Moonshot

STRATEGIC MARKETING + COMMUNICATIONS

Collaborating with diverse and project teams to shape marketing and communication strategies, leading to the successful launch of 110+ startups, generating thousands of pieces of earned media worth millions of dollars in advertising equivalent.

AWARD WINNING BRAND DEVELOPMENT + MANAGEMENT

Crafting breakthrough categories and strategic narratives, enhancing brand positioning, culminating in prestigious client awards, including "Best State Court Research and Analytics Platform 2023," "Fast Company Innovative By Design 2021,"  and " Central Banking Finnovator of the Year Award 2021".

EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATIONS + THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

Devising and implemented marketing and comms plans with project leads, coordinating w/ subject matter experts to drive national and industry-specific media messaging. Successfully prepared an executive client for testimony before the US House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services and Task Force on Financial Technology.

Orchestrating speaker and influencer programs featuring high-profile figures such as Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayan.

CREATIVE CAMPAIGN DEVELOPMENT

Utilizing a range of storytelling mediums (short-form video, image carousels, social audio events, podcasting, and online courses) to engage key audiences and convey compelling project narratives.


Staying ahead of digital and traditional marketing trends, executing integrated marketing initiatives like a street marketing campaign at SXSW involving a 10-person team, and art directing out-of-home advertisements in Times Sq.

Proactively exploring new technologies and trends, venturing into diverse fields such as remote sensing, hyper spectral imaging, agricultural water rights management, and legaltech.

EVENTS AND INFLUENCER PROGRAMS

Masterminding notable events, including the private hedge fund investor summit Compound:Thesis, and a high-profile launch event for 300+ Atrium stakeholders, raising over $35,000 in event sponsorship.

Founder | Global Director of Marketing and Public Relations

First Round Fast Track

Working 1:1 with First Round network founders to identify opportunities to share their stories and build personal and professional brands that deliver on business objectives such as fundraising, recruiting and customer development. First Round Fast Track mentors meet bi-weekly for 12 weeks per cohort.

Mentor - Public Relations 

Alchemist Accelerator

Founder pitch practice, message crafting and PR roundtables with leading technology industry reporters from The Wall Street Journal and TechCrunch.

Mentor - Public Relations

StartX.

Empowered early-stage startups with strategic insight into marcomms, effectively positioning their unique stories to reach key audiences, including mainstream media, and key stakeholders. Leveraging my 10+ years of experience in PR, marketing, and branding, I've developed and implemented repeatable frameworks spanning content, social media, and events to elevate early stage founders and teams. My deep understanding of the innovation ecosystem and climate sustainability has resulted in notable brand growth and industry awareness for StartX companies.

500 Startups

Supporting multiple cohorts of portfolio companies with public relations training and hands-on growth communications and go-to-market mentorship  with global early stage founders from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico, Nigeria Poland Mexico, South Korea, etc.

Mentor - Marketing and Communications 

SparkPR

Senior Communications Manager

Cleantech Law Partners

VP Business Development

Google

Intern, Google News

Viacom

Marketing Intern - MTV

Strategic storyteller and publicist driving scalable marketing outcomes for Silicon Valley executives and brands. I craft category-defining narratives that have helped companies raise $1.5 billion in new investment

Every great company is actually a social movement.

Bring me a highly-technical founder with a muddy storyline, and I will deliver a movement leader with a sparkling new narrative that dominates headlines, and drives business results. 

I’m a media storyteller, community-builder, and thought partner to high-performing executives, investors and visionary founders. 

Together we activate audiences to tackle humanity’s most pressing challenges with ingenuity, passion and deep expertise.  

Everyone says they’re result-driven, but over the past decade I’ve consistently transformed high-growth technology founders into category leaders, launching more than 80 startups that have earned thousands of media features. 

Collectively my clients have raised more than $1.5 billion from the top venture capital funds and private equity groups. 

Leveraging my extensive network of investors, operators and media, I curate unforgettable events that lead to strategic relationships and unlock opportunities that propel my clients to the head of the line. 

I don’t win awards, but my clients do. 

Whether it's being recognized as a Fast Company Most Innovative Company, Central Banking Magazine’s Finnovator of the Year, or receiving the Core77 Design Sustainability Award, the founders I support stand out among their peers year after year.

After 14 years in the heart of Silicon Valley, I remain fired up about technologies that tackle humanity’s greatest challenges, including food security, global warming, and how the rise of artificial intelligence will impact small business owners, knowledge workers, creative professionals and educators.

When I’m not working you can find me coaching my son’s soccer team, nerding out about all things Arsenal Football Club, or exploring San Francisco’s bounty of mysterious nooks and crannies on two legs. 

I’m a lover of spicy food, black coffee and true crime documentaries. 

Lifetime learner.

I only work with clients I know I can help. 

Reach me at: chikodi@moonshotpr.com

Chikodi Chima

Helping growth-minded Founders, Owners & CEOs to grow their sales leadership capital by using our proprietary PerfectMatch™ system to identify the ideal sales leader matched to their unique business requirements.

We help your company grow your sales leadership capital by matching you with the sales leader and team necessary to transform your sales strategy, increase revenue and move your business to the next level. 

Our proprietary PerfectMatch™ system identifies the ideal sales leader matched to your unique business requirements with the highest level of precision and assurance to achieve your sales goals. 

Our flexible process allows you to choose a sales leadership model that meets your needs today, onboarding fractional CSOs and CROs, interim teams or full-time sales resources to scale as you grow. 

Ultimately, we help companies achieve sales velocity by identifying and onboarding a sales leader within days, not months, ensuring an efficient and effective path to new customers and revenue. 

Grow your sales leadership capital with Vendux.
Call me at (913) 620-0807 or email me at henning.schwinum@vendux.org.

Who am I?
Creative, adaptable and results-driven global business executive with extensive domestic and international experience in Sales, Marketing, Supply Chain, and General Management, both in a corporate and entrepreneurial setting.

Highly accomplished and exceptional leader that uses strong communication and interpersonal skills to build successful teams, strengthen critical global client relationships, and accelerates revenue channels for the company and decision-makers.

• International Expansion - I took what had been built successfully in the US, and by establishing legal entities, hiring staff and supporting sales efforts on the ground made it successful globally, ultimately delivering over 40% of the total revenue.

• Building Successful Teams - I hired, coached and led globally diverse, dispersed virtual sales teams, with 50+ staff in home offices around the world, making them each successful, loyal and trusting, achieving 94% retention.

• Revenue Growth - I led a sales team delivering 20% CAGR over four years in a mature market by winning new logos, realizing synergies and changing pricing models.

• Optimizing Processes - I established a first-ever Supply Chain Organization, responsible for forecasting, demand planning, scheduling, warehousing and order management of a $600m business.

• Product Innovation - I ideated and developed two new services that today deliver 70% of the platforms’ revenue.

• Margin Improvement - I managed a business of $15m, servicing 1,200 clients with a staff of 60+, improved margins by over 40 points within one year.

Henning Schwinum

Six years ago we spent 3 months "test-living" along the California coast. We weren't just looking for a home; we were looking for a community.

Moderate climate, proximity to the coast, and wine country.

We chose the Central Coast, sold our house, packed a van, and haven't looked back.

Putting down roots here has shaped my business philosophy.

While Vendux serves clients across the country, there's something powerful about engaging with your local business community. I've had the privilege of working with incredible local companies, from a drone manufacturer to a horizontal directional drilling equipment company.

It's a reminder that business is about more than just remote calls and national contracts. It's about being part of the fabric of the community you chose to call home.

How has your local community played a role in your business journey?

#vendux #slocal #community #home

Helping growth-minded Founders, Owners & CEOs to identify their ideal CXO for a fractional, interim, full-time, or consultation role, using our proprietary PerfectMatch™ system | Educator | Advocate | Author

Fractional sales leadership has officially grown up.


Vendux LLC just released the 2025 State of Fractional Sales Leadership Report—the most data-backed look yet at how this market is evolving from a fast-moving experiment into a disciplined, professional operating model.

A few findings that stood out:
 • Nearly 9,000 fractional sales leaders now operate across the U.S. and Canada
 • Average engagements run 9.7 months with deeper weekly involvement
 • 88% of leaders work on retainers, with average monthly compensation at $11,732
 • Growth is stabilizing—not slowing—signaling normalization, not contraction

Perhaps most telling: over half of today’s fractional sales leaders have 3+ years of fractional experience. 

This is no longer a stopgap career move. It’s a deliberate, long-term path—for both companies and executives.

For founders and CEOs, the data reinforces fractional sales leadership as a proven alternative to traditional hiring.

For practitioners, it offers real benchmarks on compensation, structure, and expectations in a more selective market.

If you’re building, buying, investing in, or operating within this space, this report is worth your time.

👉 Download the full report here:
 https://lnkd.in/g-bx2rBr

#fractional #sales #leadership #vendux #report2025

My first leadership lesson didn’t come from a boardroom. It came from a Commodore 64 in 1983.

Black-and-green screen. Cassette tape for storage. A dot-matrix printer that sounded like it was negotiating with gravity. 

By today’s standards: painfully primitive. 

At the time: magical.

I taught myself BASIC and built a simple program for my mother, an elementary school teacher. She needed to show parents how their child was doing in context—without exposing anyone else. 

So I graphed class results and printed personalized reports: full transparency, built-in privacy.

What stuck wasn’t the code. It was the feeling that something I built actually helped someone.

That little project taught me lessons I still use today:
 • Technology only matters if it solves a real problem
 • Context makes information useful
 • Trust and privacy are design choices
 • The best solutions start with listening

The hardware is long gone. The mindset isn’t.

Leadership often begins quietly—by making someone else’s job a little easier.

#leadership #c64 #solution #vendux

View newsletter: The Winning Sales Strategy

Some childhood milestones are easy to date. Mine is anchored firmly in 1983, the year a beige box called a Commodore 64 entered our home and quietly r

Open article: The Black-and-Green Screen: How a Commodore 64 Taught Me to Build for Real Users by Henning Schwinum • 3 min read

The Black-and-Green Screen: How a Commodore 64 Taught Me to Build for Real Users

Ever had a CEO line up three service providers, scan only the price column, and say: “This one is cheaper”?

That’s not disrespect—it’s uncertainty. 

When buyers don’t clearly see the difference between offerings, everything collapses into one metric: cost. 

And that’s how companies end up paying twice—once for the discount version, and again for the provider who actually fixes the problem.

The issue isn’t your price. It’s unclarified value.

A few ways to shift the conversation:
 • Talk outcomes, not hours or deliverables
 • Compare risk, not just rates (cheap often = higher execution risk)
 • Use simple truths: wildly different prices usually mean wildly different experience
 • Ask: “What does it cost if this problem isn’t solved in the next 90 days?”

CEOs aren’t buying a number. They’re buying results.

Our job is to help them see the difference between “cheapest” and “right.”

#price #fractional #executive #vendux #cheap

Every leader who sells expertise—fractional executives included—has faced the same maddening moment: a prospective client lines up your offering next 

Open article: When Clients Compare Apples to Oranges: The Quiet Frustration of Misaligned Value by Henning Schwinum • 3 min read

When Clients Compare Apples to Oranges: The Quiet Frustration of Misaligned Value

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Henning Schwinum

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The Battle

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Henning Schwinum

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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);}Henning Schwinum's LinkedIn Performance

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