{"podcast":{"title":"Marketing Operators","slug":"marketing-operators-6861665","podcast_index_feed_id":6861665,"rss_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/f23bffe0/podcast/rss","website_url":"https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marketing-operators","image_url":"https://d3t3ozftmdmh3i.cloudfront.net/staging/podcast_uploaded_nologo/40540184/40540184-1781006264217-c57060f709315.jpg","author":"Cody Plofker, Connor MacDonald, and Connor Rolain","episode_count":134,"summary":"Some call it the greatest ecommerce podcast in existence. Behind three behemoth brands stand three juggernauts of the marketing world: Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty), Connor MacDonald (CMO, Ridge) & Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad). Finally, they’re pulling back the curtain to give you a never-before-seen look at what works and what doesn’t work to drive growth.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-29T02:20:23.918211+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/marketing-operators-6861665"},"episode":{"title":"How AI Is Reshaping Ecommerce Growth Teams: HexClad & Jones Road","slug":"how-ai-is-reshaping-ecommerce-growth-teams-hexclad-jones-road","published_at":"2026-06-09T09:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/marketing-operators-6861665/how-ai-is-reshaping-ecommerce-growth-teams-hexclad-jones-road","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/marketing-operators-6861665","url":"https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/marketing-operators/episodes/How-AI-Is-Reshaping-Ecommerce-Growth-Teams-HexClad--Jones-Road-e3kg67l","audio_url":"https://anchor.fm/s/f23bffe0/podcast/play/121165493/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-5-8%2F425722876-44100-2-41bb2d3f7364.mp3","summary":"“We’re not hiring less because of AI. We just expect each hire to be more productive.” Is AI shrinking your marketing team, or just changing who belongs on it? Connor Rolain (Head of Growth, HexClad) and Cody Plofker (CEO, Jones Road Beauty) get into how two of the most operator-driven brands in ecommerce are rethinking their AI marketing team structure heading into the second half of 2026. They cover which roles are compressing, which are expanding, and what it actually looks like to build a leaner growth team that outputs more. Cody breaks down the CRO program he runs with one person that used to require six. Connor explains why HexClad hired more people after building an AI-powered seeding system, not fewer. And both share how they think about headcount requests now, and what they make teams prove before saying yes. Powered By Motion Creative Benchmarks 2026 https://motionapp.com/thumbstop-pulse/creative-benchmarks-2026?utm_campaign=marketing-operators&utm_medium=sponsor&utm_content=creative-benchmarks-2026&utm_source=marketing-operators-podcast Aftersell https://9ops.co/4i3bb5 Haus https://www.haus.io/operators Richpanel https://9ops.co/richpanel Operators Newsletter https://9operators.com/","meta_description":"“We’re not hiring less because of AI. We just expect each hire to be more productive.” Is AI shrinking your marketing team, or just changing who belongs o…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3852,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/marketing-operators-6861665/episodes/how-ai-is-reshaping-ecommerce-growth-teams-hexclad-jones-road/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/marketing-operators-6861665/how-ai-is-reshaping-ecommerce-growth-teams-hexclad-jones-road.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}