Alex Gordon-Furse

portday

Portday is an AI-powered platform built just for shipping agents.

It automates your Proforma & Final Disbursement Accounts (PDA/FDA), handles port tariff updates, invoice reconciliation, document generation and more.

It does this all from one clean software product so that you can spend less time on manual data entry and more time managing your clients.

Co-Founder & CEO

Playmaker

Intelligent document processing for traditional industries, with customers across Financial Services, Real Estate, Logistics and more. 

After finding a specific need in the maritime logistics industry in late 2024, we decided to focus fully on that industry in early 2025.

Stealth Startup

Refining my opinions on where the world is going, and learning what people will need more of :)

Building something new

Community Hacked

Founded and ran a side project with a few of my friends where we built a global community of the best community builders & experts. 

Ran many events where I interviewed the global heads of community from companies like Salesforce, Notion, Peloton, Airtable, Canva, Zendesk and many more.

Co-Creator / Founder

Startup Grind

CSO for Startup Grind global: the world’s largest startup community across 600 locations in 120 countries.

Helped thousands of pre-seed and seed-stage startups gain access to funding, mentorship and customers.

Closed several $million in sales relating to innovation and sponsorship with some of the world's biggest tech brands like Microsoft and Snowflake during my time there.

We also ran the largest tech conference in Silicon Valley, hosting speakers like the founders/CEOs of Google, OpenAI, Zoom, Airbnb, LinkedIn, Uber, A16Z, Y Combinator, Sequoia Capital and many more.

Chief Strategy Officer

VP Sales & Startups

Director, Startup Programs

SG DAO

Built a DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation) that aimed to be the world's first truly community-owned accelerator. 

Pivoted into a community-backed micro VC run by Startup Grind that invested into pre-seed and seed-stage companies. 

We made 8 investments before I left in Feb '23

Co-Founder & Co-Lead

Multiple startups

Angel investor in companies like Bevy (https://www.bevy.com/), Odin (https://www.joinodin.com/), Goodloans (https://www.goodloans.co/) and Paus (https://paus.tv/).

Angel Investor (temporarily paused)

Freshworks Inc. (formerly Freshdesk)

Led Freshservice (Freshworks's fastest-growing product) GTM in UK&I

One of the 5 winners of the first ever President’s Club in 2017.

Freshworks IPO'd in 2021 on NASDAQ under the ticker FRSH

Head of UK & I Sales

2nd hire in EMEA

Worked on developing and executing the go-to-market

Accenture

Front-to-back systems transformation project at UBS Investment Bank and blockchain research project for a presentation to the board of HSBC UK.

Won multiple awards as a top-performing Analyst at both Accenture and UBS Investment Bank.

Business & Systems Integration Consultant

iris worldwide

Worked on the ideation and development phases of projects for the Adidas and Durex accounts.

Account Management Intern

Co-Founder at Playmaker

Empowering shipping agents from across the world to transform their operations with AI.

Learn more at https://www.portday.com/

Co-Founder/Co-Lead

Aiming to be the world's first community-owned accelerator, and has recently pivoted into being an LP in the new community-backed Micro VC run by Startup Grind that is investing into pre-seed and seed-stage companies.

Alan Berkson

Database Administrator

Neon

Limited Partner

Team Flow Institute

Research Fellow

Berkson Productions LLC

Advisor for music and theater production company.

Advisor

Intelligist Group

I work with founders, executive teams, and category challengers to align their message with their mission—and turn complex ideas into clear, compelling narratives that drive growth.

📌 Whether you're chasing product-market fit or leading transformation, I help you:
• Define the business you're really in
• Tell a story the market can’t ignore
• Align your narrative across brand, GTM, and product
• Build the narrative infrastructure to scale

🧠 Typical outcomes:
• Investor-ready pitch narrative
• Messaging playbooks and positioning frameworks
• Company story bibles, pitch decks, and vision briefs
• Analyst relations strategy (Gartner, Forrester, etc.)
• Executive coaching for storytelling & influence

My clients include SaaS startups, global tech companies, and international teams looking to win in the U.S. market.

I also write The Narrative Intel—a weekly newsletter on messaging clarity, strategic storytelling, and go-to-market insight. It’s where I share what I’m learning, seeing, and helping teams apply in real time.

Founder

Freshworks

Director of Thought Leadership · June 2022— December 2022
Director of Global Analyst Relations · January 2015— June 2022
Director of Community · June 2013— January 2015

Key member of the leadership team steering the company's journey from $1 million to $500 million in revenue while becoming the first Indian SaaS company to have an IPO on NASDAQ.  Responsible for the product section for the Freshworks S-1 filing. First hire outside of India, brought on by the CEO to establish go-to-market in North America, driving strategies and execution that solidified Freshworks' reputation as a leading SaaS vendor. Throughout my tenure I was also a prominent spokesperson for Freshworks, creating content, speaking at events, and contributing to communications strategy.

➤ Established the initial GTM presence for Freshworks in the US:
 ⦿ Internal Strategy and consulting engaging with varied stakeholders of the Freshworks community (customers, prospects, journalists, analysts, thought leaders) to raise and optimize brand awareness and customer relationships. 
 ⦿ Focus on events, influencer relations, and content including digital media, social and thought leadership. 

➤  Created the Freshworks Global Analyst Relations Program covering multiple categories (CX, IT Service Management, CRM, and Platform): 
 ⦿ Built program from scratch and achieved recognition in analyst category reports, including MQ's and Waves. 
 ⦿ Internal consultant and advisor across product, product marketing, sales, demand gen and corporate marketing to product and product marketing teams to enhance products lineups
 ⦿ Worked with the GTM teams to improve messaging, product marketing, lead gen, and sales enablement. 

➤ Lead the creation and strategy of a thought leadership content platform to elevate the perceptions of Freshworks as a trusted provider

Director

Founded Intelligist Group to deliver business strategy advisory services to companies in technology, entertainment, media and non-for-profit. 

⦿ Innovated new business models or products, communications strategies, or operations. 

⦿ Leveraged hidden or underutilized assets like intellectual property, human capital, customers, physical plant, or data.

Founder/Principal

Starlight Runner Entertainment

Focused on applying Starlight Runner’s proprietary multi-platform storytelling methodology (Corporate Narrative) to businesses, organizations, and communities.    

⦿ Created a framework based on the fundamental tenets of narrative, derived from the core archetypes and aspiration drivers that continue to resonate with consumers worldwide. 

 ⦿ Adapted Starlight Runner’s core IP, creating new language and methodology, including product definition, pricing, and go-to-market strategy.

Director, Strategy and Business Development

InfoManage Corporation

Pioneer in the Managed Service Provider space. Built complete range of products, services, delivery model, pricing structure for pioneering MSP IT firm, yielding strong reputation for customer service and professionalism.

VP, Principal, Co-founder

Advisor focused on corporate narrative and aligning messaging across brand, GTM, and product; Startup advisor and investor

I help founders and executive teams figure out what business they’re really in—and then tell a story the market can’t ignore.

If you're struggling to explain what you do, who it's for, or why it matters...
That’s where I come in.

📬 I publish The Narrative Intel—a weekly newsletter on messaging clarity, corporate storytelling, and go-to-market strategy. It’s where you’ll find my latest thinking, frameworks, and field-tested advice. [Link in profile.]

I specialize in:
• Messaging clarity & narrative strategy
• Go-to-market positioning
• Thought leadership & storytelling
• Analyst relations (Gartner, Forrester, etc.)
• Coaching for key employees & execs

I’ve worked across B2B, B2C, non-profits, NGOs, and especially startups.
At Freshworks, I joined early and helped scale from $1M to $500M+ ARR and IPO—leading community, analyst relations, and thought leadership.

Now, I advise early-stage startups and international founders on how to stand out in US markets. I’m also an LP in Neon, a seed-stage fund backing Indian startups.

What’s interesting to me:
• Seed-stage teams turning technical insight into commercial resonance
• Post-Series A founders ready to level up their story & brand authority
• Collaborations on content, community, or analyst strategy
• Smart conversations over coffee (virtual or otherwise)

Before all this, I spent 20+ years in IT and helped pioneer the MSP model.
I also helped co-create the Corporate Narrative framework—adapting Hollywood storyworld techniques for brand strategy.

And yes, I consider myself one of the world's oldest digital natives.

I'm focused on helping businesses and people tell their story.

Let me help you with:
- Analyst Relations
- Influencer and Community Engagement
- Enterprise messaging and Storytelling
- Product strategy
- Thought leadership content and strategy
- Key employee coaching

Uncertainty keeps coming up in conversations lately — with founders, with co-workers, friends, and even with my kids.

It’s everywhere.
And most of us never really learned how to work in it.

So that’s what I dug into for this week’s 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘕𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘭.

If you want the full thing delivered on Sunday, there’s a signup link in my profile.

Statistically unlikely in a GPT world | Analyst Relations at Contentful | Messaging clarity across brand, product & GTM. | 📬 The Narrative Intel Newsletter

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The Battle

Alex Gordon-Furse

Alan Berkson

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The Battle

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Alan Berkson

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Alan Berkson's LinkedIn Performance

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