The Changemakers

The Changemakers is a podcast about how the world’s most authentically bold B2B brands are built and grown. Brought to you by the team at the B2B creative agency Shaped By. Find out more about Shaped By on our site , and follow us on LinkedIn .

The Changemakers is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 82 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts The Changemakers, a business show with 82 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  The Changemakers

  How to find and express your brand voice at scale: Ryan Hammill, First Overall

  Jul 16, 202648 min

  What does it actually take to build and scale a B2B brand voice that cuts through the noise? On this episode of The Changemakers , Dave Corlett sits down with Ryan Hammill - Principal and Founder of First Overall and former Creative Director at Amazon, AWS, and ServiceNow - to talk about building a B2B brand voice strong enough to stop people in their tracks and keep them coming back for more. Ryan opens up about surviving an Amazon MBA, the tricky balance between product features and human emotion, and the lessons behind building massive global campaigns for the NFL, Formula One, and beyond. We unpack: Fencing Creativity: Brand voice goes beyond creative freedom. It’s all about maintaining strict guardrails and knowing exactly what not to say. The "Nightclub Attached to Costco" Paradox: How to keep your creative feeling alive and emotional when it's bolted onto a massive corporate platform. The AI Shift: AI can now catch off-brand language automatically. That’s not taking away from creatives, but freeing them up for higher-value work. It may even spark a hiring boom instead of the job losses everyone expects. A Dream Team: Why visuals and words still have to move together, especially now that the internet is drowning in mediocre AI content. If you're a B2B marketer or creative tired of playing it safe, this conversation is required listening. 🎧 Get stuck in now Timestamps 00:00 - Meet Ryan Hammill, the storyteller writing reality 01:27 - From journalist to agency shark 06:02 - The Amazon MBA: pitches vs. long-term brand building 09:01 - The blueprint for brand voice 11:51 - How do great leaders let data lead? 14:43 - Earning attention 18:30 - The Costco Nightclub: one brand voice, wildly different audiences 23:12 - Using AI to sell emotional copy to stubborn stakeholders 29:20 - How AI keeps global brands on-track 33:26 - The future of the copywriter Send us a message if you enjoyed this episode If you enjoy the chats then there are more ways to quench your thirst for creative inspiration in the world of B2B tech. 👉 Watch episodes on YouTube 👉 Follow us on LinkedIn for regular snippets in your feed 👉 Visit our website for more in-depth thinking on topics 👉 Subscribe to Beyond our monthly collection of insight, opinion and inspiration And finally please rate our podcast on Apple if you enjoyed it! ✌️

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  Episode #71

  Protecting your brand voice as you scale: Justin Ballantine, Shaped By

  Jun 1, 202644 min

  In this episode of The Changemakers, Dave Corlett sits down with Justin Ballantine, Associate Creative Director of Messaging at Shaped By, to discuss a critical inflection point for high-growth B2B tech businesses, and how it affects their verbal communication. As startups grow into scale-ups, they often dilute (or even lose altogether) one of the things that customers bought into during those early days: their brand voice. Dave and Justin explore how firms navigating this stage can keep that voice strong and relevant, as they transition from a founder-led brand to a more mature market-driven one. In the process, they unpack: Voice versus tone: your voice is who you are, but your tone is how you read the room The "brand drift" danger: staying alert to the edges of your business where your brand identity usually starts to fray Principles over guidelines: how "27 pages of rules" kill creativity, and why three guiding principles are all you actually need. The human connection: how enterprise audiences are still humans who want to feel something powerful when you speak to them Don’t miss this deep dive into the verbal side of branding, from a true master of the craft. Follow Justin on LinkedIn. 🎧 Listen now Timestamps 00:00 - The scale-up inflection point. 02:45 - The Founder's dilemma: transitioning from personality to brand. 05:39 - Brand voice is just brand strategy given breath. 07:54 - Spotting "Brand Drift" on the edges of your business. 12:00 - Voice vs. Tone: how to flex without losing yourself. 16:45 - "Brand Principles" over "Brand Guidelines" 20:49 - Finding the sweet spot in storytelling. 26:45 - Do you really need to be "buttoned up"? 32:25 - Being the zero when everyone else is an X. 35:57 - One tip for CMOs: evolution, not revolution. Send us a message if you enjoyed this episode If you enjoy the chats then there are more ways to quench your thirst for creative inspiration in the world of B2B tech. 👉 Watch episodes on YouTube 👉 Follow us on LinkedIn for regular snippets in your feed 👉 Visit our website for more in-depth thinking on topics 👉 Subscribe to Beyond our monthly collection of insight, opinion and inspiration And finally please rate our podcast on Apple if you enjoyed it! ✌️

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  Episode #70

  Build your own brand, not someone else's : Alex Waite, Shaped By

  May 13, 202642 min

  In this episode of The Changemakers, Dave Corlett is joined by Alex Waite, Strategy Director at Shaped By, to tackle a common hurdle in the B2B tech world: the "imitation trap". As startups achieve product-market fit and move into scale-up territory, this inflection point often necessitates a brand evolution to power their next phase of growth. But the pressure to “grow up” at this point often leads founders and leaders to mimic how successful brands have done this, rather than digging into their own authentic truth to find the real story. Dave and Alex unpack: The surface level trap: why looking at other brands’ identities is reductive and ignores the thousands of internal decisions that actually build a brand The attribution danger: how imitating established brands is more likely to confuse people than lead to success The rise of agentic buyers: why AI and LLMs make brand clarity more vital than ever The Ferrari factor: moving beyond cold specs to build emotional bias and become the human choice in a world of automation. If you’re a startup marketing leader or founder feeling the pressure to do what others are doing, this conversation is your permission to stop looking afar and start looking within. 🎧 Listen now Timestamps 01:12 – the "imitation" challenge: why clients often want to copy successful brands. 03:03 – why it’s natural (but dangerous) for scale-ups to look for external reference points. 05:15 – the Wizz example: you only see the "outer layers" of a brand’s success. 06:12 – the danger of defaulting to category norms and boxing yourself in. 07:49 – attribution risk: why mimicking a bigger brand helps them, not you. 09:42 – chasing moving targets: you don’t know what your competitors are fixing internally. 15:03 – the "AI Native" myth and the pressure of moving too fast. 17:50 – why clarity is the ultimate defense against the rise of agentic (AI) buyers. 22:49 – real talk: can you ever be truly original in a world of "remixes"? 39:58 – advice for CMOs: how to handle a founder who wants to copy another brand. Send us a message if you enjoyed this episode If you enjoy the chats then there are more ways to quench your thirst for creative inspiration in the world of B2B tech. 👉 Watch episodes on YouTube 👉 Follow us on LinkedIn for regular snippets in your feed 👉 Visit our website for more in-depth thinking on topics 👉 Subscribe to Beyond our monthly collection of insight, opinion and inspiration And finally please rate our podcast on Apple if you enjoyed it! ✌️

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  Episode #69

  Evolving a beloved brand without breaking trust: Myra El-Bayoumi, Redis

  Apr 22, 202643 min

  When Myra El-Bayoumi joined Redis as VP Brand and Corporate Marketing, she was handed two pretty major challenges: modernise the brand, and build a world-class internal agency from scratch. Oh, and do it all in six months. On this episode of The Changemakers , Dave sits down with Myra to unpack how she evolved one of tech's most beloved brands without alienating its developer audience. Myra walks through the brief she inherited in September 2023: refresh a brand with serious heritage, build a quality internal agency, and do it all before a licensing change landed. She shares the research approach that kept developers at the table, the origins of Redis's striking new identity, and the CEO-level trust that made bold, fast decisions possible. A must-listen for any marketers and brand-builders out there tasked with modernising heritage-rich brands. Whether you’re driving a complex transformation or navigating high-stakes stakeholder management, Myra’s take on "direction, not directive" leadership offers a masterclass in moving fast without breaking the soul of your brand. Timestamps 00:21 - Myra’s path from agency to in-house 2:33 - Joining Redis: why the people you work for matter most 03:59 - What Redis does in the real-time data era 04:46 - Modernizing the brand and building an internal agency 07:15 - Evolution vs. revolution: determining what to keep and what to kill 09:34 - Using research to guide high-stakes brand decisions 11:57 - How to rebrand a tech giant in just six months. 15:48 - The "Direction, Not Directive" Rule: navigating CEO and founder feedback 25:50 - Code is like a poem: the origin story of the Redis visual identity 34:36 - The Baukunst Collective: exploring the intersection of design and VC Send us a message if you enjoyed this episode If you enjoy the chats then there are more ways to quench your thirst for creative inspiration in the world of B2B tech. 👉 Watch episodes on YouTube 👉 Follow us on LinkedIn for regular snippets in your feed 👉 Visit our website for more in-depth thinking on topics 👉 Subscribe to Beyond our monthly collection of insight, opinion and inspiration And finally please rate our podcast on Apple if you enjoyed it! ✌️

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  Episode #68

  Five Years of Shaped By: Nick Farrar, Shaped By

  Apr 9, 202653 min

  Five years ago, we did something that felt a little like a risky move and a lot like a revolution. We moved away from our 16-year-old identity as "Workbrands" to become Shaped By, an independent B2B creative agency for the tech world. In this very special episode of The Changemakers , Dave Corlett sits down with our Founder and CEO, Nick Farrar, to reflect on the half-decade journey of bringing bold creativity and brand momentum to the B2B tech market. Nick pulls back the curtain on why he decided to go all in on a new brand, a new geography, and a new strategy during a global lockdown. We’re unpacking: The rebrand reality: Why finding a name was harder than expected and the "lightbulb moment" that led to Shaped By. The US market slog: How we built a reputation in the US without a physical office in the country by focusing on "Human-First" relationships. Values over ego: Why culture and values are entwined and how we protect our "people-first" mentality as we grow. The AI inflection point: Why we aren’t an AI-first agency, but rather use it to augment human creativity to help our clients differentiate. Whether you're an agency founder struggling with your positioning, or a B2B leader curious about the agencies operating in your world, this episode is a masterclass in staying curious, being bold, taking risks and resisting the path well-trodden. Timestamps 00:00 - The 16-year-old startup: why it was time to evolve Workbrands. 05:26 - The name-search struggle and finding the "Shaped By" identity. 10:19 - Handling the "wobble": investing in sales and marketing when it felt like a luxury. 14:27 - Why effective B2B new business is about nurturing, not quick fixes. 17:01 - Building a "People-First" culture as a sole director. 24:05 - Winning the US: why a physical office isn’t necessary, but being present is. 31:00 - Selling talent, not software: the motivation behind the metrics. 34:07 - The AI "Human Sandwich": using tech to augment, not replace, creativity. 42:12 - Growth pains and the secret to success: letting the "applause" follow great work. 47:43 - The next five years: becoming the employer of choice in B2B. Send us a message if you enjoyed this episode If you enjoy the chats then there are more ways to quench your thirst for creative inspiration in the world of B2B tech. 👉 Watch episodes on YouTube 👉 Follow us on LinkedIn for regular snippets in your feed 👉 Visit our website for more in-depth thinking on topics 👉 Subscribe to Beyond our monthly collection of insight, opinion and inspiration And finally please rate our podcast on Apple if you enjoyed it! ✌️

  ListenShow Notes

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