#MillenniumLive: Stop Renting Your Customer Relationship: The Case for Owning Last-Mile Delivery with Burq

In this episode of Millennium Live, Jake Stein, VP of Retail Growth at Burq, joins the podcast to discuss why last-mile delivery has become one of retail’s most important competitive advantages. Jake has spent more than two decades helping some of the world’s most influential technology companies scale growth, operations, and customer experience. From past experiences at Expedia’s travel marketplace to Uber’s global logistics network, Jake has built a career at the intersection of technology, commerce, and operational excellence. He shares lessons from building delivery infrastructure at Uber Direct, explains why retailers are increasingly reclaiming ownership of the customer experience, and explores how modern delivery orchestration is transforming everything from beauty and home improvement to time-sensitive B2B parts fulfillment. Jake also dives into Burq’s AI-powered orchestration platform, Pulse AI, and how intelligent dispatching, real-time exception management, and proactive customer communication are helping retailers improve reliability without simply adding more delivery capacity. Jake offers his perspective on the future of retail logistics, why reliability is emerging as a stronger loyalty driver than speed, and what retail leaders need to understand as the industry shifts from carrier expansion to AI, data, and orchestration. More about Jake and Burq: Jake Stein is VP of Retail Growth at Burq, where he leads enterprise expansion across retail and distribution. He joined Burq from Uber Direct, where he ran Retail across the U.S. and Canada, partnering with national retailers to embed delivery directly into their native ecommerce experiences. Before last-mile, Jake spent two decades in online travel, leading global partnerships and distribution strategy working with top lodging brands. Across 25+ years of leadership, his work has lived at the intersection of technology, commercial strategy, and operations. Burq is a last-mile delivery infrastructure platform that gives businesses access to a broad carrier network all in one place. Powered by Pulse AI, Burq delivers the intelligence and flexibility to optimize every delivery, from execution to customer experience.

Listen on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music

About Burq

Burq is a last-mile delivery infrastructure for teams that need reliability at scale without stitching together carriers, tools, and manual exception handling.

Burq’s AI layer, Pulse AI, powers specialized agents across the delivery lifecycle that read real-time signals, detect risk early, and trigger actions that protect on-time performance, cost, and customer experience.

With Burq, teams can quote and select the best option per order; orchestrate dispatch across in-house and third-party fleets; automate routing, batching, and workflow decisions; resolve exceptions fast (reroutes, recovery, refunds/credits); send brand-safe customer updates; and surface performance insights that make reliability and cost drivers clear.

Built for enterprise and high-growth operators across grocery, floral, specialty retail, and more. Learn more at burqup.com.

To learn more, visit www.burqup.com

Lowering Total Cost of Care With Strategic Surgical Cost Management with Paradigm

Contributed by Paradigm

Health plans continue to invest in lowering total cost of care, but surgical spend remains one of the largest and most overlooked drivers, accounting for nearly one-third of overall spend. In a newly released data report, Paradigm examines how leading plans are taking a two-pronged approach to reduce surgical costs, combining utilization management with member-focused decision support. Read the report to see how leading plans are capturing these savings.

Download the full report here.

About Paradigm

Paradigm is a specialty care management organization, focused on improving the lives of people with complex injuries and diagnoses. For over 35 years, the company has been a pioneer in value-based care, generating the very best outcomes for patients, payers, and providers in the workers’ compensation and healthcare markets. Paradigm impacts complex, high-cost care and spend categories through risk-based clinical solutions and case management, specialty networks, home health, shared decision support, and payment integrity programs. The company consistently delivers proven cost savings, while improving outcomes across the continuum of care.

For more information, please visit paradigmcorp.com.

Business Insider: The AI Boom Is Giving These Execs More Power — and Headaches — Than Ever

Contributed by Business Insider

At Match Group, every employee now has an AI budget.

The parent company of Tinder, Hinge, and other dating apps recently began giving department heads a set amount to spend on AI, which is then distributed across their teams. Employees can track their usage on a dashboard, and if they want to exceed their budget, they have to explain why. The company’s most expensive AI models also aren’t available by default and require a specific use case.

“If you don’t set guardrails, there’s no reason for an engineer to not go use the most expensive model,” said Match Group CFO Steve Bailey. The average software engineer at the company spends roughly $600 a month on AI tokens, he said.

Additional headaches

CFOs are also facing new business problems arising from AI.

A crowded AI market is making those decisions even harder. New providers are constantly pitching tools that promise to boost productivity, cut costs, or replace existing software, forcing many CFOs to take a more active role in evaluating vendors, said Alex Sobol, cofounder of the Millennium Alliance, an invite-only community for C-suite executives in North America and Europe.

“It seems like every hour there’s a new AI vendor,” he said. “It’s hard to know what’s real and what’s fake, and what’s good and what’s bad.”

Read the full article here to discover how leading organizations are navigating the AI spending boom and what it means for the future of finance leadership.

About Business Insider

Business Insider is a global newsroom covering business, technology, and the economy. They help ambitious, curious people stay informed, understand the context, and get ahead.

Learn more at www.businessinsider.com

Shift Hard Left. Break Down Silos. Accelerate FWA Prevention with 4L Data Intelligence

Contributed by 4L Data Intelligence

Shift Hard Left. Break Down Silos. Accelerate FWA Prevention.

Health plan leaders have long understood that fragmented data structures and siloed organizations are barriers to financial performance. What the 2026 4L Fraud Advisory Council made clear is that the cost of inaction is no longer theoretical — and technology makes the path forward accessible.

Meeting in Dana Point, CA in February 2026, the Council — a multidisciplinary group of SIU, program integrity, payment integrity, and network leaders — focused this year’s collaboration on two initiatives with measurable, near-term impact: 1) breaking down provider data silos across the enterprise and 2) shifting payment integrity and FWA prevention ‘hard left’ in the network, ordering, and claims processes.

The Council’s recommendations are direct. Administrative costs are unsustainable. MLRs are climbing. Legacy claims and operating systems, along with organizational silos, are making the problem worse. At the end of the two-day session, the Council defined a roadmap designed to help most health plans achieve at least a 10% reduction in administrative costs while accelerating overall payment integrity and FWA prevention to reduce MLRs.

2026 Fraud Advisory Council Whitepaper Highlights

Why siloed provider data costs health plans millions—and what it takes to fix it.
Organizational changes that break down silos and reduce FWA and administrative costs.
A five-stage cost-cutting framework for shifting payment integrity and FWA prevention ‘hard left’.
What ‘shifting left’ requires from both an organizational and technology perspective.

Download the 2026 4L Fraud Advisory Council Whitepaper here.

For more information about 4L and the 4L Health Plan Performance Suite, visit 4LData.com.

About 4L Data Intelligence

4L Data Intelligence™ is the Integr8 AI™ powered company focused on helping our customers and partners deliver better healthcare, insurance and government services at a lower cost by improving data, provider, payment and decision integrity. We are committed to USING THE POWER OF Integr8 AI™ TECHNOLOGY FOR GOOD by helping healthcare payers, health systems, governments and insurers deliver better services and care and reduce trillions of dollars in out-of-control costs by making actionable data accessible in real-time, automating inefficient processes and preventing fraudulent, wasteful and abusive payments that drive up costs.

For more information, visit 4LData.com.

Higgle: The B2B Sales Club: The Hidden Advantage of Tactfully Handling Difficult People with Alex Sobol, Part 2

Contributed by Higgle: The B2B Sales Club

Are outdated discovery tactics and fear of rejection quietly killing your enterprise deals?

Alex Sobol, co-founder of The Millennium Alliance, is here for part 2 to unpack what’s really happening in B2B C-suite sales right now. We dig into why so many companies are hiring the wrong types of salespeople (even when their resumes look perfect) and what actually separates average performers from elite sellers. Alex challenges the obsession with polished credentials and explains why traits like tenacity, emotional resilience, and comfort in discomfort matter far more than pedigree. We also explore why traditional discovery tactics often fall flat with executives and how sellers unintentionally sabotage their own credibility.

The conversation then shifts to what’s changed in enterprise selling over the past five years, and what hasn’t. We talk about why over-relying on email cadences and marketing automation is a losing strategy, why speed matters more than ever when executives frequently change roles, and how fear of being “too salesy” holds people back. Alex shares sharp insights on negotiation mistakes, especially the dangerous habit of discounting too quickly just to secure a win.

Topics covered during this episode include:

The shift that Alex has seen in B2B selling over the last five years.
How and why companies consistently hire the wrong salespeople.
Why prestigious backgrounds don’t guarantee selling success.
The traits that separate elite sellers from average performers.
How rigorous interview processes can stress test candidate resilience.
Why likability and emotional toughness matter more than polish.
The illusion that every tech seller uses a “unique” approach.
How executive turnover shortens real selling windows dramatically.
Why over-delicate follow-ups waste critical buying momentum.
How excessive generic questions quickly erode executive credibility.
Why traditional SPIN selling tactics feel outdated and make Alex cringe.
The importance of face-to-face engagement over digital noise.
How marketing automation cannot replace real relationship building.
How premature discounting weakens long-term client relationships.
Why sellers must focus on outcomes, not personal comfort.

If growth feels harder than it should, this episode might change your perspective. Listen to the full episode now on Higgle’s Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Music.

About Higgle: The B2B Sales Club

This is Higgle: The B2B Sales Club Podcast, where we bring you actionable insights about sales RFPs, sales negotiations, and difficult procurement discussions. It’s all about helping you win more deals and hit your sales quota.

We talk to sales leaders, brand leaders, and procurement leaders about lessons learned on their journey to win more sales deals and achieve better negotiated outcomes.

The podcast is hosted by Mike Lander, an ex-procurement director and entrepreneur, talking to guests about their experiences – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Please subscribe to get updates when new episodes are released.

Higgle: The B2B Sales Club: The Hidden Advantage of Tactfully Handling Difficult People with Alex Sobol, Part 1

Contributed by Higgle: The B2B Sales Club

What if the real secret to sales success is in how you handle difficult people?

In this episode, our Co-Founder, Alex Sobol, sits down with Mike Lander, former procurement director and entrepreneur, and host of Higgle: The B2B Sales Club, to take a closer look at the real traits that drive success in sales.

Alex shares how he went from selling sponsorships straight out of college to building a global C-suite community now on track to reach $100 million in revenue. He explains that sales success has less to do with flashy tactics and more to do with work ethic, resilience, and the ability to handle difficult people without losing momentum.

He also explores why culture, accountability, and character start in the interview process—and why he personally speaks to every potential hire.

Topics covered during this episode include:

Why C-suite access is harder to earn than most sellers realize.
How the high-impact model of The Millennium Alliance creates valuable conversations.
Why private meetings change the way sponsors measure event success.
Why sponsorship sales taught lessons to Alex that later shaped his business.
How Alex and his other Co-Founder recognized an opportunity others seem to miss.
How culture becomes more than a slogan during rapid growth.
Why founder-led selling does not always prove a business can scale.
How interview questions reveal traits a resume can easily hide.
How difficult people can become a lesson instead of an obstacle.
Why self-awareness may be the missing ingredient in many sales careers.
How other, ordinary jobs can reveal whether someone is built for sales.
How trained leaders become the real turning point in company growth.
Why the first million is so dependent on blocking out noise and staying focused.

Listen to the full episode to learn how to navigate pressure, handle rejection, and deal with difficult people. Available on Higgle’s Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Music.

About Higgle: The B2B Sales Club

We talk to sales leaders, brand leaders, and procurement leaders about lessons learned on their journey to win more sales deals and achieve better negotiated outcomes.

The podcast is hosted by Mike Lander, an ex-procurement director and entrepreneur, talking to guests about their experiences – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Please subscribe to get updates when new episodes are released.

Lori Wensley, Chief Procurement Officer at Cognizant, Recognized with the Procurement Innovation Leadership Award!

The Millennium Alliance is proud to announce that Lori Wensley, Chief Procurement Officer at Cognizant, received the Procurement Innovation Leadership Award at our Transformational Chief Procurement Officer Assembly, held June 3–4 at The JW Marriott Houston by The Galleria.

See the full list of winners and learn how you could be our next nominee—visit our Awards Page!

About Lori Wensley

Serving as the Chief Procurement Officer at Cognizant Technology Solutions, Lori has built a robust career in global procurement, strategic sourcing, and supplier relationship management, previously excelling as Cognizant’s AVP of Procurement and Global IT Category Lead. Lori’s foundational leadership includes nearly two decades at Xerox Corporation, where she managed cross-category spend as a procurement leader in Canada, directed North American contingent labor programs via MSP and VMS frameworks, and drove end-to-end IT outsourcing negotiations across network, infrastructure, and application services. Backed by early experience as an infrastructure analyst at EDS and armed with a PMP certification since 2009 and a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Lori specializes in program management, infrastructure operations, and complex supplier governance that ensures operational excellence.

Susan Johnson, Chief Supply Chain & Transformation Officer at AT&T, Recognized with the Transformational Supply Chain Leadership Award!

The Millennium Alliance is proud to announce that Susan Johnson, Chief Supply Chain & Transformation Officer at AT&T, received the Transformational Supply Chain Leadership Award at our Digital Supply Chain Transformation Assembly, held June 3–4 at The JW Marriott Houston by The Galleria in Houston.

See the full list of winners and learn how you could be our next nominee—visit our Awards Page!

About Susan Johnson

Susan Johnson is the Chief Supply Chain & Transformation Officer at AT&T, where she leads the company’s Corporate Transformation Office and oversees enterprise-wide IT and network transformation initiatives, including the modernization of AT&T’s legacy wireline business. She also manages AT&T’s supply chain organization, with responsibility for strategic sourcing, procurement, sustainability, and logistics.

Susan commands the realms of global scale, talent orchestration, and agile vendor strategy. She has taken the immense complexity of a massive, distributed partner ecosystem and aligned it under a unified, high-performing procurement framework. By blending her deep expertise in contingent workforce management with a forward-thinking approach to strategic sourcing, she has successfully steered her organization through a rapidly evolving tech landscape while delivering exceptional value to the business.

Neil Hoyne, Chief Strategist at Google, Author of Converted, Expert in Data Analytics & Customer Relationships, Keynotes Our Digital Enterprise CIO Transformation Assembly August 25-26 in Dallas!

The Millennium Alliance is excited to announce that Neil Hoyne, Chief Strategist at Google | Author of Converted | Expert in Data Analytics and Customer Relationships, will keynote our Digital Enterprise CIO Transformation Assembly August 25-26 at the Omni Frisco Hotel at The Star in Dallas.

Interested in joining this Assembly? Click here to request an invite

About Neil Hoyne

Neil Hoyne is Google’s Chief Strategist and a leading authority on data analytics, customer relationships, and digital transformation. As the author of Converted: The Data-Driven Way to Win Customers’ Hearts, Neil reveals how businesses can use data to build deeper, more meaningful relationships with their customers. With extensive experience advising Fortune 500 companies, Neil helps organizations leverage data to improve customer experiences and drive growth.
In his insightful talks, Neil covers:

Building customer loyalty: Strategies for turning data insights into long-term customer relationships.
The future of digital transformation: Practical tools for staying ahead in the age of big data and AI. Neil’s work has been featured in Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and The Wall Street Journal. As a sought-after speaker, he provides actionable strategies for companies looking to thrive in the data-driven economy.

On-Demand Webinar | Your GRC AI Just Made a Decision. Can You Explain It? With Mitratech

Contributed by Mitratech

WATCH ON-DEMAND CLICK HERE

On-Demand Webinar | Your GRC AI Just Made a Decision. Can You Explain It?

Your AI produced an output. A risk score. A compliance flag. A board summary.

Can you verify it?

Not “do you trust it” that’s a different question. Can you trace how it got there, point to the source data, and explain the reasoning to a regulator or your board?

For most organisations, the honest answer is: not really.

That gap is what regulators are closing in on. It’s what boards are starting to demand. And it’s the conversation we’re having now!

Join Jan Stappers, Executive Vice President, GRC Solutions Strategy alongside Luis Carlos Nino, Principal Analyst at Verdantix, for an honest, practical conversation about what’s really changing in GRC, and what it means for risk, compliance, and governance leaders right now.

What you’ll take away:

What Verdantix is seeing across GRC programmes globally: the patterns, the pressure points, and where organisations are falling short on AI accountability
The “agentic AI” reality check: what vendors are claiming, what it actually means, and why the distinction matters enormously for audit and governance
Why transparency and auditability are moving from best practice to regulatory requirement, and what that looks like in practice
Board reporting in 2026: what good looks like when your GRC data is connected across risk, compliance, policy, and third parties
Global regulatory developments every global GRC programme should be watching right now
A first look at how Mitratech’s connected GRC platform addresses these challenges: live demo from Senior GRC Consultant Jared Howe

About Mitratech

Mitratech is a global leader in Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) software, trusted by more than 8,300 organizations across 75 countries. Our GRC platform unifies people, processes, and data to deliver risk intelligence organizations can trust—enabling faster, better-informed decisions at every level.

Combining deep GRC expertise with responsible, AI-driven automation, Mitratech helps organizations proactively manage enterprise, cyber, IT, third-party, ESG, continuity planning, ethics, and regulatory risk at scale. Configured to each organization’s needs and built to evolve with complexity, Mitratech GRC reduces fragmentation, streamlines compliance, and transforms risk management into a resilient, insight-driven capability that supports confident, future-ready performance.

Innovate now by visiting: www.mitratech.com