Between Product and Partnerships Podcast

In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Cristina Flaschen talks with Martin Scholz, founder of CEG Consult, about why most partnership initiatives miss the mark, and what actually separates transactional deals from true, strategic relationships.

Partnerships are powerful, but only when they’re operationally real. In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Jenn and Cristina dig into why partner motions struggle to scale, and why many teams still find it hard to make them work.

Stephanie Neill, Head of Product at Stripe, joins Pandium CEO Cristina Flaschen to unpack how AI is reshaping product development in practice. From cutting iteration cycles to exposing the limits of bad data, Stephanie shares how the fundamentals of product thinking still apply, and why teams that chase AI without grounding in real problems are setting themselves up to fail.

Biljana shares how bringing hard data to the table, like usage stats and performance metrics, is the ultimate move for smaller teams. It’s the best way to prove your value, grab a major partner’s attention, and finally move up their priority list.

Scott Lavery, Senior Product Manager at Arkestro, joins Pandium CEO Cristina Flaschen to unpack the transition of integrations from simple features to essential business infrastructure. By exploring the hidden technical debt of low-code platforms and the "invisible" nature of integration success, Scott provides a pragmatic playbook for PMs navigating messy inherited stacks and complex vendor dependencies.

Jacqueline Karlin, AI Product Executive and Founder, shares how she turns mission-driven purpose into actionable products. From defining her “why” to solving real-world problems in commerce and technology, Jacqueline walks us through her approach to customer-first innovation and building products that scale.

In this episode of Between Product and Partnerships, Cristina Flaschen talks with Mike Gelber, Chief Product Officer at Impiricus, about his path into product leadership and what he’s learned building products in the healthcare industry.

Cristina Flaschen talks with Michael Kowalchik founder and CEO of Matterbeam, about why data integration breaks down inside scaling SaaS companies and what a modern architecture should look like. They discuss why pipelines fail, why AI cannot fix weak data infrastructure, and how MatterBeam’s approach helps teams access consistent, trustworthy data as they grow.