving sales their own numbers to track, so ABM became something they actively wanted to participate in. That turned into a true partnership between marketing and sales.”
Other sessions, including Winning upward: Aligning stakeholders and demonstrating value, stressed the importance of speaking executive language, using measurement as a currency of trust, and breaking down silos to secure enduring buy-in.
Joel Harrison, our B2B Marketing Co-Founder, highlighted the evolving role of thought leadership and the importance of trust, noting that combining strategic ABM and credible content can deliver up to 20% higher ROI, while cautioning:
“AI clears bottlenecks and amplifies impact, but it can’t replace strategic insight, authenticity or a provocative point of view.”
3. Turn Data into Pipeline
Marketers and revenue leaders are using AI to translate insight into engagement and measurable pipeline impact. Data is abundant, but turning it into pipeline-driving action remains a core challenge.
Marta George, Head of ABM Programmes, EMEA, Ping Identity, and Charlotte Graham-Cumming, CEO, Ice Blue Sky, showed how a one-person ABM operation can scale into a strategic, multi-stakeholder programme through AI-driven tools for buyer-led content and buying group orchestration.
The key takeaway: AI enables scale, but success depends on clear account insight and value proposition mapping. Contact-level strategies, explored by Influ2 and Quantexa, demonstrated how precision in targeting drives meaningful engagement, turning traditional ABM “black boxes” into clear, actionable insights.
Much like in Joel’s session, Christina Thompson, General Manager of Studio, International, Informa TechTarget, and Matthew Stevens, CEO, MOI Global, also emphasised the critical role of trust in ABM success, and how crucial it is to sustain authentic engagement and drive results.
4. Innovation and AI
Building on the importance of trust, this theme explored how AI, predictive analytics and automation are helping marketers to scale ABM while preserving the human connection essential to engagement.
In Reclaiming ABM’s Soul: Delivering Human Impact in the Age of AI, Lorna Charlish, Co-Founder and MD, and Chris Willocks, Head of Strategy, Radish, shared research from over 250 ABM leaders and 500+ campaigns. They pointed out that unchecked automation risks creating sameness and inauthenticity. As Lorna noted:
“Within the next three years, there will be so much AI, especially AI video, that people won’t know if what they see or hear is real. This creates a huge opportunity for face-to-face engagement.” Even in an AI-driven world, authentic human connection remains the ultimate differentiator.
How TXOne Networks Rebuilt Their ABM Strategy: Smarter, Faster, and More Agile — With Agentic AI Doing the Heavy Lifting, showed what this looks like in practice. Andy Johnson, Founder and Director, HUT 3, and Matt Conway, Head of ABM, Europe, TXOne Networks, revealed how agentic AI helped operationalise one-to-one and one-to-few campaigns across verticals.
Honeywell, Cloudflare, Moody’s, and Hotwire Global demonstrated AI-powered ABX at scale. The lesson was consistent: AI amplifies human insight and strategic intent, but a robust ABM framework anchored in objectives, account knowledge and value mapping remains essential.
The interactive workshop led by Dorothea Gosling, Executive Consultant, Inflexion Group, reinforced this principle, showing participants how executive support, governance and skills development are often more predictive of AI success than programme maturity.
Closing the Day on ABM Excellence
The conference closed on a high note, with Bev Burgess, Co-founder and Chief Executive, Inflexion Group, reflecting on the evolving role of ABM in modern B2B marketing. In her session, she emphasised that ABM is no longer a niche tactic but a comprehensive business approach:
“Marketing must be deeply connected to a company’s mission, vision, ethic and stance, ensuring that all brand activities align with the broader societal impact.”
Her insights reinforced that modern ABM leaders are strategic, purpose-driven and commercially accountable, combining data, creativity, and collaboration to deliver measurable growth and enhanced customer experiences.
The day’s earlier sessions, workshop, and the Propolis Leaders Roundtable had already highlighted how ABM now functions as a strategic, revenue-impacting discipline, linking sales, marketing, customer success and partners around the accounts that matter most.
From AI-powered programmes to contact-level precision and stakeholder alignment, delegates left with actionable frameworks and tangible examples to embed account-based approaches at the heart of their organisations.
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Throughout the day, the popular Propolis basketball-playing machine provided a hands-on metaphor for focus, precision and competitive spirit, while Informa Tech cocktails offered the perfect finale for informal networking and reflection after a full day of insight-packed sessions.
Attendees departed with inspiration, practical frameworks and renewed confidence to drive ABM forward as a strategic, revenue-impacting discipline, firmly positioning marketing as a central force in business growth.
