Alex Henthorn-Iwane

Marma Security Inc

CMO, Advisor

yntent

Marketing advisory and fractional CMO services for B2B tech companies and startups, currently working with startups in the networking, infrastructure, security, and analytics/observability space.

Fractional CMO, Startup Advisor

Inter.link

VP Marketing, fractional

Firstbase

First marketer in the door at Firstbase. Executed an ICP pivot from HR to IT. Starting from zero, built the systems, branding, database, messaging, podcast, website, collateral, long-form and interactive content, case studies and other social proof points, short-form videos, newsletters, field and event marketing, digital programs, SEO, from the ground up. In addition, I led a complete redo of pricing, packaging, sales contracts, and release to launch process. Once we launched the brand and website and program funding started, in two quarters we generated 14x growth in organic traffic and $7M in pipeline.

VP Marketing

PacketFabric

Built and led the marketing team at PacketFabric, a leading SaaS-powered network connectivity provider. In my time there, we executed a complete ground-up build of corporate and solution messaging, brand, website, marketing ops, product launch process, analyst and media relations, thought leadership, content marketing, digital and field growth marketing, and hit our pipeline goals. During my time, we also acquired and integrated a cloud storage provider called Rstor which we relaunched under the PacketFabric brand. I finished my mission at PacketFabric in mid 2022 as PacketFabric prepared to merge with Unitas Global, which was completed in March 2023.

Chief Marketing Officer

Sinefa (acquired by Palo Alto Networks)

Built and led marketing for this Series A startup to a successful acquisition. Created new messaging, up-leveled the brand and brought it from obscurity to leadership, built and maintained solid content pipeline. Started AR and achieved Gartner Market Guide recognition. Built Demand Gen team that architected a powerful martech stack and solid DG programs that drove escalating sales growth. Launched fruitful ABM initiatives. Helped founders to build towards a successful exit with Palo Alto Networks.

Vice President Marketing

ThousandEyes (part of Cisco)

Led product marketing at ThousandEyes for its enterprise growth phase that led to a unicorn exit. Re-imagined and implemented messaging to target G2000 enterprises. Built world-class team with top talent that are leaders, industry spokespersons, and accomplished public speakers. Powered new phase of sales enablement, led sales messaging build-out. Established technical marketing function that brought substantial new demo capabilities to the field. Initiated and built industry-leading, data-driven Internet and cloud performance research and thought leadership. Formulated and led cross-functional, PMM-led Internet and cloud outage rapid response team that drove significant media attention. Started and drove SEO practice that multiplied organic traffic. Up-leveled AR engagement, influenced market analysis. Served as key media spokesperson.  Loved every minute.

VP Product Marketing

Kentik

I served as the foundation marketer at Kentik, building the demand generation, PR, AR and social media, SEO/SEM, marketing stack and operations, data strategy, product, content, technical marketing and event marketing from a near cold start.  Supported our rise to 6x growth in 2016 and beyond, hitting defined revenue contribution and pipeline goals, and generating $10M+ in ARR pipeline in first 12 months.  Gained Gartner Cool Vendor, Forrester Breakout, Ovum On the Radar and IDC Innovator recognition.   Built team including demand gen, digital production, program management, technical marketing; developed new young talent. Built the foundation for ABM.

Quali

Responsible for worldwide marketing at the industry's leading supplier of DevOps cloud orchestration  software for hybrid IT infrastructure, SDN & NFV orchestration & validation, continuous integration & delivery, and lab management.

Vice-President, Marketing

Packet Design Inc. (Acquired by Ciena)

Responsible for marketing and product management at Packet Design, which was founded by serial entrepreneur Judy Estrin and provides an innovative IP/MPLS & SDN routing and Netflow traffic analytics platform that delivers network management & network planning applications and solutions to carriers, mobile operators, cable MSOs, and a wide variety of enterprise verticals and government/military agencies.

Vice-President, Marketing and Product Management

❇ I help technical founders and business leaders tell their story better 🎯 and grow their business faster 🚀 Exec marketing leader for $1B+ in exits ⭐ Fractional CMO ⚡ GTM 📈 Technologist 😎 Advisor ✴️

I'm a startup marketing executive with 20+ years of experience in bringing networking, security and software products to global markets. Strong expertise across all marketing disciplines including corporate branding, positioning & messaging, industry-leading thought leadership, product management, product marketing, process-driven demand generation and digital marketing, Account Based Marketing (ABM), marketing communications including social marketing, PR & AR and rich content-driven SEO/SEM. Skilled team builder, talent and leadership coach, and manager. Pragmatic, with a knack for building productive partnerships between marketing and sales organizations. Track record and notable achievements in building research-based thought leadership, strategic partner and Asia-Pacific business development. Creative minded.  Technically knowledgeable. Prolific writer. Polished public speaker. 

I enjoy working with new technologies and high-concept products, and like keeping in touch with marketing best practices. So, I'm very comfortable getting my hands dirty building from the foundations up in an early stage start-up. I'm equally adept at building, leading and motivating teams in a growing organization. No matter the environment though, I love a good challenge!

Such a treat to meet up with Daisuke Ozawa.

From 2000 to 2019 I spent a lot of time working in Japan.
I learned incredibly about how to do cross-cultural business well.

And I made great friends at Toyo Corporation.
Ozawa-san, Tetsushi Okabayashi, Akihiro NAKAMURA, Yoshihiro Mino and others.

Ever wonder how to translate forecast certainties from English to Japanese?
We worked that out.

Ever wonder how many drinks it takes to create connections?
Don't ask 😂.

Those experiences shaped my view of business.
So, I'm grateful to carry these friendships over time.

Safe travels home Ozawa-san!

#career #japan #internationalbusiness

An employer's market shows what hiring managers are made of.
I urge hiring teams to keep the golden rule in mind.

It has been super instructive to watch the hiring processes that the young, bright people in our community are going through.

I've seen true decency and human consideration. 
I've also seen some pretty awful bullshit.

The worst case is being asked to do projects and then getting ghosted.
You read about it. I've witnessed it. Blood boiling stuff.

But even some of the better ones make me pause.

For example, I've seen a case where someone is a finalist vs. one other candidate, has spent time onsite with the team, and has done a full-day project, including calls with the team.

They turn in the project. 
Wait multiple days.
Then, only get an email follow-up. 

That's far better than being ghosted.
But still, c'mon.

If you ask someone to embed live, do a live project call with them, and they work all day to produce something for you, you should give them live feedback.

It's only decent.

That said, when the employee market was crazy, entitled applicants also acted unprofessionally. The same principle applies.

At the end of the day, we all need to strive hard to be the kind of people we would be proud to reflect upon.

As an applicant.
As a hiring manager.
As a leader.

Even when things are crazy and demanding.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful day.

#career #hiring

If you see me post that AI has transformed my life,
send a rescue team asap.

Don't worry everybody. Crowdstrike recovery tech is being rolled out asap at airlines, banks, etc.

I've often wondered what the telltale signs of ChatGPT copy are.
Margaret Efron wrote a fun and enlightening Medium post on this.

One of the things she notes is that common words overused by ChatGPT tend to be "mechanical and vague."

For example, she covers transitional words like:
-Accordingly
-Consequently
-Moreover
-Undoubtedly

If you read the article, she also covers adjectives (my fave is "ever-evolving"), nouns (a fave is "tapestry"), and verbs, plus some other choice phrases. Def worth checking out.

It made me think about that old Shakespeare insult kit, and so just to have some fun I thought I'd create a version of that. 

In order to be sure that I gave plenty of pointers to the source material, I put this together as a carousel... 

I guess I've been thinking a lot about copywriting recently.

Link to Margaret's original Medium post since links don't work in carousels 😠 
https://lnkd.in/ggjxdjE8

Hope you enjoy this.

#marketing #copywriting #chatgpt

Obviously Written by ChatGPT Generator

Building your own observability platform is "more difficult than you may think at first."

I loved the insights and candor that Radu Ioncu from Jump Trading Group shared on the recent Packet Pushers Heavy Networking podcast, on how they built their own in-house observability platform.

Aside from the very interesting technical overview of how they utilize various methodologies from streaming telemetry down to SNMP, etc. I was particularly struck by his comment towards the end of the podcast, where he answered a question on advice about building your own observability stack:

“I would say it's more difficult than you may think at first. It's like probably if you have a Greenfield deployment, if a single vendor or brand new switches, it's probably not worth it to invest the time and manpower in something like this." 

He then added that one of the key challenges is how you scale.

“You probably need to make good tech decisions at the start, depending on how large the infrastructure is and how you want it to scale.

"There's, you know, choices that you make that may seem okay when, again, you're only, like, monitoring ten switches that do not scale at all and you're gonna have big problems once you start going into, you know, monitoring thousands.”

Having worked around both observability and automation, I think these comments apply pretty broadly.

It's easiest to adopt off-the-shelf tools when you have a single vendor or all-new infrastructure. 

Yet, the challenge is that many organizations have a long tail of legacy infrastructure that isn't tidy, that doesn't have uniform APIs, or sometimes any API at all 🙄.

In the realm of automation, coping with that spread of infrastructure well, at scale, is certainly a big challenge. 

Anyway, loved the podcast. Great interview as always by Ethan Banks. Worth a listen as usual. https://lnkd.in/gPgCTZxY

#observability #techstack #

If you're a hands-on PR professional in the UK or Europe and want to expand your scope as a marketer, please consider this opportunity.

I previously posted about a Sr. Marketing Manager role for Inter.link. This is an update based on further thinking about how we want to evolve marketing at Inter.link.

Inter.link is a Network-as-a-Service startup running a pan-European network, selling globally. 

Aside from delivering high-quality IP, Ethernet, and DDoS proteciton services with a ton of transparency and ease-of-consumption, Inter.link is distinctive because it is deeply committed to sustainability.  You can see more about this at https://inter.link.

From a marketing PoV, we've given a good deal of thought to what we need in our next Sr. Marketing Manager, and believe that someone who has done hands-on public relations work is the best fit to help us get our story out further. 

So, if you're looking to take your direct PR experience and go beyond it to a larger scope of marketing program and operations management, this is a great fit and we'd love to have you apply.

I want to emphasize that being a hands-on PR professional means that you have personally done the work of managing a pipeline of PR opportunities, done press outreach and story pitching, etc. Not just managing an agency.

Also note, the job posting says UK, but this is only because you have to choose a location. The company is fully remote and works in CET, so UK/Europe locations are all good. 

#career #marketing #pr

https://lnkd.in/g2R8f363

Word salad is not a healthy dish.
It is hazardous to your readers' mental health.

I recently read an article from a reputable organization that contained the following terms in a single paragraph:

Process discipline ... aligned to common... taxonomy terminology... disciplined adherence.. 
process standardization... broad outcomes... gains... activity cycle times...gap difficult align functional objectives consistently... framework anchored standard taxonomy... impact cascades stakeholders... perception confusion inspiring confidence

Much of the rest of the article continued that pattern.

Sounds hard to read, right? 
It was. 

I tried and gave up multiple times.

Bummer because it's an interesting topic.
And the writer is knowledgeable.
But the barrier is real.

This is more common than it should be.

Why does this happen?
Let's imagine the possibilities.

1. Too much to say, too little space.
You want to get a lot across, but you don't have the word count. Maybe there's some imposed limit. So you try to cram more terms into less textual real estate. Result: word salad.

2. Big concepts, too little time to simplify.
You've got some strong content, but you're trying to rush a piece out for whatever reason.  It takes a lot of time and thought to simplify. You don't or can't take that time, so you end up with a lot of complexity. Result: word salad.

3. Too little to say, gotta fill some word count.
You're writing on something that is important, but you don't have enough to say yet, so you try to compensate. So you add some padding with extra descriptors, then you think "well I need to make these sound more weighty" so you upgrade those. Before you know it: word salad.

Anyway, not making excuses. I really try to never write word salad myself.
But I think it's more useful to contemplate the why rather than just condemn it.

Here's to creating and consuming healthier and more delightful copy than word salad.

#marketing #content #copywriting

Embracing your imperfections can lead to messaging gold.
A lesson derived from Kintsugi.

Kintsugi is a Japanese art form in which broken pottery is repaired using lacquer mixed with powdered precious metals like gold, silver, or platinum.

No startup has it all.
Most have to pivot.

Sometimes, mistakes are made.
And competitors don't stand still.

In that process, there can be churn.
Founders or leaders may move on.
The landscape changes.
It can be confusing.

But if you still have great things to offer.
Then, facing your imperfections allows you to recommit to core convictions, re-find your distinctive, and go back out swinging.

In Kintsugi, imperfections turn into art.
In startup life, facing imperfections can turn into gold.

image courtesy of BBC article "https://lnkd.in/gJE6rjPa"
#startuplife #marketing

100 billion bad SDR emails per day.
Will definitely keep the buyer away.

From what I've read, there are ~300B emails sent per day.
Not science, but I'm guessing 100B per day are sales outreach emails.

That's a ****load of mostly terrible sales outreach experiences.
Repeated for the last decade.

See exhibit number 134,203,200,792 below...

The SDR **from LinkedIn** pitching me for a company I left a decade ago.
Hits a new ironic low 🙄.

BTW, I did verify they currently work for LinkedIn.
On LinkedIn. 🤔 
They didn't. 🤯 

The experience is so bad, so often, that it has inoculated a generation of prospects and driven everyone underground into anonymous buyer journeys.

That said, I believe a thoughtful, deeply personalized, and community-led approach is the way to zag away from the crowd.

Hopefully we'll see more of that, and less of this.

#buyerjourney #personalization #salesoutreach

You're always delivering a PoV message.
It just might not be the one you want.

Messaging today, more than ever, is about a PoV that cuts through the noise.

If you're challenging incumbency, you need to cut through the deliberate obfuscation and muddle that incumbents tend to pour out. 

They want to freeze things in place, to slow the game down on their terms.

You have to cut through that.

If you don't do that, you're communicating a PoV.
A PoV that you are in agreement with the status quo.
Not a winning play.

It can be hard to get around to delivering a punchy PoV.

1. The first and biggest obstacle is clarity and conviction around your position.
Which requires honest reflection plus sound market and customer research.
Plus, rigorous testing of the message until you're convinced its right.

2. The second big obstacle is perfectionism.
Trying to get everything just right.
Which means you need to be okay just getting started.

3. The third obstacle is shiny object syndrome.
Being tempted to reformulate around the latest trend instead of bringing your high-conviction PoV to bear on it.
This requires discipline and stick-to-it-iveness.

Of course you may need to modify PoV as things evolve over time.
But more often than not, companies don't stay on message long enough.
The biggest cause of shiny object syndrome is lack of thorough work on obstacle 1, which means you haven't arrived at true conviction.

But if you can, don't hold back.
Your PoV can cut through.
Or it can endorse the status quo.

Your choice.

#messaging #marketing #PoV

Best food analogy for AI as a part of copywriting?


-Probiotic
-Refined sugar
-5-hour energy
-Whey protein
-Laxative
-Saccharine
-Psyllium husk
-Donut
-Pink slime
-Corn silk
-Other?

Just having fun here. 

But seriously, it feels like the industry is in a state of a multi-variate opinion regression about AI in writing.

I personally find certain tools invaluable.

But I'm not ready to outsource my brain or creativity to it.

What does marketing have to do with medieval art?
So glad you asked! 🤣 

Been taking time to travel and feed my brain.
I particularly love history and art.

By definition, most of what survives in museums was produced by elites, by those with wealth and power.

They were careful to put their money into things that communicated their legitimacy. In short, these are, among other things, branding.

Of course, given the day and age, religious symbols were a motherlode of power to establish the legitimacy of a dynastic brand. 

A jewel-encrusted box with a prominent religious symbol could work.

Even if you don't question their core conviction, let's remember that they weren't creating massively jewel-encrusted religious pieces solely out of piety.

Marketers strive to support a message with *evidence.* 
So, besides showering a religious symbol in gold and jewels, what to do?

By acquiring (and I do mean for a lot of $$$$) physical evidence points.

Like splinters of the *actual cross* that Jesus was crucified on.
That's what the cross-shaped depression contained.

With historical distance, these points of evidence might seem about as convincing as an obviously marketing-drafted case study.

Someone must have been pretty enterprising to save the capital punishment instrument of a 'religious radical' in first-century Palestine, for future profit.

But we digress.

These artifacts carried a lot of weight, and there weren't many voices pushing back and saying that the sovereign's "evidence" was bogus.

Boss-level branding. 
Great marketing investment.
Stunning piece of art.

#marketing #art #history

Taplio

Alex Henthorn-Iwane's Linkedin Analytics