“As soon as I connected marketing with revenue, it was the last time I asked for permission to do anything in marketing.”
Igor Kranjcec, VP of Marketing at Farseer
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In this episode of Executive Conversations, Maeva Cifuentes speaks with Igor Kranjcec, VP of marketing at Farseer and at the Sastanak conference. Igor traces his 15-year shift from traffic-obsessed marketer to revenue-owned operator, explaining how linking every marketer’s bonus to closed-won deals ended budget battles and vanity metrics. He breaks down the mechanics of joint sales-marketing deal reviews, share-of-wallet dinners, and full-funnel KPIs that turn marketing into a genuine profit driver. Igor also digs into the psychology of “leading without authority,” showing how project-management rigor plus emotional intelligence lets marketers influence peers and executives without formal power. For new leaders, he shares why landing a visible win in the first 30–60 days is non-negotiable and how to manage up by handing execs decisions—not research. Finally, Igor warns against promoting star performers who refuse to leave execution, and offers a playbook for making support and CS teams accountable for upsell revenue.
In this episode, we talk about:
- revenue accountability
- marketing-sales alignment
- leading without authority
- full-funnel KPIs
- executive buy-in
Takeaways
- Revenue-based kpis: Igor shows how tying marketer bonuses to closed-won deals ends budget fights and vanity metrics.
- Shared accountability: marketing and sales jointly own missed revenue targets, forcing collaboration instead of blame.
- Leading without authority: project management plus emotional intelligence lets you influence peers and execs without formal power.
- Early value delivery: new leaders must land a visible win in the first 30–60 days to earn trust and latitude.
- Relationship with sales: regular deal reviews and assets like executive dinners unblock stalled enterprise pipeline.
Time chapters
[01:03] meeting Igor and his dual vp roles
[01:21] freeing marketing from permission culture
[01:59] driving enterprise deals with revenue kpis
[04:14] making marketers own the sales number
[05:42] reviving stalled pipeline with c-level dinners
[09:50] using accountability to erase blame
[12:53] aligning with sales for shared targets
[18:35] avoiding common new-manager traps
[22:38] influencing peers without authority
[25:21] letting teams set their own deadlines
[29:50] handing execs decisions, not research
Igor Kranjčec is a B2B SaaS veteran who turns marketing teams into revenue engines. Today he wears two hats ,VP of marketing at Farseer and VP of marketing for the SaaStanak conference. Before that he spent two years as head of revenue/marketing at media-monitoring scale-up Determ (ex-Mediatoolkit) and held senior product-marketing posts at travel-tech vendor Lemax and global CPaaS giant Infobip. A Product Marketing Alliance ambassador (first for Croatia), mentor and frequent event speaker, Igor is best known for linking every marketer’s bonus to closed-won revenue and coaching GTM leaders on “leading without authority.”
