Episode 22

full
Published on:

13th Feb 2026

The Hidden Complexities of SaaS Pricing, CPQ, and Quote-to-Cash ft. Tina Kung

Revenue systems are becoming a major source of complexity in modern SaaS and AI companies. As CPQ, pricing, quoting, and billing evolve, they often slow decisions and execution instead of enabling growth.

In this episode of The CTO Compass, Tina Kung, Founder and CTO of Nue, shares lessons from building revenue systems at Salesforce, Zuora, and Neocrm. The conversation explores why revenue infrastructure shapes strategic clarity and boardroom impact, why most enterprise AI stops at summaries, and how CTOs can design systems that scale without slowing the business down.

You'll learn:

  1. Why CPQ and quote-to revenue systems often slow decisions as SaaS and AI companies scale
  2. How pricing flexibility and personalization create hidden complexity that impacts execution and strategy
  3. Why revenue systems should be treated as core technical infrastructure with direct boardroom impact
  4. What most enterprise AI gets wrong by stopping at summaries instead of removing operational work
  5. How CTOs can simplify revenue workflows to improve clarity without triggering a large transformation project

Chapters

00:00 Handling Business Overload

07:09 Simplifying the Process

14:47 The Hurdles of Implementation

18:31 Problems with Old Contracts

23:11 OpenAI's Strict Timeline

25:54 Complexity under Simplicity

31:26 Implementing AI

35:40 What's Next?

About Tina

Tina Kung has over 20 years of experience in the opportunity-to-cash space.

Before co-founding Nue.io, she served as VP of Products and Engineering at Neocrm — the largest CRM in China — and held engineering leadership roles at Salesforce CPQ, Zuora, and Oracle CPQ.

As Nue’s CTO, Tina is reimagining how modern businesses run revenue. She founded Nue to solve the painful complexity she witnessed firsthand at companies like Salesforce and Zuora.

Her vision is clear: to build a unified, AI-powered platform that makes revenue operations elegant, intelligent, and beautifully simple.

Under her technical leadership, Nue is powering the next generation of SaaS and AI companies with a Salesforce-native quote-to-revenue platform that unifies pricing, quoting, billing, and analytics in real time.

Where to find Tina

  1. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tinakung/
  2. Website: https://nue.io
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About the Podcast

The CTO Compass
CTO, CIO & Tech Leadership: Strategy, Clarity, Building Teams & Real-World Lessons
The CTO Compass is a podcast about CTO, CIO, and tech leadership - on strategy, scaling, teams & bringing clarity to technology leadership for real boardroom impact.

Hosted by Mark Wormgoor, each episode features candid conversations with experienced CTOs, CIOs, and senior tech leaders from startups through to large enterprises.

The focus is on the real work of leading in tech:
– Setting clear tech strategy that aligns with business goals
– Scaling teams and culture
– Making high-stakes decisions under pressure
– Navigating the transition from hands-on engineer to executive leader

This is not a hype show, nor a theoretical leadership podcast. Guests share hard-won lessons, mistakes, and practical insights from the moments that mattered most - when clarity was missing, heavy decisions needed to be made, and leadership was tested.

If you’re a CTO, CIO, or tech leader looking to sharpen your thinking, increase your influence, and create real impact in the boardroom, The CTO Compass is built for you.

About your host

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Mark Wormgoor

How do you decide which tech to bet on when AI is moving so fast?
And everyone expects you to have all the answers?

I work alongside leaders when technology decisions keep them up at night. Over the past 30 years, I’ve been in those moments myself - leading large global IT organizations, consulting for industry leaders, and advising executives and boards.

What I’ve learned is that the hardest part isn’t the technology itself. It’s setting the right direction, building teams that can execute, combined with rigorous execution.

Today, I lead Tairi. We work as a strategy, coaching and execution partner for leaders where technology is a real driver of business value, not just a supporting function.

As technology and AI continue to reshape businesses, my focus is simple: helping leaders make the right tech decisions - and execute on them.