He co-founded JDA Software, the company now known as Blue Yonder. But the places that stayed with Jim Armstrong were a mining town, a winter shelter and a community on the Mexican border.

After three decades of name changes, acquisitions and software jargon, Coupa's chief marketing officer still works from one durable conviction: even enterprise buyers are people first.

After two decades inside supply-chain software, Amanda Dyson has a blunt test for marketing: did it move the business? Her new assignment at DemandTec is to make a 25-year-old company’s story catch up with what its software has become.