When it comes to demand generation, staying on top of current trends isn't just a "nice to have"—it's a necessity! Learning how expert demand gen marketers are connecting with their audience and driving interest in their companies can help you understand the latest innovations, tech tools, and thought practices in the industry.

Whether you're a seasoned demand gen professional or looking to learn more about the field, look no further than this round-up! We've hand-selected 15 of the most interesting, cutting-edge demand generation marketers to follow this year.

If you've ever come to a Donuts & Demand event—which, if you haven't, this is your sign to!—you may recognize some of these names. Many of these folks have shared their time, energy, and expertise with our audience, and even given us some new recs to follow.

Read on to learn more about:

• Zsuzsanna Blau, Global Head of Digital Demand and Campaigns, Nokia
• Chris Walker, Founder of Refine Labs and Passetto
• Sarah McConnell, VP of Demand Generation, Qualified
• Michelle Blondin, Director of Demand Generation, ZoomInfo
• Brian Hansford, VP of Growth, LiveRamp
• LaShanda Jackson, Global Director of Lifecycle Marketing, Intuit Mailchimp
• Angela Romero, Director of Demand Generation, Spekit
• Kelly Cheng, Head of Marketing and Growth, Goldcast
• Brendan Hufford, Founder, Growth Sprints
• Joyce Chuang, Senior Director of Marketing, DocuSign
• Devin Bramhall, Growth Advisor, Host of Don't Say Content
• Meisha Bochicchio, Digital Content Marketing Program Manager, VMware
• Jon Miller, CMO of Demandbase, Co-founder of Marketo
• Peter Weinberg and Jon Lombardo, formerly of The B2B Institute @ LinkedIn

Zsuzsanna Blau describes herself as "having fun at the intersection of growth, brand, and product." She views demand generation as an investment in your brand and a bet on the future; from her viewpoint, many times, demand gen content is going to be more generic than other types of content because it's meant to raise awareness and interest around your product.

In 2022, Zsuzsanna was named a Future B2B CMO 100 in Technology by HotTopics. She runs a monthly LinkedIn newsletter called Flip That Funnel and also regularly posts on her LinkedIn account. Follow her to read about a breadth of topics, from AI to what makes your audience love you—and even an occasional poem thrown in here and there!

Top LinkedIn voice Chris Walker recently announced his move from CEO to Executive Chairman of his company, Refine Labs, noting that this decision reflects a commitment to focus on individual strengths.

In addition to his work at Refine Labs, which is a B2B digital marketing and demand generation agency, Chris also invests in highly specialized B2B GTM tech products and services and runs Passetto, a GTM strategy consultancy for B2B executives.

Chris hosts the B2B Revenue Vitals podcast and frequently shares content on social. Follow him and prepare to be inspired by what one determined person can accomplish!

If you want your demand generation with a side of GIFs, Sarah McConnell is your follow.

When Sarah thinks about demand gen, she's taking the term at face value—is she quite literally creating demand for her company and her product?

When you think of demand generation as a result of driving awareness, it's clear that demand generation actually involves a bit of everything, from product marketing to events to content creation.

Sarah also hosts the Qualified show, GTM AI, where she talks to companies about how they're applying AI to solve business challenges.

Michelle Blondin has over 15 years of experience in B2B and B2C marketing, and she's more than willing to share what she's learned throughout that time.

Michelle thinks of her job as not only to create demand, but to capture it as well. You want people to be interested and then take an action, whether that's coming to your site or filling out a form (or coming to an event!).

Because demand generation is so complex, it takes more than just the marketing team to pull it off. Demand gen marketers should collaborate with brand teams, SDR folks, dev and sales people—the list goes on!

A multimillion dollar pipeline builder with deep experience in demand gen, Brian Hansford's feed will keep you up to the speed on the latest events in the industry. (As of early 2024, it's cookie deprecation that's all the buzz lately.)

Brian views building trust with your audience and essentially getting them to a place where they want to be "captured" by your marketing efforts as a critical part of demand gen. We know that most people are not in a place to buy at any given time, so it's up to demand gen to think about how you can seed the market so that when people are ready to talk, they're reaching out to you.

PS: If you're new to demand generation or looking to break into the field, start with Brian's resource, "The First 100 Days—A Plan for New Demand Generation Leaders."

LaShanda Jackson has 15+ years in the industry; she started at MailChimp as a Senior Manager of Product Marketing before being promoted to Director of Marketing and then, most recently in 2022, she accepted a role as Global Director of Lifecycle Marketing–Lead Gen and Events.

LaShanda is passionate about championing diverse perspectives in marketing and creating inclusive, growth-oriented environments. Follow along to learn about trending tech topics like AI and to discover affinity-based events like the Intuit-sponsored AfroTech conference:

Angela Romero leads demand gen for Spekit, a learning solution that looks to address the way people actually learn at work today and increase productivity on the job.

As a guest on Donuts & Demand, Angela hit us with an analogy that was almost too perfect:

Now that's a definition we can get behind! 🍩🍩🍩

We couldn't get too far down the list without shouting out our very own Kelly Cheng, resident Queen of Puns!

Kelly is a marketing whiz who's dedicated to helping B2B marketers drive revenue with events. She's hosted 50+ events for Goldcast, so you may have met her already!

Lately, Kelly has been hard at work on Goldcast's 2024 Demand Generation Compensation Report—a resource you will definitely want to keep an eye out for, if you're curious about what demand gen folks earn.

As the founder of a company that helps SaaS companies skyrocket growth through short, focused marketing sprints, Brendan Hufford thinks of demand gen as a facilitator between stages of awareness.

Under the renowned Eugene Schwartz model, there are five levels of awareness: Unaware, Problem Aware, Solution Awareness, Product Awareness, and Most Aware.

Brendan believes the job of demand gen is to take folks from the "unaware" stage into "problem aware" and "solution aware." At this point, people are aware they could improve something, and they also know who can help (hopefully, you!).

When asked about the difference between lead generation and demand generation, Joyce Chuang points out that demand gen is more of a long game; it's all about putting the customer front and center and being in it for the long haul.

That means when you're thinking of how you'll create awareness or provide education—or do anything demand-gen related—you're thinking of it in terms of what will be sustainable, as well as what will resonate from the customer's POV.

Devin Bramhall is one of the most beloved figures in the marketing industry. It's been widely shared lately that she's struggling with cancer, and top marketing figures gathered to put on an educational benefit for her that raised more than $27K.

You may recognize Devin's name from her time as the CEO of Animalz, when she grew revenue 3x in two years, or from an episode of her podcast, Don't Say Content, where she tries to go beneath the surface level of industry hype to find out how to create real impact.

If you're looking to add some value to your feed and stay away from buzzwords and jargon, Devin's a great pick!

Meisha Bochicchio is a top content strategy voice on LinkedIn, and it's easy to see why. Whether she's posting salary-transparent jobs in the industry, sharing fun things she's learned through work, or distributing tips on how to capture audience attention, her feed is approachable and entertaining.

Fun fact: Before her time at VMware, Meisha was actually the Senior Manager of Content and Campaigns here at Goldcast!

Jon Miller is a bit of a legend in the marketing world. He co-founded Marketo, which is one of the biggest marketing automation platforms, and served as CMO for the company as it scaled.

Jon's most recent hot take is that "demand creation" simply does not exist. From his POV, you can only help people become aware they have an issue and build awareness in your company. Neither of those are actually demand "creation" and thus, the focus should be on connecting emotionally with your audience.

We'll end with a two-for-one: Peter Weinberg and Jon Lombardo, the respective former Head of Development and Head of Research for LinkedIn's The B2B Institute, a think tank set up to research what makes B2B marketing and advertising effective.

Although Peter and Jon both posted recently that they're moving on from LinkedIn to start their own company, we're willing to bet they'll continue sharing valuable research and insights related to the industry.

There are so many inspiring, informed demand gen leaders out there—this list is just our attempt to share 15 of our go-to accounts with you. If you'd like to meet other knowledge-hungry marketers—and learn from experts like the ones we've just covered—be sure to catch our Donuts & Demand series!