Executive conversations, speaking and media.
Keynotes, interviews and podcasts on industrial B2B AI transformation, agentic systems, CRM, data and enterprise change.
Speaking topics
For 17 years I have modernised how industrial companies sell, market and serve customers. Today the work runs through CRM, data and AI, and it counts only when customers and sales teams adopt it.
Industrial AI adoption: the decisions behind the pilot
The published Holcim ordering pilot, seen from the leadership side: which customer friction to solve, who owns the workflow and how to judge adoption. The session separates what the pilot proved from what scale would still have to prove.
Audience: Industrial executives, commercial leaders and transformation teams
- Start from a customer problem, not a tool.
- Name the owner, the human fallback and the adoption measure.
- Keep pilot evidence apart from the rollout case.
The executive AI mandate: value, ownership and operating change
How leaders set an AI mandate that survives contact with the business: connecting strategy to investment, decision rights and organisational change, and settling the open decisions before anyone commits to delivery.
Audience: Executive teams and transformation sponsors
- Turn ambition into a business mandate.
- Agree who decides and who owns the outcome.
- Review value, adoption and risk together.
From AI ideas to investment choices: a process-first portfolio
How to decide where AI belongs, using the AI Opportunity Map: start from one operating problem, compare AI with automation and process redesign, and set the baseline and decision date for the next experiment.
Audience: COOs, commercial executives, AI portfolio owners and business unit leaders
- Find opportunities in the work people actually do.
- Compare AI with simpler fixes.
- Set the baseline, owner and threshold for the next experiment.
Media kit
Juan Beltrán is Global Head of Digital Marketing at ABB, based in Zug, Switzerland. He has spent more than 17 years in commercial and digital transformation at global industrial companies, including ABB and Holcim, across CRM, data, marketing and AI. McKinsey and Salesforce have featured his work on AI-assisted ordering at Holcim, and he spoke at Dreamforce 2024. He is the author of the AI Opportunity Map, a process-first method for deciding where AI belongs.
Juan Beltrán is Global Head of Digital Marketing at ABB. He has spent more than 17 years inside global industrial companies, including ABB and Holcim, working on how engineering-led businesses win and serve customers once digital and AI become part of everyday work.
His foundation is commercial transformation: CRM, customer journeys, enterprise data and the workflows behind sales and marketing. At Holcim, he led the strategy and delivery of an AI ordering assistant for construction customers. McKinsey interviewed him about its Spanish pilot in February 2025, and Salesforce has featured his view of Holcim's digital transformation. He spoke at Dreamforce 2024.
He is the author of the AI Opportunity Map, a process-first method for deciding where AI belongs and where a simpler fix works better, and publishes essays at juanbeltran.ch. He lives in Zug, Switzerland, and works in English, Spanish and German. His writing and speaking reflect his personal views.
Public evidence
- McKinsey & Company: Using generative AI to transform customer experience
Interview on the Spanish ordering pilot. The figures are reported results for that pilot.
- Salesforce: Holcim's digital transformation journey, with Juan Beltrán
Conversation on Salesforce, commercial data and AI in sales excellence.
On this page
- Using generative AI to deliver cement at Holcim
The AI ordering assistant built for Holcim's construction customers, and the adoption reported in the Spanish pilot.
- Holcim's digital transformation journey with Salesforce and AI
Holcim's customer journey, Salesforce and commercial data. Salesforce published a companion article in August 2025.