Dave Gerhardt

Hey I'm Dave Gerhardt. I created Exit Five, which has turned into the top community for B2B marketing professionals. Before starting Exit Five I had a 10 year career in marketing and grew from PR intern to CMO. I even once had hair! My wife says I'm more handsome now though, and she's quite pretty so that means a lot -- but the internet just boxes me in as the typical bald guy tech bro. So oh look, another bald tech guy writing on LinkedIn! whoopty freaking do.

Anyway. Where was I... OH. Receipts! I wanted to talk about receipts, because in a world of fluff and online influencers, I actually have some receipts and I want to tell you about them here because it signals power, credibility, and makes it seem like I'm super rich, so: I used to be pretty good at marketing, and my work as a marketer played a key role (at least I think so) in helping two software companies to successful exits: Drift for $1B+ and Privy for $100M+. I certainly helped the founders make a bunch of money, and I was able to comfortably purchase a brand new Toyota Sienna minivan for my family in 2021.

Today I spend my time working on Exit Five, and it's actually been super fun and given me a bunch of purpose. We're a team of six full-time team members now, and we have a private online community and host in-person events around the world. Plus there's a popular podcast and newsletter for marketers. We reach something like 20 MILLION marketers with our content every year, and we've got a pretty special thing going on. I hope to keep it going. You can learn more about it all at exitfive.com.

I spent most of my life in the Boston area but now live in the woods in Vermont with my wife, two kids, two cats, and one dog.

You can reach me at dave@exitfive.com if you want, but TBD if I reply. Depends on the message. But please don't send me any more swag or books. But if for whatever reason you do want to send me something, I play the ProV1x golf ball and like the low numbers.

PS. Find my podcast “The Dave Gerhardt Show” on Spotify

Founder & CEO

Exit Five is a media company focused on B2B marketing. We help B2B marketers build successful careers through our content and community. Learn more at exitfive.com

Content marketers run modern marketing.

Because almost all marketing today is shaped online.

And online marketing shows up as:

- Ads
- Videos
- Articles
- Podcasts and clips like this with Jess Cook
- Social posts
- Newsletters
- Communities
- Influencers

Different formats. But none of it works without a clear content strategy and strong content marketing.

Jess is a great example of this: she started her career as a copywriter for big CPG brands. She cut her teeth writing 200+ variations of a recipe for Rice Krispie Treats.

Then built a career in content marketing: content market manager, director, VP brand and content.

Then turned that into a Head of Marketing role at a startup and was recently promoted to VP on the heels of her success using - wait for it - content to drive revenue.

Not because Vector's content gets a lot of impressions and their podcast is unique or because their little mascot is cute.

But because it's working! Those things are driving revenue. 

I had a conversation with Jess last week (now out on my podcast) and she shared three key marketing plays that she's run over the past year:

1. Influencer Marketing - how does it work in B2B, how did she find influencers, what did it cost, how much pipeline was generated, how did they measure it

2. Podcasting - why they started a podcast, how their podcast stands out, how they record, when/where, how they prep, how they know it's working

3. LinkedIn - we talk a bit about what content types (and strategy) is working well here today

4. Career Path - her path from content to VP Marketing

Erin on my team messaged me last night and said this was the best interview we've done recently - please go listen if you need some tactical inspiration.

Founder: Exit Five | Community Builder | Former CMO

What events are you going to in Q1? We're hosting the first annual Exit Five Marketing Leadership Retreat in Arizona March 18-20.

This event is exclusively for in-house B2B marketing leaders.

It's all about who's in the room and we've pulled together a great group for this event. 

Here are the sessions we have planned:

1. How to Become the CMO Everyone Wants to Work With (with Dave Kellogg, EIR at Balderton Capital)

2. Building and Leading a High-Performing Marketing Team (led by Hillary Carpio, VP Growth at Snowflake)

3. Managing Your CFO and Board Relationship (led by Pranav Piyush, Founder at Paramark)

4. Personal Branding for B2B Marketing Leaders (led by Jane Serra, Head of Marketing at MemoryBlue)

5. Ecosystem Marketing as the Next Big Growth Lever (led by Emily Kramer, Founder of MKT1)

6. How Are You Really Using AI? At Work and Personally (led by Katie Miserany, CCO and Head of Marketing at SurveyMonkey) 

And I'm interviewing Kim Storin (CMO at Zoom) about how she does things and what's changing this year.
 
PLUS since it's a "retreat" - we have time for activities like golf, a workout, pool hang, or in-room massage; get lunch, dinner, drinks.
 
Will you join us?

Pass this on to your VP / CMO friends in B2B.

Full details here:

bit.ly/3Lxj75e

Open article: Marketing Leadership Retreat | March 18-20, 2026 by exitfive.com

Marketing Leadership Retreat | March 18-20, 2026

Andrew Hoerner

Director, Corporate Marketing

Early Warning® -- the company behind Zelle(R) and Paze(TM)

Early Warning powers and protects the U.S. financial system with cutting-edge solutions like Zelle®, Paze℠, payments & fraud intelligence, and so much more. I joined to transform b2b marketing including GTM and growth strategies, brand awareness, reputation marketing, and strategic marketing initiatives for the company behind some of the most used (and beloved) solutions in finance.

VP Corporate and B2B Marketing

DaddyDay.Club

DaddyDay will transform mental health for Dads everywhere. Am providing pro bono go-to-market strategy. Stay tuned!

GTM Advisor

Coherent

• Coherent, the “spreadsheet-to-code” SaaS category creator. $75M series B from Maverick, Cathay 
• Built a global marketing motion from scratch: high performing team + top agencies
• Validated product-market fit, rationalized product/solution set, affirmed ICPs and personas in insurance, banking, capital markets. Supported new verticals and motions in supply chain, manufacturing, healthcare
• Ramped inbound demand gen, ABM to 40% of active pipeline, including 7 figure ABM-attributed inbound deals, while reducing CPL by 70%
• Field and partner marketing ramp contributed to eight figure partner deal pipeline
• Established “voice of CEO” and doubled PR coverage in 8 months

CMO -- Chief Marketing Officer

Multiple growth-phase SaaS startups

• Acting CMO across multiple scale-up b2b businesses in cybersecurity (biometrics), compliance (SaaS), marketing automation, and retail
• Collaborated with founders, CEOs, CROs, and boards on high-impact marketing, GTM, demand gen, and vertical strategies
• Hired and managed high-performing FTEs and agencies
• Built “lean” full-funnel demand gen; $5.7M in high intent leads 
• Refreshed brands, websites. Jumpstarted thought leadership motions

Chief Marketing Officer (Acting)

Symphony.com

• Symphony: the largest connected community for financial services collaboration, chat, workflows
• $2B valuation. Raised $460M from the largest global banks including Goldman Sachs
• I led a digital marketing transformation and built and sustained a high performance team
• Grew ARR from $30M to $100M through fierce sales alignment and targeted campaigns 
• Elevated the brand. Built community. Activated inbound marketing. Enabled sales
• Architected multi-touch and attributed Account Based Marketing (ABM/ABX) and demand gen
• Led product, solution marketing to launch 12 products. Integrated 2 M&As
• Ramped marketing, go-to-market, and demand gen for multiple new verticals
• Implemented Storyteller thought leadership social and content initiative
• Achieved 90% Y/Y increase in PR coverage for 3 years (TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/31pNa3b, Forbes https://bit.ly/2Z1IXE8, Fast Company https://bit.ly/2GPABo7, more)

Executive Vice President, Global Marketing

FS-ISAC

• FS-ISAC: the largest cybersecurity information sharing community
• Helped grow logos from 2000 to 7000; 186% Y/Y increase in paid membership
• Built out digital marketing, hired and led team to create and operate the martech stack
• Marketed directly to CSOs, CISOs, CIOs and CROs at the world's top financial firms
• Founded the Media Response Team to handle severe crisis communications 
• FS-ISAC was a 2018 CIO 100 Award winner: https://bit.ly/2reCS5d
• Launched major initiatives: fsisac-summit.com, grfederation.org, shelteredharbor.org
• Concurrent role: launched Soltra, a SaaS spinout for cyber threat intelligence

Vice President, Marketing and Communications

Soltra (acquired by NC4 Nov 2016)

• Soltra, the most widely used threat sharing SaaS solution, backed by 10 top banks, FS-ISAC, DTCC
• Led creation of the ADDY award-winning brand, launched the company and its PLG motion
• In 12 months, built a $25M+ contract value pipeline with over 2800 companies using
• 70% of closed/won attributed to marketing
• The Wall Street Journal says: http://on.wsj.com/1LqJ9Oz
• Dark Reading writes: http://ubm.io/1BcWm8f
• TechCrunch says: http://tcrn.ch/200V8bj
• Concurrent role while also working for FS-ISAC

Vice President of Marketing (concurrent role)

VeloCloud Networks, Inc.

•  Velocloud delives next gen WAN solutions and is backed by NEA and Venrock 
•  Provided marketing strategy and support to founders during launch and $21M funding
•  Managed rapid development and deployment of new website, video and content
•  Delivered strategic marketing guidance for positioning, PR and demand generation

Launch Advisor (concurrent advisory role)

Mintigo

• Sequoia-backed Mintigo uses big data to find the next "most likely to buy" customers
• Tripled the flow of marketing qualified and sales ready leads 
• Launched first version of SaaS product and revamped the website
• Ramped cost effective PR and social media leading to a full Forbes story - 
 http://onforb.es/18aBCUY and doubled the number of earned twitter followers
• Instantiated inbound and content marketing programs
• Matured marketing tech stack using Marketo, Sprout Social and Mintigo AI

Sr. Director of Marketing

McAfee (Acquired by Intel)

• McAfee: the world's largest dedicated security company. Acquired by Intel for $7.68B
• Led go-to-market strategy, launch & team for solutions in the $500M network security BU
• Owned go-to-market for $80M next generation firewall line. Exceeded bookings targets
• New product introduction with a key partner built a $25M sales pipeline within 12 months
• Integrated five acquired products including SaaS-based single sign on (SSO) and identity management. Directed positioning, pricing, packaging & sales enablement, mid-market and channel
• Led a brand awareness initiative that catapulted us to #2 social media share of voice in 90 days

Director, Product Marketing

CMO | Marketing Leader | B2B | SaaS | 0-5M | 10-20M | 30-100M | Storyteller | 4x Dad | ex Symphony, Intel, McAfee

I love to craft ”stories that sell.” For B2B SaaS companies focused on dynamic growth, I bring over 15 years of marketing leadership ranging from venture-backed startups to large global companies like McAfee/Intel (INTC). 

I am a full-stack marketing executive and have served as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), EVP / Vice President of Marketing, and Head of Marketing during journeys from $0-5M, $10-20M, $30-100M, and $300-500M. My teams and approaches have directly helped impact $625M in revenue and 7650+ new logos. As a player-coach, I build high-performing marketing teams and programs that fiercely align with growth, performance, and awareness objectives.

Focus areas: 

B2B SaaS, enterprise software, fintech, insurtech, cybersecurity, AI, APIs, cloud-native, low code, marketing automation, big data, CRM, biometrics. Familiar with PLG and SMB motions.

Industries: 

Banking (from Tier 1 banks to community institutions), capital markets (multiple asset classes), insurance (P&C, L&R), legal services, supply chain, manufacturing, professional services, healthcare, retail.

Expertise:

Category, brand, awareness
-Category design and creation
-Brand launches, brand identity, brand up-leveling
-Brand awareness, thought leadership
-PR, AR, IR, influencers, communications

Go-to-market GTM
-Market research, ICP shaping, persona development, positioning
-Industry, vertical, regional, and segment GTM motions, activations
-PLG and EPLG strategy, launches
-Sales playbooks and sales enablement
-Partner and channel marketing
-Team, agency architecture, org design

Demand Gen, customer acquisition
-Demand generation, demand creation, demand capture, full-funnel
-Growth marketing, performance marketing, digital marketing,
-Inbound marketing, outbound marketing, SDR alignment
-Account based marketing (ABM), account based experiences (ABX), social selling
-PESO, SEO, SEM, PPC, paid, earned, shared, owned, out of home ads
-Content marketing, channel optimization
-Field marketing, events marketing
-Martech stack buildout, AI -enabled marketing tools, marketing automation
-Attribution, marketing mix modeling, dashboards

Product marketing, solution marketing
-Product launches, solution launches, integrated marketing campaigns
-Vertical marketing, segment marketing, industry marketing
-Customer success marketing, adoption marketing
-Developer and technical marketing
-Positioning / messaging, pricing, packaging, promotion, procurement
-Competitive intelligence

I work virtually, hybrid, or on-site. Bi-coastal: east coast or west coast, USA. Can commute to NYC quickly.

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