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Is product marketing the new path to the c-suite? 

Different times call for different types of leaders with relevant skill sets. And while product marketing isn’t the only path to c-suite, it’s becoming a proven path. 

For years product marketing has been the strategic underpinning of tech companies but without the spotlight. This is changing. And it’s important to understand, especially if you’re considering what a career trajectory looks like for product marketing. 

From Brain Chesky’s remark last summer about product management and product marketing merging into one role, to companies such as Shopify, Figma, Brex and Robinhood launching products through big narrative led events, product marketing is at the center of this evolution. 

As a product marketing leader, a typical discussion with a direct report during a career chat or a peer at a meetup is ‘where can I go with a background in product marketing and ‘how should I think about product marketing in terms of my broader career?’

Those aren’t easy questions with black and white answers. But they are very common questions whether you’re just starting in PMM, at the midpoint of your career, or at the director+ level. You want clarity on how the path you’re currently on can help you achieve your longer term career goals and have meaningful impact. 

We’ve shared why product marketing is the heart of tech marketing and last week we shared the 7 habits of marketers who get promoted.  Today we’re going to showcase Product Marketers who have gone on to become executives in tech. Based on our experience, these are the most common career paths we’ve seen PMMs take to have more impact in their career. 

Many high achievers are realizing the value of a PMM skillset in their career journey. So too are companies hiring senior leaders across marketing and product. Product marketers are strategic thinkers who found multi billion dollar startups, lead public companies, and drive impact across the tech industry. 

The product marketing function varies greatly by company, industry, and customer base so the end destination for career journeys are just as broad. Regardless of the industry or customer base, PMM is a breeding ground for – strategic thinking, customer empathy and insight, quantitative analysis, ability to work cross functionally and with executives, and execute at all levels. These skills are valuable across a range of career paths beyond core product marketing. 

The most common paths we’ve uncovered across consumer and B2B:

• PMM → Head of PMM: start in product marketing, eventually lead Product Marketing for the company or lead product marketing and another marketing function such as PMM + Demand Gen; PMM + Market Research; PMM + Content Marketing 

• PMM → Head of Marketing: lead a marketing pillar such as brand, performance, content, CRM, or lead marketing for a specific business unit  (eg Head of Marketing, EMA)

• PMM → CMO: start in product marketing, eventually lead the entire marketing org for a company 

• PMM → PM: start in product marketing, transition to product management

• PMM → Founder: start in product marketing, then decide to start your own company  

• PMM → CEO: start in product marketing, eventually lead the entire company 

Let’s dive into the 30 examples 

PMM → Head of Product Marketing

Our first path is Product Marketers who moved up to lead the product marketing function at their company or a new company. 

Rita Patel Jackson 

Then: Rita's first product marketing experience was as a founding PMM, establishing the function at Platinum Technologies in 1995 and supporting 45 products globally. Four years in, that company was acquired by Computer Associates for $3.5B and Rita was tapped to rebuild the product marketing function for the entire company. She then joined IBM for a highly impactful 11 year stint starting as a Portfolio Marketing Manager and departing as the VP of Product Management and Product Marketing of IBM’s Worldwide Cognitive Industry Solutions organization (e.g. Watson). Later she joined GE Healthcare as Vice President of Global Marketing for the Artificial Intelligence division. 

Now: Rita is the SVP of Product Marketing at OpenText, the $10B information software company. 

Get to know Rita:

• Twitter 

• Illinois Computer Science

• Taking the Lead podcast

• Marketing Profs 

Brian Hall 

Then: Brian has 25+ years of experience in tech in a variety of product marketing and engineering roles. He started as a PM on Windows and Internet Explorer at Microsoft in 1995 and after 3 years, transitioned to being the speech writer for Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. A pretty unique gig. He was then the launch manager of Windows XP, which had some components of product marketing, among other responsibilities. He moved up the ladder to become GM of Outlook, SkyDrive, and Messenger, a $750M product line with 400M+ active users. Brian took another GM role on Surfaces before ending his 22 year run at Microsoft as Corporate Vice President of Microsoft devices. He grew the unit to $5B in revenue and was part of the early success Satya was able to champion. After Microsoft, he spent a year as CEO at a hardware startup called Doppler Labs. Finally, he spent 2 years at Amazon as VP of Product Marketing for AWS, covering all their important products, developer relations, open source relations and more.  

Now: Brian is the VP of Product Marketing on Google Cloud, a juggernaut which generated $9.2 billion in revenue in Q4 of 2023. He leads product marketing, industry marketing and analyst relations for Google Cloud. 

Get to know Brian:

• Last Week in AWS

• Next Ten Words

Harish Peri 

Then: Harish studied computer science in undergrad and his first few roles were as a developer in finance. He joined Salesforce in 2011 and spent the next 3.5 years in Product Management or Product Marketing roles on Data.com where he was responsible for go to market, packaging, sales enablement, outbound campaigns, and product adoption. Then he had stops as a Product Marketing leader at Nielsen and ADP. Harish returned to Salesforce as second this to lead product marketing for their security developer platform including Heroku, Salesforce Shield, and Hyperforce. Most of his focus was on outbound product marketing to help grow the $700M product line. 

Now: Harish has continued to climb the Product Marketing ladder in B2B SaaS as he joined Okta last year. He is currently SVP of Product Marketing for the $18B cloud based identity platform where he is responsible for messaging, positioning, GTM strategy, and adoption of Okta’s core products.  

Get to know Harish:

• Leading the Way: The Sales Enablement Podcast

• CMO Conversations with Tricia Gellman

• Cybercrime Magazine

• Product Marketing Insider

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PMM → Head of Marketing 

Our second path is Product Marketers who moved up to lead a functional area of marketing such as Growth, Content, Brand or an individual business line such as head of marketing for SMB or EMEA. Additionally they could be responsible for marketing for multiple business units. 

Krithika Muthukumar

Then: Krithika joined Google as a product marketing manager in 2010. Over her two years there she supported Android and Nexus product lines. She then had a stint at Dropbox before spending 9 years at Stripe as a Marketing Lead and Business Lead. 

Now: In August of last year, Krithika secured one of the most exciting roles in marketing, becoming the VP of Marketing at OpenAI where she is leading platform, B2B, and brand marketing.

Get to know Krithika: 

• Twitter 

• Basis Set Ventures

• Intercom 

Jim Squires

Then: Jim has oscillated between product management and product marketing. He joined broadcast.com in 1999 as a product manager and continued in PM roles at Yahoo and Ning. He then joined the startup Mixercast as VP of Marketing to lead product strategy and marketing for the company which built Facebook apps for companies such as Nike, Levis, and CBS. He then decide to join the empire, becoming a Director of Product Marketing on the Monetization team at Facebook. While there, he was responsible for the development, introduction and growth of advertising in the Facebook News Feed on desktop and mobile. Once Facebook bought Instagram, Jim jumped over to lead product marketing and general management of Instagram’s business products. He was a critical figure at Instagram during his 8+ year run, becoming VP of Business and Media, effectively a GM role, responsible for leading marketing, analytics, creative, finance, communications.

Now: In 2021 Jim became VP or Product Marketing across Instagram & Facebook leading a 200+ person org launching and growing products for businesses and creators on Instagram & Facebook. This includes products such as Feed, Stories and Reels advertising, distribution and monetization solutions for creators, IG Shopping and FB Marketplace.Last year Jim joined Reddit as EVP of Business Marketing & Growth. At Reddit Jim is responsible for growing their ads business with a particular focus on international acceleration.   

Get to know Jim:

• DMEXCO 2018

• DMEXCO18 Presentation

• Business Insider 

• Ad Exchanger 

Tom Oliveri 

Then: Tom keeps a relatively low profile but is highly influential at Google. He joined the company 19 years ago, in 2005 as a Senior Product Marketing Manager on the Commerce team. He was responsible for Google’s first payment service and associated commerce initiatives which led to a multi-billion dollar commerce platform. He then moved to consumer apps – Gmail, Blogger, Picasa, Google Voice, Google Docs, and orkut  – as a Group PMM where he focused on launches and outbound campaigns. 

Now: Tom is currently the VP of Marketing for Android, Chrome, and Enterprise in which he leads product marketing for Chrome and Android, including operating system releases, flagship apps, and related hardware offerings for consumers and businesses. Further, he’s one of 17 leads that are part of Sundar’s inner circle, and the only marketing person in the circle besides Lorraine Twohill, the CMO. He’s been known to facilitate the meetings of this inner circle. 

Get to know Tom:

• Not much we can find on Tom online 

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PMM → CMO

Our third path is Product Marketers who moved through the ranks to become a marketing leader – such as the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) or VP of Marketing leading the function for the entire company.

Taj Alavi 

Then: Taj was Director of Product Marketing at RingCentral in 2010-2011 prior to their IPO managing their flagship product and establishing growth marketing and research capabilities. 

Now: Taj is currently the VP and Global Head of Marketing at Spotify – the $52B market cap music and entertainment behemoth – leading the marketing org in 180+ countries.

Get to know Taj:

• Twitter 

• CMO Moves

• Cannes Speakers’ Lounge 

Phil Schiller

Then: Phil joined Apple as a product marketing manager in 1987. Most readers of this newsletter weren’t even born. He had stints at FirePower Systems as the director of product marketing and in 1995 he joined Macromedia as the VP of product marketing. In 1997, with Jobs returning to Apple, he did as well. As a PMM he was instrumental in the launch and growth of the iMac and iPad.  

Now: According to Apple’s website, “Phil Schiller is an Apple Fellow, responsible for leading the App Store and Apple Events”. Most recently he was the SVP of Worldwide Marketing for Apple, a role he took over from Mitch Mandich in December 2000. He’s done pretty well for himself with an estimated net worth close to $500 million. Not bad, eh? 

Get to know Phil:

• TWiT Tech Podcast Network

• 9to5Mac

• WSJ

Laura Jones 

Then: Laura was four months pregnant and comfortable at Google, but received a call to build the product marketing function from the ground up at Uber. It was too big of an opportunity to pass up. She joined as a Sr PMM in 2016 and went on to lead a global team of 67. 

Now: Laura joined Instacart as the VP of Brand & Marketing in 2021, eventually becoming the CMO of the $10B publicly traded leader in grocery delivery and grocery technology. She leads a team of 150 across all their product lines, including a sizable ad business, which reached $722M ad revenue in 2022. Laura also recently joined the Board of Match Group to provide more marketing muscle. 

Get to know Laura:

• Twitter 

• Building Better CMOs

• Bloomberg

• The CMO Podcast

Rick Schultz

Then: Rick joined Sun Microsystems as a Group Product Marketing Manager in 1998. He led the PMM team for the Java Platform – the fifth most used programming language and used by 50% of enterprise developers. From there he joined Oracle to lead product marketing Fusion Middleware and Oracle Databases. Over his 7+ years he would go on to lead a 60+ person product marketing team for a $6.5B revenue business. Rick joined Alteryx in 2012 as VP of Marketing and helped scale the company from 100 to 2,100 enterprise customers in his 4.5 years. 

Now: Rick is the CMO of Databricks, a leading IPO candidate company last reported to have an estimated valuation of $43B. 

Get to know Rick: 

• Twitter 

• CMO Diaries

• SaaStr Podcast

Jessica Gilmartin

Then: Jessica joined the startup Wildfire in 2011 to lead product marketing. Google would acquire the company the next year for $350M. From there, she had stops at startups in roles ranging from COO to CMO. In 2020 she joined Asana to lead revenue marketing responsible for global demand generation, regional marketing and marketing operations across our Americas, EMEA, Japan and APAC businesses.

Now: In 2023 Jessica joined Calendly, the $3 billion unicorn, as CMO. In January of this year she expanded her scope to Chief Revenue Officer, responsible for all of marketing and sales.

Get to know Jessica: 

• Thats What I Call Marketing

• TOP CMO

• Revenue.io

• The Marketer’s Journey

Jarod Greene

Then: Jarod spent over a decade at Gartner on the analyst side covering IT service desk processes, organizational structures, applications and adjacent technologies. His first role in product marketing was as VP of PMM at Cherwell Software where he was responsible for PMM broadly including messaging and positioning, product launch, sales enablement, competitive analysis and content marketing.He then became VP of PMM for Apptio, the spend management platform owned by IBM. His role expanded when he joined Highspot as Vice President Product and Customer Marketing and helped 3x the company revenue during his 2.5 year stint. 

Now: Jarod is currently the CMO of Vivun, the AI-powered pre-sales SaaS platform.

Get to know Jarod:

• Adventures in Messaging

• Highspot podcast

• Scale Your Sales Podcast

• Highspot podcast

Chandar Pattabhiram

Then: Chandar joined Jamcracker, a cloud management platform, as a product marketing manager in 2000. From there, he spent 10 years in product marketing at IBM Cast Iron responsible for product, corporate and channel marketing. His next big move was to a fast growing startup called Marketo. He joined them in 2014 as a Group Vice President of Marketing and went onto become CMO. 

Now: In 2017, he was riding high as he was named one of the top 5 CMOs to follow on LinkedIn. Later that year, Chandar joined Coupa as CMO of the $6 billion business spend management platform. He was in this role until October of last year in which he was responsible for all respects of revenue marketing such as go-to-market strategy, product marketing, growth marketing and corporate marketing.

Get to know Chandar: 

• Twitter 

• Pipeline Visionaries podcast

• Marketing Trends

• The Peerbound Podcast

Dave King

Then: Dave joined Salesforce as a product marketing manager in 2008 responsible for the salesforce.com product release at Dreamforce. After cutting his teeth on Dreamforce, he did tours of duty in solutions marketing where he launched and led a focus on the health & life sciences sector and then led the product marketing team for Chatter, their communication and collaboration platform. After Salesfroce Dave had stints as VP of Marketing at two B2B SaaS startups, Highfive and Percolate. 

Now: most recently Dave was the CMO of Asana, where he spent 5 years leading the entire marketing function of the $3.5B unicorn. 

Get to know Dave: 

• Dave’s blog 

• Twitter

• Demand Gen Visionaries 

• The Marketing Millennials

Meagen Eisenber

Then: Meagen joined IBM as a product marketing manager in 2004. She has an eye for picking startups that get acquired as she had stints in marketing roles at three consecutive companies that got acquired by Google, IBM, and HP. She would go on to become the VP of Customer Acquisition for DocuSign and later CMO of MongoDB and TripActions.

Now: Meagen is the CMO of Lacework, the private $8.3B cloud security startup. She is also on the board of G2 and advises a number of B2B startups such as Loom. Productboard, and Sendoso.  

Get to know Meagen:

• Twitter

• Grit podcast

• SaaStr

Alex Risemblat 

Then: Alex joined VKernel (later acquired by Quest Software) as a product marketing manager in 2010. Therehe learned the B2B PMM playbook interviewing customers, doing trade show demonstrations, collaborating with product on the roadmap, developing website content and supporting the sales team. 

Now: Alex was most recently the CMO of DataDog, the $41B publicly traded data analytics platform. The impact of his almost 11 year run as VP of Marketing and eventual CMO is felt throughout the company. 

Get to know Alex

• Twitter 

• Pipeline Visionaries 

• Tofu AMA

• SaaSr

• Remarkable podcast 

Chris Koehler

Then: Chris joined Visual Sciences as a product marketing manager in 2005. He eventually became VP or Product Management and the company was eventually acquired by Omniture. He then spent 10 years at Adobe in a variety of roles ranging from Solution Consulting to Customer Success and eventually leading GTM and Product Marketing for Creative Cloud for enterprises. 

Now: Chris is the CMO at Box, the $4B cloud based content management SaaS company. He joined as VP of Customer Success and became CMO in 2019. He is an advisor to a number of B2B SaaS companies and is on the board of CareerVillage.org, an organization which democratizes access to career information and advice for underrepresented youth.

Get to know Chris:

• TOP CMO

• Zight

• Data-Driven CMO Podcast

Michael Park

Then: Michael joined Siebel Systems as a Director of Product Marketing in 1996 responsible for mobile handheld solutions. In 2001 he joined SAP as a VP of Product Marketing leading the team to become the #2 CRM in the commercial Enterprise segment. Then he spent 8 years at Microsoft in P&L responsible roles such as leading the 1,200 person field personnel for US Small Businesses and Midsize Solutions Group and Corporate VP of the Servers and Tools Division, a $17B business line. He then had a 5 year stint at HP with P&L responsibility. 

Now: Michael is the CMO of ServiceNow, the $156B enterprise cloud computing platform. He recently joined the board of directors of Digimarc Corporation. 

Get to know Michael: 

• B2Believe 

• Business Insider 

• Mirror Review

• WSJ

Peder Ulander 

Then: Peder joined Cobalt Networks as Director of Product Marketing in 1999. He was responsible for all outbound messaging, field training, and press and analyst relations from the company’s IPO through their acquisition by Sun Microsystems. Peder later had stints at Citrix Systems and Cisco. He started to gain more visibility in the B2B marketing space when he became VP of Marketing at VMWare and was responsible for the Network and Security Business Unit. Later he would join AWS and be responsible for Enterprise and Developer Marketing.   

Now: Peder is the CMO of MongoDB, a role he has held since September 2021. A developer at his core, Peder is an angel investor, advisor to startups such as Stacklet and a board member of the Continuous Delivery Foundation.

Get to know Peder:

• Twitter 

• The Stack

• SiliconANGLE theCUBE

Monika Saha

Then: Monica has applied her engineering background to marketing and business. She spent the first 8 years of her career as a sales engineer at Onyx Software, which had shades of product marketing as she would be conducting inbound research with customers at risk of not renewing and would develop solutions to increase renewal rate. Then, in 2012 she got her first official role in product marketing as Senior PMM at Zuora, the subscription management platform. She would have an incredible 9 year run at the company moving up to Director of Product Marketing, VP of Marketing, and eventually landing as GM and VP of Finance and RevPro product lines. She led the 70-person product marketing and product management teams across 3 countries and played a pivotal role in crafting the IPO story and preparing for IPO.

Now: In 2024 Monika became the Chief Commercial Officer of Articulate, the online training platform that bootstrapped for ~20 years and raised a $1.5B ‘series A’ in 2021. Prior to this role, Monika was CMO of Gainsight, leading a marketing team of 60+ across North America, Europe, India, and Japan. She is also on the board of Customer.io. 

Get to know Monika:

• Twitter 

• Medium

• Gainsight 

• Slideshare

David Mogensen 

Then: David joined Google in 2010 as a product marketing manager responsible for the marketing strategy and communications for Google TV Ads. He later joined the YouTube division leading product marketing for the ads product area. His final stint at Google was Director of Marketing of Northern Europe overseeing a team of 50 marketers across 6 countries including Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Netherlands, and Belgium.

Now: David is the Vice President of Marketing at Uber, leading the entire marketing function for Uber and Uber Eats brands  in more than 70 countries around the world. Prior to this role he led Marketing for Uber in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He has more than 20 years of marketing experience in the tech and auto industries and was named to the Forbes Entrepreneurial CMO 50. 

Get to know David: 

• The Soul & Science podcast

• Building Better CMOs

• The Drum 

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PMM → PM

This covers Product Marketers who have pursued Product Management in earnest.

Asha Sharma 

Then: Asha Sharma's career trajectory showcases that she is a force of nature with exceptional leadership and strategic prowess. In 2011 she joined Microsoft and performed a number of duties including product marketing and PR supporting the Xbox product. She would later go on to become an early employee, CMO, and eventual COO of Porch, a marketplace for home improvement professionals. At its peak, Porch was worth $1B on public markets. Asha would then focus on product management, joining Facebook to lead the Social Impact Product. Over her 4 years should would work her way up to Head of Product of the Menlo-based juggernaut.    

Now: Asha’s impact became even more pronounced during her tenure at Instacart, where she served as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) from 2021 to 2024. In this role she oversaw product, design, research, partnerships, analytics, marketing, operations and customer experience. She was responsible for $30B+ P&L and helped lead the company to a successful IPO. In early 2024, Asha announced she was returning to Microsoft, this time as corporate vice president to lead product for their AI division.  

Get to know Asha:

• WSJ

• AI in Business podcast

• Star Tribune 

Yulie Kwon Kim 

Then: Yulie has balanced a career in product marketing and product management over the past 20+ years. The path of PMM to PM is well established for individuals who are able to develop the requisite skill sets. She joined eBay in 2000 as an Associate PM and spent 5 years on the product side before transitioning to an International Product Marketing role where she was responsible for managing quarterly product planning, product budgeting and pricing initiatives for eBay Europe and Asia-Pacific. She ended her 9+ year run at eBay as Director of Product Management for Buyer Applications. She then did a tour of duty at two coveted startups at the time – One Kings Lane and StyleSeat. At One Kings Lane, the ecommerce site for specialty home items, she joined to lead the product function. She then transitioned to a similar role, VP of Product at StyleSeat, building tools for beauty and wellness professionals. That commerce experience helped her transition to Meta, where she became the VP of Product Management for Commerce across the Facebook app, including Facebook Marketplace, which served over 1 billion monthly active users.

Now: Yulie is currently the VP of Product Management at Google, responsible for Google Workspace, which serves 10 million customers and over 3 billion users. The product portfolio includes Gmail, Calendar, Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Chat, and Meet. 

Get to know Yulie: 

• Google Cloud Tech 

• Google Workspace Developers

• ADWEEK 

• Wired 

PMM → CEO 

The next category is PMMs who have gone on to become CEOs. 

Satya Nadella 

Then: Last year a video of Satya doing excel demos went viral. The video, from 1993, shows Satya, who was a Technical Marketing Manager at the time, deeply focused on the product; it wasn’t a flashy presentation. The Technical Marketing Manager role was more common in the 90s and was a mix of Developer Advocate and Product Marketing Manager. 

Now: hello. This is Satya-frickin-Nadella we’re talking about. He’s CEO of the $3 trillion Microsoft. He’s amassed a personal net worth near $1 billion. He’s the orchestrator turning around Microsoft's culture, making the company more innovative, and has delivered nearly a 1,000%+ increase in stock price since he took over. 

Get to know Satya (as if you didn’t already know him 🙂)

• TED 

• On podcast

• Finding Mastery

• In Good Company podcast 

Fidji Simo

Then: In 2011 Fidji joined pre-IPO Facebook as a product marketing manager to help launch the advertising on the News Feed. From there, she jumped to product management and became a Director of Product Management for Facebook Video, VP of Games and Monetization, and eventually was head of the Facebook app (big blue). 

Now: She’s continued to be a force of nature. As CEO of Instacart, she’s refounded the company – making it profitable, scaling the ad business, and expanding their technology platform for grocers. She is at the helm of the $10B company which, along with Klayvio, were the first to test the IPO waters falling the tech downturn of 2022 and 2023. Fidjo is cofounder of Metrodora, an organization addressing neuroimmune disorders. If that wasn’t enough, she’s also on the board of directors for Shopify and recently joined OpenAi’s board.    

Get to know Fiji: 

• Sequoia Capital 

• Stanford Medicine

• Invest Like the Best

• Fortune

Dave McJannet 

Then: In 2010, Dave joined VMWare as a Senior Director of Product Marketing where he spearheaded product marketing initiatives that contributed to the company's growth and prominence in the virtualization market. He was responsible for overall product marketing and go to market for VMware's Cloud Application Platform portfolio. He scaled minimal revenues to north of $150M. He then joined Hortonworks, a company specializing in open-source data platforms, as Vice President of Marketing , a company specializing in open-source data platforms. There he played a key role in driving strategic partnerships and expanding market reach.

Now: David McJannet serves as the CEO of HashiCorp, the $5.3B leading provider of infrastructure automation software. With a strong background in technology and business leadership, McJannet has steered HashiCorp towards significant growth and innovation since assuming the role of CEO in 2016. 

Get to know Dave: 

• Twitter 

• Grit podcast

• Saastr

• Supermanagers podcast

Sarah Franklin

Then: Early in Sarah’s career she was a sales engineer at a number of companies. Sarah demonstrated remarkable career progression once she joined Salesforce, climbing from a Director of Platform Product Marketing in 2008 to President, CMO, and Chairwoman Advisory when she left 16 years later. She played a pivotal role in shaping the company's platform strategy and driving its growth as a leading cloud computing powerhouse. Franklin's impact at Salesforce was profound, as she spearheaded initiatives to democratize technology through platform solutions, empowering businesses of all sizes to leverage the power of cloud computing. 

Now: in January of this year, Sarah Franklin assumed the position of CEO at Lattice, a $3B fast-growing unicorn providing a people management platform. As CEO, Franklin brings her wealth of experience and leadership skills to drive Lattice's mission of helping companies build high-performing, engaged teams. She’s been named to Forbes top 50 most influential CMOs. 

Get to know Sarah: 

• Seed Stage Stories

• Salesforce Developers 

• Renegade podcast

PMM → Founder 

This includes PMMs who went onto start startups as the CEO or co-founder. 

Kevin Systrom 

Then: Kevin’s career progression showcases his entrepreneurial spirit. Beginning as an Associate Product Marketing Manager at Google in 2006, supporting Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, Spreadsheets. After not being able to get into the Associate Product Manager program, Kevin left Google out of frustration. 

Now: Following his stint at Google, Systrom co-founded Instagram in 2010 (originally called Burbn), a photo-sharing platform that quickly gained widespread popularity. Serving as CEO, Systrom led Instagram through unprecedented growth, transforming it into one of the most influential social media platforms globally. In 2012, the 13-person Instagram was bought by Facebook for $1B. Kevin stayed on for another six years in which time Instagram introduced numerous features and innovations, including filters, stories, and IGTV, revolutionizing the way people interacted and shared content online. In January of this year Kevin announced Artifact, a news app he cofounded in 2023, was shutting down. 

Get to know Kevin: 

• SXSW

• Invest Like the Best

• Lex Fridman

• How I Built This

Grant LaFontaine  

Then: Grant’s career progression exemplifies his dedication to driving innovation and strategic growth in tech. Beginning as an Associate Product Marketing Manager at Google in 2011, LaFontaine honed his skills in understanding of product development, launches, messaging, ad creative, consumer research, and media buying while on the YouTube product line. He would spend a total of four and a half years honing his PMM craft. Later he started his first company, Kit, a merchandise platform, and sold it to Patreon in 2018. He would have a stint at Facebook before striking out again on his own.

Now: In 2019 Grant founded Whatnot, a $3.7B livestream shopping platform that employs 400 people. The company is one of the fastest growing marketplaces and has been recognized by a16z multiple years in a row on their Marketplace 100 list. 

Get to know Grant: 

• Twitter

• Everything Marketplaces

• Inc

• Matt Mochary 

Jaleh Rezaei

Then: after obtaining her Masters from Stanford, Jaleh joined VMWare on the product marketing team responsible for developing the go-to-market plan for several VMware products. She optimized VMware's go-to-market approach to acquire small businesses and was recognized as top 2% of 6,000 VMware employees for her efforts. After business school she returned to VMWare as Director of Product Marketing  to launch their employee productivity suite. Jaleh then joined Gusto in 2013, which at the time was a 2 year old fledgling startup. She joined as employee #10, and grew to lead their marketing and BD team, hiring 20+ people over her time there and serving 60,000+ small businesses. 

Now: Jaleh is the CEO and Founder of YC-backed Mutiny, which helps SaaS companies personalize their website. The company has a reported 81 employees and was last valued at $600M.

Get to know Jaleh: 

• Twitter 

• SaaStr

• Medium

• The Growth Hub Podcast

• Acquired 

_{Presented by American Marketing Association}

Level Up Your Social Media Strategy This April

Master the art of crafting a social strategy and turning challenges into opportunities. This small group training from the American Marketing Association connects you with peers facing similar questions around defining your social media purpose and measuring impact. Move beyond theories and build practical strategies that achieve your goals.

Boost Your Engagement, Register Now.