Meet Jeff Reine, Chief Revenue Officer for Auki Labs

December 8, 2023

Meet Jeff Reine, the Chief Revenue Officer at Auki Labs, leading demand generation for Auki Labs retail division, Convergent. With a strong background in both strategy and execution, Jeff has proven his skills in a variety of settings, from startups to large corporations

Jeff's experience spans content acquisitions, technology licensing, driving integrations, and expanding platform reach. He believes in teamwork, leading plainly by doing, and building partnerships that go beyond deals to fit the company's big picture.

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What key strategic insights from your past roles have you found to be most valuable in creating a successful demand-generation strategy for Auki Labs?

First, it’s all about empathy for the customer and what they are trying to accomplish. And in a B2B world, for the customer’s customer!

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How has your leadership philosophy, shaped by your experience in different roles and industries, influenced how you build teams and achieve goals at Auki Labs?

I’ve seen a lot, from very early stage and small startups like Zemanta (which eventually we sold to Outbrain) to Coca-Cola - one of the world's largest and most globally distributed enterprises.

I think leadership basically comes down to empathy and flexibility.

If you only have one “leadership philosophy,” you could fall into the hammer and nail trap. If you only have a hammer, then everything looks like a nail!

So, with empathy and flexibility in mind, I approach the people and problems at Auki and go from there. We have specific goals to ensure we grow the business and that people grow.

Maybe the one constant I take from role to role is that we cannot skip steps as a company - any business anywhere has to do the work in front of it rather than attempt to skip to the desired outcome.

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How do you identify and secure strategic partnerships that benefit Auki Labs' Convergent product and create ripple effects for the posemesh and AUKI token?

On the Convergent side of the house, the belief is very straightforward. Providing a valuable, scalable service to our customers will help drive the success and adoption of the posemesh and, ultimately, the entire “Aukiverse.”

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What strategies are you employing to penetrate retail markets, and how do these strategies indirectly support the posemesh network's growth?

We go directly to retailers, grocers, and convenience chains with the Convergent solution.

We are also engaging the larger ecosystem to help them see the benefit of being on the posemesh.

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The tech landscape is ever-evolving. Can you share an example from your past where you had to adapt and innovate, and how does that learning experience influence your strategy today?

Too many!

Perhaps a good example of helping to navigate “the pivot” that Foursquare made a decade ago from a B2C model to a B2B one.

When Foursquare began its life, it started with a bang and essentially invented a new industry and consumer habit. No one “checked in” to a barber shop before Foursquare.

But as time passed, the “Social Local Mobile” (SoLoMo) industry formed, and multiple competitors rushed in, including Meta, first with Facebook and then by acquiring Instagram. Well, Foursquare had to adapt.

My role was to productize and scale the enterprise service by taking our valuable data assets and turning them into a commercial offering. I am very proud of the work we did there.

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Transitioning to the cutting-edge field of spatial computing, how did your previous experiences prepare you for this role, and what new opportunities do you foresee it bringing to the retail sector?

Over my career, I’ve seen quite a few technology transitions: from desktop to mobile and mobile to pervasive as our computing devices have become smaller, better connected, and more powerful.

What we built at Sapient 20+ years ago vs what we can do today is night and day.

Ultimately, it’s about applying better, faster compute to everyday problems of people and businesses - how do we better service the end user to help them get the most out of their day and dollar?

With that in mind, spatial computing is the next iteration of a more contextually aware computing environment with better integration into the world around us.

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Discover: Convergent - Spatial Computing for Retail Operations

In my mind, spatial computing is about using the data from the user’s context and environment to drive better outcomes.

For Convergent, that means placing virtual information in the user’s view precisely where needed. In other cases, it means sensing from the environment for the next best action.

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As someone at the forefront of market and competitive analysis, how do you envision the future of retail technology, and how is Auki Labs positioning itself to lead that change?

I think the spatial computing question above leads us right here.

Retail environments are complex, fast-changing places literally FULL of data. Whether it’s unmanned stores or automated fulfillment, I think retail is at the forefront of using the signals from imagery and activity to self-optimize.

Auki Labs is betting on the posemesh as one of the technologies to support this self-optimization effort. By helping to overlay the right digital information in the precisely right place, we help the people who make retail act faster and more accurately within the system.

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About Auki Labs

Auki Labs is at the forefront of spatial computing, pioneering the convergence of the digital and physical to give people and their devices a shared understanding of space for seamless collaboration.

With a focus on user-centric design and privacy, Auki Labs empowers industries and individuals to embrace the transformative potential of spatial computing, enhancing productivity, engagement, and human connection.

Auki Labs is building the posemesh, a decentralized spatial computing protocol for AR, the metaverse, and smart cities.

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About The Posemesh Foundation

The posemesh is an open-source protocol that powers a decentralized, blockchain-based spatial computing network.

The posemesh is designed for a future where spatial computing is both collaborative and privacy-preserving. It limits the surveillance capabilities of any organization and encourages sovereign ownership of private space maps.

The decentralization also offers a competitive advantage, especially in shared AR sessions where low latency is crucial. The posemesh is the next step in the decentralization movement, responding to the growing power of big tech.

The Posemesh Foundation has tasked Auki Labs with developing the software infrastructure of the posemesh.

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Team

Posemesh

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