For platforms & portfolio companies

    Fractional CMO for PE-backed companies.

    The value-creation plan assumes growth. Someone has to build the machine that delivers it, and answer for the number at the board meeting.

    Start a conversationFractional CMO vs. agency
    $400M+
    Revenue driven
    7× ROAS
    At $2M+/mo · public co.
    40–90%
    CAC cut, across companies
    $150→$11
    CAC, before the recap
    The value-creation math

    Growth that survives diligence is worth multiple.

    Boards and buyers underwrite efficiency — CAC payback, revenue per head, demand that doesn't collapse when the spend dial turns. A platform can rent growth from agencies for a while, but rented growth reads as risk in a data room. Owned systems read as value.

    That's the engagement: build the demand engine the company owns — paid run with discipline, owned channels that compound, measurement a buyer can audit, and the in-house team that carries it through the hold and past the exit.

    The mandate

    What the engagement covers.

    An operating role inside the value-creation plan — not another advisor, not another agency layer.

    01

    Unit economics on the table first

    First 30 days: CAC by channel, LTV:CAC, payback, and where the last dollar of spend actually went. The value-creation plan gets built on numbers that survive diligence, not the deck from the deal.

    02

    A growth engine, not an agency stack

    Most platforms inherit a pile of agency relationships and no system. I build the engine — paid and owned channels as co-equal, compounding parts — and hold the P&L number myself.

    03

    Per-unit economics for roll-ups

    Multi-location platforms live or die on per-market math. Averages hide the broken units; I run each market as its own P&L while the machine stays centralized.

    04

    Measurement a buyer can audit

    First-party data, honest multi-touch attribution, dashboards that reconcile with the bank account. The same infrastructure that makes growth manageable makes it diligence-ready.

    05

    The team that stays after me

    Hire, structure, and coach the in-house function so the capability persists through the hold and transfers with the company. The engagement is designed to end.

    06

    Board reporting in your language

    CAC payback, burn multiple, revenue per head — capital-efficiency terms, monthly, without translation. I've reported to boards through three exits.

    Receipts, not theater

    The record a board can check.

    Public-company scale, a pre-recap reset, and turnaround speed — the three shapes PE work actually takes.

    The RealRealGrowth lead · public company

    Paid discipline at the scale your LPs understand.

    $300K→$2M+
    Monthly spend at 7× ROAS
    $100M+/yr
    Attributed revenue
    −40%
    CAC

    Rebuilt paid acquisition at a public company from a cold restart. The move off the agency had already happened and failed, with full staff turnover, so the job was rebuilding the function itself: first-party data infrastructure, honest attribution in place of last-click, and a channel scaled to $100M+ a year in attributed revenue while cutting CAC 40%.

    PartnerSlateHead of Growth

    The unit-economics reset, then the recap.

    $150→$11
    CAC per brand
    8×
    Enterprise pipeline

    Cut CAC 93% and grew enterprise pipeline 8× — Unilever, Nestlé, Coca-Cola — ahead of the company's majority-stake recapitalization by Pacific Fin Capital.

    CubiiFirst hire

    Turnaround speed: losing $40K/month to profitable in 60 days.

    60 days
    Loss → profitable
    $100M
    Exit

    The pace a hold period demands: found the real customer in the data, rebuilt the funnel economics, and turned the P&L in two months — the engine behind a $100M exit.

    The honest fit

    Where this earns its keep.

    Four situations where a senior operator beats both the agency stack and the full-time search.

    01

    Platform companies, 1–3 years post-close

    Marketing still fragmented across acquired brands, three agencies with three reports, no unified demand system, and the value-creation plan assuming growth that isn't wired up yet.

    02

    Portfolio unit-economics resets

    The company grew into the deal on spend that doesn't pencil. CAC needs to come down and payback needs to be provable before the next mark.

    03

    Pre-exit growth documentation

    18–36 months from a process: documented, owner-independent demand systems and clean growth records are worth real multiple at the table.

    04

    Operating-partner leverage

    One senior operator who can diagnose across the portfolio and embed where the plan needs hands — without adding permanent headcount to any single company.

    Office hours · thirty minutes

    I'll tell you where it's leaking, before we ever work together.

    Send your numbers through a short intake. I'll read them before we talk, and on the call I'll tell you where you're losing money and what I'd do about it, in order. No charge, and you keep the plan either way.

    Book office hoursOr run the diagnostic
    Common questions

    The questions deal teams actually ask.

    How is this different from the agencies our portfolio companies already use?

    An agency executes channels and reports on deliverables. I take the operating seat: own the growth number, make the budget and hiring calls, restructure the agency stack where it needs it, and build in-house capability that stays after the engagement. The comparison is a leadership hire, not a vendor swap — at a fraction of the cost and risk of a full-time CMO search.

    How do you work with the deal team and operating partners?

    As the marketing operator inside the value-creation plan. The deal team sets the thesis; I translate it into a growth system with milestones a board can track — reporting monthly in CAC payback, pipeline coverage, and revenue terms, not marketing vanity metrics.

    How fast does this show up in the numbers?

    The diagnostic lands in the first 30 days: which spend is working, which markets or segments carry the P&L, and where the quickest unit-economics wins are. Structural results follow the build — at Cubii the P&L turned in 60 days; at The RealReal the acquisition rebuild took about 90. The honest answer depends on what the diagnostic finds, and I'll give you that read before asking for a commitment.

    What happens at exit?

    The system is the asset. Documented demand channels, clean attribution, an in-house team that runs it, and growth records a buyer's diligence team can verify — that's what transfers, and it's worth multiple. I've been on the operating side of three exits; building for the eventual buyer is the default posture, not an add-on.

    The first step

    Bring the value-creation plan. I'll bring the math.

    Twenty minutes on the platform's CAC, payback, and channel mix — a straight read on whether the growth assumptions hold, and what it takes if they don't.

    Start a conversationMulti-location playbook