Robin Daniels

Chief Business Officer @ Zensai #HumanSuccess & #AI | 3xCMO | 2.5xIPOs 😆 | Ex @Salesforce @WeWork @LinkedIn @Box @Matterport | LinkedIn Top Voice | Creator of Epic Teams | Dad | Runner | Made in Denmark 🇩🇰

Hi, I'm Robin Daniels, The James Bond of B2B, at least according to one legenday VC 😆

I'm an experienced executive focused on growth, marketing, GTM, product innovation, and leadership development to deliver epic results through ground-breaking, fun, and highly differentiated activities, while empowering people and teams to do the best work of their lives. 

I'm Chief Business Officer for Zensai (zensai.com) - where I run Product, Marketing, Partnerships, and GTM.

Throughout my career I've held executive leadership roles in high growth companies of all sizes, including Matterport (IPO) WeWork (near IPO), Salesforce, LinkedIn, Box (IPO), Veritas, and Vera (acquired).

My areas of expertise include growth strategy, product innovation, marketing, product marketing communications and media, GTM strategies, org design, leadership development, innovation management, mergers & acquisitions, top-level leadership, category-creation, brand building, public speaking, and sales transformation.

Here's more about my life story and journey during the last two decades: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/roadmap-life-love-happiness-robin-daniels/

I spent over 20 years in the US and UK, but I'm from Copenhagen, Denmark and an avid runner and movie nerd.

Founding Member & Advisor

byFounders is an early stage venture fund actively investing in tech startups across the Nordics and Baltics. Made up of some of the region's most accomplished entrepreneurs (Zendesk, Unity, Skype, and more), the byFounders Collective invests in and supports the next generation of globally ambitious founders. I help byFounders portfolio companies with deal sourcing, go-to-market strategy, business development, and fundraising advice.

If you want to ascend to executive leadership, here’s how I’d create a roadmap for my career 💪

Tell me your thoughts below 🙏

#careers #motivation #inspiration

Krista Mollion

Last Business Coach You'll Ever Need I 100% Activator + Rebel 💥 Blow Up Your Solopreneur Business By Joining Profitable Solopreneur/MBA/Accelerator 🚀 Free Masterclass: Path To 10k+ Months 🎯 Content AI Workshop 5/10🧠

Congrats! You built a great product or service.

You've done all the right things, including hiring marketing and sales experts. 

So why aren't the numbers adding up?

When your revenue isn't steadily growing, it is normal to blame a bad hire, coach, or agency. 

But that's not it.

And it's not your fault either.

The true issue?

Your GTM foundations aren’t built for your next stage of growth.

When GTM is broken, you don’t just waste money —you lose decision speed, momentum, and compounding progress.

That cost is invisible on a P&L, but brutal over 12–18 months.

So you hire someone new, hoping, and ... they fail again.

See the problem? It's the system, not the hires.

That’s where I come in.

I convert marketing investment into forecastable revenue by fixing the GTM systems behind it.

What I Do

I operate as a Fractional CMO with executive ownership of growth.

I don’t replace founder judgment.
I translate it into a disciplined, board-ready revenue system teams can execute and finance can trust.

I design and lead go-to-market systems that align:
	•	strategy
	•	demand
	•	sales
	•	unit economics

So growth compounds capital-efficiently — not through brute force.

My work sits at the intersection of GTM, finance, and leadership.
Silicon Valley–fluent. Operator-minded.
Low theater. High standards. Real accountability.

How I Work

I partner with founders, CEOs, and CFOs to align growth targets, unit economics, risk tolerance, and capital constraints before execution begins.

I don’t advise from the sidelines.
I take responsibility for execution by leading the system until it is operating, measurable, and ready to scale — whether that means directing internal teams, coordinating external partners, or sequencing work myself when needed.

I’m engaged as an external executive partner — not an employee — with clear scope, authority, and accountability.

I work across three engagement types:
	•	GTM Strategy (strategy-only)
	•	GTM Advisory (quarterly or ongoing)
	•	Fractional CMO (operator role)

In Fractional CMO engagements, I stay through the system build until growth is stable and a full-time CMO can inherit clarity, clean economics, and momentum — not a reset.

Execution follows the system.
Accountability stays with me.

Fit

I work best with founders who value ownership over activity, discipline over speed, alignment over consensus, and want long-term sustainable systems, not short-term fixes. 

If you’re looking for quick results or someone to “just run marketing,” I'm not it. But if you want someone to build a growth engine, let's talk.

Fractional CMO + Chief Creative Disruptor for SaaS Brands

Attention is currency and it is our mission to get you more of it. 

We design creative, AI-driven, digital and influencer marketing campaigns For micro brands with macro goals

I spent years working with the wrong clients.

Not bad clients.
Wrong fit.

I started my career working with tech giants—first in-house, then at a San Francisco VR/AR agency.
I liked it. Loved it, in fact. But after 12 years, I was ready for a change.
I went solo and started business coaching.

I’d spent years in marketing.
Launches, campaigns, growth—I knew the playbook.

I thought business coaching would be the long-term solution for me.

I was wrong.

I’m too much of a consultant at heart.
I want to roll up my sleeves and solve problems—not sit back like a therapist asking,
“And how do you feel about that?”

So I went back to offering marketing services.

And that’s when a new problem showed up.
A money problem.

The early-stage founders I had been coaching—and now serving—didn’t have the budget to work with me ongoing.
They were all in the under-million range.

And I knew my days working inside large companies were behind me.

It took time, but I finally found my niche:

B2B service companies in the $3–20M range, stuck in growth.

A very specific transition stage:
• The company is established
• Some sales exist
• A website and brand are in place—but not a strong one
• The founder is still very involved

What I see at this stage:
• Lead flow is inconsistent
• Efforts are stop–go
• Agencies have been hired (and fired)
• Everyone is busy, but nothing compounds

These founders are frustrated and uncertain.
They don’t need more tactics.
They need clarity before execution—so growth can finally scale.

That’s the work I was built for. 💎

How did you find your niche?

💎 Fractional CMO for $3–20M B2B Founders | Executive GTM leadership to build compounding growth systems | Single-owner accountability across budgets, runways & board narratives | Silicon Valley–fluent, operator at heart

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Privately, I love the slow life.

All-day ski runs.
Long hikes.
Driving the California coast with nowhere to be.
Sailing. Boats.
Long dinners that stretch past midnight.
A good bottle of Château Margaux.
Long, lazy summers.

Very different from Silicon Valley work culture.

Everything moves fast.
Everyone is in a hurry.
Time is the enemy.

Launch faster.
Hire faster.
Raise faster.
Prove results.
Close deals.
Grow.
Hit deadlines.

Missed? You're gone.

For a long time, my weekday and weekend worlds felt completely incompatible.

And I burned out and took a break.

During my time away. I realized a couple of things:

Speed doesn’t have to mean sloppiness.
And slow doesn’t have to mean inefficiency.

What actually reconciles the two is precision.

The “slow lover” in me doesn’t hate speed — she hates chaos.
She hates half-done work.
She hates hacks, shortcuts, cheap fixes, and fragile systems.

So I stopped trying to hack my way to success via chaos.

Instead, I focused on building things that are:
• clean
• intentional
• well engineered
• designed to scale

In my work, that looks like:

• crystal-clear KPIs
• thoughtful GTM architecture
• systems designed to scale without breaking
• foundations strong enough to run fast on

That’s my beautiful way of blending speed with efficiency.

Move fast — but on purpose.
Build quickly — but with elegance.
Scale — without sacrificing quality.

And rest. We need to pause in business too and reflect. Getting away from the problem will open up the new angles like nothing else.
And when you return, you will see things with fresh eyes.

Whether you move fast or slow, excellence is always an option.

You don't have to accept chaos as the only path.

Build a revenue engine that endures
Then relax and watch it build momentum.

For me, excellence is the goal.
But I combine it with alot of hands-off time.
And it works for me while I am away.

Life is too short to settle for anything less than getting the best of both fast and slow worlds.

Founder, Unignorable Brands | Founder-Operator Fractional CMO & GTM Leader for $3–20M B2B Companies | Global Expansions | Numbers ​> Narratives

A quick clarification on the CMO role (especially for first-time founders and growing companies).

A Chief Marketing Officer is an executive leadership role, not a delivery function.

At the CMO level, the mandate is to own:
• Go-to-market strategy
• Positioning and market narrative
• Demand architecture and pipeline quality
• Revenue alignment with Sales and Finance
• Budget allocation and priority sequencing
• Cross-functional alignment across Product, Sales, and Finance

For this reason, a CMO reports to the CEO.

Not as a matter of hierarchy — but because marketing decisions directly affect revenue quality, capital efficiency, and long-term valuation.

What the CMO role is not designed for:
• Campaign execution
• Content production
• Tactical channel management

Those functions require dedicated operators, and the CMO requires hiring/performance authority and budget ownership over them to be effective.

When marketing leadership is placed under operations or staff functions, it often becomes activity-driven rather than outcome-driven. Over time, this shows up as inconsistent demand, misaligned incentives, and slower compounding.

This isn’t about titles.
It’s about governance.

Growth scales best when marketing has clear executive ownership and accountability.

💎 Fractional CMO for $3–20M B2B Founders | Executive GTM leadership to build compounding growth systems | Single-owner accountability across GTM, spend & outcomes | Silicon Valley–fluent, operator at heart | 3x founder

If you missed your 2025 targets, please don't: 

– Blame your team 
– Hire a bunch of new people or a new agency “to fix it”
– Add tools you don’t fully use
– Chase new tactics after watching one convincing video
– Wait and hope things improve
– Invest in AI before you understand where it fits

Blame and new hiring is easier than leadership accountability.

Growth doesn’t come from quick reactions, avoided decisions, blame, or throwing money at random solutions.

It doesn’t stall because founders lack ambition or intelligence.
It stalls when random action is mistaken for strategy.

Real growth comes from building a revenue engine, choosing the right levers, and sticking with them long enough to compound — and yes, that usually takes longer than you’d like or hope, but that’s simply how it works.

Before you plan forward, look backward.

Start with this quick growth audit for 2025:

𝟭. 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲.
Where did revenue actually come from this year?
Which channels looked busy but didn’t convert?
What worked once — but never compounded?

𝟮. 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴.
Could your ideal customer clearly explain what you do —
or are you still “kind of everything”?

𝟯. 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘀.
Who reached out first this year — and why?
Which conversations turned into deals fastest?
What objections keep repeating?

𝟰. 𝗔𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗱𝗿𝗮𝗴.
What decisions took too long?
What initiatives stalled momentum?
Where is leadership still involved in things that shouldn’t require it?

This checklist is the starting point of your success for 2026.

If you want the full picture, my Growth Engine Diagnostic shows you exactly where leverage is hiding — and what to fix first so 2026 compounds instead of plateaus.

What’s your growth top priority in Q1 2026?

What’s better: more or less?
99% or 10%?

Most people default to more.
More reach. More likes. More followers. More emails. Spam, spam, spam!

I always pick less.

Because “more” is a big business—
and LinkedIn is full of people selling it.

If you want to go viral, create content 99% agree with:

• Eye-candy photos or videos
• Personal stories
• Feel-good quotes
• Light humor
• Colorful carousels
• Big announcements

Nothing wrong with it.
It’s built for mass appeal.

But if you sell high-ticket B2B services (not generic products), here’s the truth:

At any given time, only ~10% of your network will ever need, be ready for, or be able to buy.

That makes things easier.

If you want to get paid, your content only needs to resonate deeply with that 10%.
And when you do the math—that 10% is worth millions.

The other 90%?
Colleagues. Friends. Old conference connections.

Nothing wrong with them.
They’re just not your buyers.

So ask yourself:

Are you optimizing for reach—or for revenue?

P.S.
Ghostwriters, content managers, and social media experts:
chasing views without positioning may look good on dashboards,
but it doesn’t always serve your client’s business.

Clarity beats virality.
And conversions pay more than claps.

One of the most misunderstood ideas in marketing is lag time.

Not clicks.
Not channels.
Time.

Most B2B businesses have a 60–90 day gap between the first meaningful touch and closed-won revenue. And yet we keep asking monthly marketing spend to explain monthly results.

No wonder the conversations get tense.

Once you make lag time visible, a lot of friction disappears:
Marketing looks less mysterious.
Finance looks less impatient.
And decisions get calmer.

If you know how long it takes to bake the cake, stop opening the oven for a peep, only to confirm what you already know.

It’s a small shift in reporting, but a big shift in how growth gets discussed.

Food for thought as the week wraps up:
Does your exec team actually know how long revenue takes to materialize (and are your marketing goals and reporting set accordingly)?

Everyone’s obsessed with the LinkedIn algorithm.
And yes — algo candy works.

I usually do the opposite.

I post heavy content.
Real thinking.
High signal.
High cognitive load.

The kind that doesn’t get many likes —
but quietly lands in DMs weeks later.

Here’s the truth most people miss:

The algorithm doesn’t reward depth.
It rewards ease.

Fast to consume.
Low friction.
Familiar formats.

So if your thoughtful posts aren’t performing,
you’re not wrong — you’re just asking the algorithm to work harder than it wants to.

The tradeoff no one names:

Heavy posts = trust, authority, quiet DMs
Light posts = reach, visibility, growth

Different jobs.

The real question:
Are you trying to be popular —
or are you trying to sell?

Trying to do both at once
without intention
usually fails at both.

The algorithm isn’t your customer.

Join me tomorrow - Thursday, January 8th - where I'll be speaking about LinkedIn 2026 strategy aifh the incredible Tracy Bedwell . RSVP to join live in UK time or get the replay. https://lnkd.in/gRR5iunF

Both sides are acting in good faith.
Both sides are usually disappointed.

The CMO expects a system.
The CEO expects one person to do six jobs.

Alignment beats optimism. Every time.

This is why “good posts” keep getting buried on LinkedIn.

Most experts don’t lose on social because they lack insight.

They lose because they explain too early.

Algorithms don’t reward depth at the top of the funnel.

They reward:
• Simplicity
• Repeatability
• Predictable formats
• Low cognitive load

That’s why “basic” posts spread
while better thinking gets buried.

The mistake isn’t being smart.
It’s leading with complexity
before you’ve earned attention.

Simple surface × repeatable frame → distribution.
Depth below the fold → trust and conversion.

The winning move:
Hook first. Go deep later. 💎

Where do you naturally default?

📅Want more insights on how to win on social? On Thursday, January 8th, I'll be speaking about LinkedIn 2026 strategy aifh the incredible Tracy Bedwell. RSVP to join live in UK time or get the replay. https://lnkd.in/gRR5iunF

Now Hiring! 🎉

👉 Wanted: Supernatural CMO

Requirements include:
• Predict the future
• Make us viral
• Crush the competition
• Double revenue
• Save the day

Work location: The Upside Down
Reports to: The CEO (office nickname: Papa)
Mandate: Defeat Vecna. Save Will. Keep the board calm.

Warning: The previous 4 CMOs did not survive the mission. Résumé exaggeration will be exposed immediately.

Bonus points if you can do it with limited data, a moving ICP, and
“we’ll figure the strategy out later.”

Marketing experience preferred.
Telekinesis required. 🔮

Happy Friday.

As we enter a new week — and especially still in January— I’ve been sitting with a quiet but radical thought.



What if this year, we focused on prioritizing the right P in business?

Not profits.
People.

We all say people matter. It’s almost a given.
But if we’re honest, most systems, incentives, and decisions are still built around profit first.

This is normal. No profits, no business.
And yet… profits don’t exist without people.

The work is done by people.
The bills are paid by people.
Funding comes from people.
Trust is built (or broken) between people.

Somewhere along the way, many of us started viewing people through a transactional lens:
	•	What they owe us
	•	What they didn’t deliver
	•	What they should have done better

Customers become “leads.”
Employees become “resources.”
Investors become “gatekeepers.”

We see people as a means to our own end, not as real. That subtle detachment changes everything. It creates tension, frustration, and burnout — often without us even realizing it.

But what if we flipped the lens?

What if we put people back at the center — not as obstacles between us and success, but as the very foundation of it?

Because when people are truly prioritized:

	•	Productivity becomes more natural
	•	Collaboration deepens
	•	Trust compounds
	•	And yes, profits will increase

So here’s my challenge for you:

What if 2026 is the year you truly put people first?

And how might that reframe the way you think about:
	•	Your customers
	•	Your employees
	•	Your partners
	•	Your investors

Why CMOs age in dog years 🐕

You’re driving the car.
Everyone else is in the backseat.

“Go faster.”
“Slow down—what’s the ROI?”
“Why aren’t we there yet?”
“Take a left. No—my other left.”
“Have you tried just… more leads?”

One steering wheel.
Six opinions.
Same destination: predictable growth.

If you’ve ever wondered why marketing feels exhausting, it’s not the work.

It’s the navigation.

Happy Sunday to every CMO still holding the wheel. 🚗

P.S. Will AI be the equivalent in Marketing to the self-driving car?

You can do everything right —
and still be forced to downsize.

Several exceptional people at Agorapulse  are suddenly on the market — through no fault of their own.

This wasn’t a failure of talent.
This wasn’t a failure of effort.
This wasn’t leadership “cleaning house.”

Because economics happened.

They’re proven.
They’re resilient.
They’re exactly who you want when things get hard.

If you’re a founder, hiring manager, or recruiter — or hiring soon — please take 30 seconds to look:

👉 https://lnkd.in/gxjaACQs

I’m using my platform today for one reason only:
to spread the word and help good people land fast, fairly, and with dignity.

It could be you.
It could be me.

If you can help, comment, share, or reach out directly.

Let’s turn an unfair moment into a fast, human outcome.

Hiring? Experienced marketers impacted by layoffs. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gxjaACQs

Loud presence gets attention.
Quiet confidence earns trust.

The founders I respect most
aren’t trying to win the room.

They’re listening.
They’re watching patterns.
They’re deciding when to speak — not rushing to fill silence.

Attention is easy to get.
Trust is built slowly.

And the people who understand that
usually don’t need to announce it.


If this resonates, you’re probably not the loudest voice in the room.
That’s not a problem.
It’s often the advantage.

Hustle works — until it doesn’t.
Systems are deliberate.

When leaders stay in hero mode, chaos gets normalized:
• high-paid people doing low-leverage work
• nothing moves unless you’re present
• one sick day shakes the business

That’s not dedication.
That’s a bottleneck.

“No one can replace me” isn’t a flex.
It’s a warning sign.

Growth doesn’t come from doing more.
It comes from building systems that work without you.

This mindset makes sense early.
After your first million, it gets expensive.

Chaos is normal at the start.
Staying in it once people depend on you
is a leadership choice.

Hustle creates motion.
Systems create momentum. 💎

Who I Work With (and Who I Don’t)

I do my best work with calm, experienced B2B founders ($3–20M ARR).

They’re past the ego phase.
They respect marketing without micromanaging it.
They value clarity over urgency.
They run founder-led companies with low politics.
They are highly disciplined.

They want a senior operator—not a yes-man to follow commands without actual ownership—
to build a durable growth engine, not short-term spikes.

This profile isn’t arbitrary.
It’s non-negotiable.

Because it protects:
	•	energy
	•	reputation
	•	timelines
	•	sanity

And it aligns with the kind of work that actually compounds:
deep, foundational, long-horizon work.

Who I Don’t Work With

Anything outside that profile usually brings:
	•	constant urgency
	•	second-guessing
	•	blame when shortcuts fail
	•	decisions by committee

That environment doesn’t create better growth.
It just creates friction.

Alignment matters far more than simply filling a role, especially since my contracts are annual. Working together for a year means being careful to find the right fit.

Question: have you clearly defined who you work best with and who you don't?

Silence and emotion are two of the most expensive failure modes in leadership teams.

After years inside leadership teams, a pattern shows up again and again.

Not bad intent.
Not incompetence.
Ambiguity.

Two things quietly break execution:

1) Silence gets interpreted as agreement.
A leader says something in passing.
No one challenges it.
No one clarifies it.

Weeks later, it comes back as:

“I thought we agreed on this.”

Silence creates implied commitments — even when nothing was actually decided.

2) Emotion creates moving targets.
Pressure spikes.
A metric dips.
A board conversation happens.

Something gets said that sounds like direction — but is really context.

Teams either:
	•	panic and overcorrect
	•	or ignore it and hope it goes away

Both paths lead to disappointment.

The fix isn’t working faster.
It’s clarifying before acting.

Healthy teams pause to clarify:
Is this context or a decision?
What changed?
Who owns it, and what metric moves?

If none of that is clear, it’s not ready for execution.

Clarity doesn’t slow teams down.
It’s what prevents thrash, rework, and missed expectations. 💎

Execution usually fails not from lack of effort — but from decisions that were never actually made.

From a CFO perspective, strategy isn’t abstract.
It’s where money goes — and where it doesn’t.

After sitting in too many forecast reviews where no one could explain why spend existed.

What looks like “too much strategy” is often:
• unclear ROI expectations
• budgets without ownership
• initiatives that never get killed

That’s not a strategy issue.
That’s a decision rights and kill-criteria issue.

Good strategy reduces waste.
It narrows spend.
It improves forecast confidence.

If execution keeps missing targets, the fix isn’t “more doing.”
It’s fewer, better-funded bets.

Drama feels productive.
It isn’t.

Calm leadership is what actually scales.

You can have the right strategy.
Strong leaders.
The right tools.

I’ve watched capable teams stall, not from lack of talent,
but from leadership volatility.

When priorities keep shifting and decisions get reopened emotionally,
compounding quietly breaks.

Adding more features
Constantly switching strategies
Priorities change with politics
Hires come and go with layoffs and churn
This is the best way to create chaos.

What does scale is boring in the best way:
clarity, trust, high retention, clear priorities, and steady leadership.

Same team.
Same talent.
Very different outcomes.

This is usually where compounding quietly breaks.

Drama feels good in the moment
but it is an expensive mistake.
Setting up calm, consistent "boring" systems and then staying disciplined and focused with a "less is more" attitude is the profitable way.

------------------------
If you're new here, I'm Krista Mollion, Fractional CMO and founder of Unignorable Brands and I talk about why growth stops compounding as companies scale. 🚀 Follow along - I aim to address real problems after working with 250+ B2B companies.

It’s never the $49 that’s the problem.

Happy Saturday, LinkedIn Peeps!

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