For this instalment of our ABM Academy alumni spotlight series, we’re celebrating someone whose entry into ABM was entirely unplanned – yet has become one of the most rewarding career pivots she could have made.
Meet Chantelle Minnie
Chantelle is marketing specialist for portfolio marketing and account-based marketing at Altron, a proudly South African technology group that has been an industry leader since 1965. Altron harnesses the power of data, technology, and human ingenuity to solve real-world problems across multiple sectors, operating through three key divisions: IT Services, Platforms, and Altron Arrow.
With over 4,700 employees across six countries and operations spanning cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, data analytics, systems integration, fintech, healthtech, and telematics, Altron partners with customers across all industries to help them grow and build a thriving economy. The company recently made headlines by launching South Africa’s first fully operational AI Factory, marking a major milestone in local artificial intelligence infrastructure and innovation.
It’s within this dynamic technology environment that Chantelle has been developing her ABM expertise – though her start was anything but conventional. With over 10 years of B2B and B2C marketing experience in the ICT industry, Chantelle brings expertise in integrated marketing planning, product marketing, relationship management, event execution, and digital marketing. Her background includes extensive work with partners, suppliers, and agencies across Sub-Saharan Africa to generate revenue and pipeline for business.
What makes Chantelle’s story particularly compelling is how she went from knowing nothing about ABM to running campaigns for major customers within a month. It was a baptism by fire, but one that revealed a natural affinity for this strategic, personal approach to marketing. We sat down with her to learn about that journey, the risks she’s taken, and what she’s discovered about making ABM truly work.
The interview
You’re at a dinner party and someone asks what you do – how do you explain ABM?
I would explain it compared to most marketing – the spray and pray method – sending the same message to thousands of people to drive volume. I do the opposite. I work with major accounts, treating each one as its own special target audience – researching their specific challenges and decision-makers, then creating personalised content just for them. It’s like the difference between a mass email and a thoughtful message that shows you actually understand their business.
How did you get into ABM? Was it intentional or by accident?
Totally by fortuitous accident! I went for an interview knowing it was a marketing role, but I wasn’t actually clear on what I’d be doing. Next thing I know, I’m running ABM campaigns for major customers within a month of joining the business – talk about baptism of fire! It’s been the most amazing journey. My fantastic mentor, Gayle Duffy, has taught me everything. I can’t imagine doing any other kind of marketing. It’s so much more strategic and personal than traditional campaigns, and more rewarding.
What’s the biggest risk you’ve taken in your ABM career, and did it pay off?
Taking on a podcast series for our latest campaign. It’s a behemoth task – we’re talking multiple episodes featuring industry experts, full production, marketing strategy, the whole nine yards. We committed to it, built a solid campaign strategy around it, and kept optimising as we went. The results have been amazing – growing our reputation exponentially through digital channels, reaching the right people, engagement is strong. Now we’re just waiting for the big fish to bite!
What was your ‘lightbulb moment’ during the Academy course?
Realising that ABM campaigns aren’t just smaller, more targeted versions of regular campaigns – they’re structured completely differently. It’s like playing a game of chess – you’re thinking several moves ahead, positioning yourself strategically, rather than just reacting to what’s in front of you. Instead of asking ‘what campaign should we run?’, I ask ‘what does this specific account need right now, and how does that fit into the bigger picture of where we want to take them over the next 12 months?’
What’s in your ABM toolkit that you couldn’t live without – and what’s the most overrated thing everyone raves about?
AI – but as a partner, not a replacement. It’s accelerated my work massively – helping me draft content, research accounts efficiently, analyse data. But it can’t always understand the politics inside a customer’s organisation. The human judgment, relationship intelligence, strategic thinking – that’s still all me. It’s a brilliant accelerator, but you still need someone who understands ABM. The most overrated thing? ABM platforms – not that they’re not useful, they are – but people expect them to do magic! Get your strategy solid, prove it works with basic tools, then bring in the platform to scale what’s already working.
Fast-forward five years – what does success look like for you?
Right now, ABM still feels like this specialised discipline that you have to explain and justify. I want to see it become the default approach – where treating your important customers like they matter is just obvious. Where marketing and sales working together on strategic accounts isn’t revolutionary. I want to be part of making that shift happen. Whether that’s through mentoring other marketers, sharing what works, building case studies that prove the impact, or just consistently demonstrating that this approach delivers real business results.
If you could give aspiring ABM-ers one piece of advice, what would it be?
Get sales alignment right from the start.
ABM doesn’t work if sales aren’t with you. You can create the most brilliant campaigns, but if your account teams aren’t bought in, aren’t sharing intelligence, aren’t ready to follow up – it can be a fruitless exercise. Make building that relationship with sales your first priority, not an afterthought.
The takeaway
Chantelle Minnie’s journey into ABM demonstrates that sometimes the best career moves are the ones we don’t plan. Her fortuitous accident – interviewing for a marketing role without knowing it was ABM – led to discovering work that’s more strategic, personal, and rewarding than traditional campaigns.
Her lightbulb moment during the Academy course reveals a fundamental truth about ABM that many practitioners take time to grasp: ABM campaigns aren’t simply scaled-down versions of traditional marketing. They’re structurally different, requiring a chess player’s mindset rather than a checkers approach. Instead of asking what campaign to run, Chantelle asks what each specific account needs right now and how that fits into a 12-month strategic vision for that relationship.
Looking ahead five years, Chantelle’s vision is admirably ambitious: she wants ABM to stop being a specialised discipline requiring constant explanation and justification. She envisions a future where treating important customers like they matter is simply obvious, where marketing and sales collaboration on strategic accounts is standard practice rather than revolutionary. Whether through mentoring, sharing successful approaches, building compelling case studies, or consistently demonstrating business results, she’s committed to driving that cultural shift.
But perhaps her most valuable contribution to aspiring ABM-ers is her unequivocal advice about sales alignment: get it right from the start, not as an afterthought. It’s possible to create brilliant campaigns, but without sales buy-in, intelligence sharing, and readiness to follow up, those campaigns become fruitless exercises. This honest assessment – prioritising relationship building with sales over campaign creation – reflects the hard-won wisdom of someone who’s learnt what truly makes ABM succeed.
At Altron, Chantelle has demonstrated that accidental career pivots can lead to meaningful expertise when combined with good mentorship, willingness to learn, and clear-eyed pragmatism about what works. Her journey from knowing nothing about ABM to running sophisticated campaigns for major accounts shows that with the right support and strategic thinking, it’s possible to master this discipline quickly and drive genuine business impact.
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Join us next time for our next alumni spotlight, featuring another remarkable practitioner from our community.
