Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area
A great CMO is a lot like a cheerleader. Rally the team, energize the crowd, cheer on the customer, drive results, repeat. (Fun fact: I was a cheerleader in college. Turns out it was great career training.) I’m Mike Bernard, a B2B SaaS CMO based in the Twin Cities with 20+ years experience at companies like Vendavo, Optimizely, Blackbaud, and Relationship One. Today, I’m CMO at Evotix, an EHS&S software company on a mission to make sure every employee goes home safe. A few things I believe about marketing: -Driving predictable, scalable, and sustainable revenue is the most important job of marketing. -Nobody cares about you or your product. They care about their problems. When you stop talking about your brand and start talking about their problems, everything changes. -Your customers are your best marketing. Turn them into your champions. In practice, that means I build marketing engines that drive revenue and high-performing teams where people feel challenged, supported, and inspired. I've consistently sourced 60%+ of new business pipeline through marketing, led teams through multiple acquisitions, and done it all in complex markets like manufacturing and distribution where buyers are skeptical, sales cycles are long, and the messaging has to land exactly right. I can go deep on brand strategy or dive into your MarTech stack. I can write the copy or hire the person who does it better. I can nerd out on the data and oversee a full brand overhaul. If there's a smarter, faster way to move deals forward, I'll find it. What I bring to the table: - Marketing leadership for high-tech B2B SaaS companies - Demand generation & revenue growth strategy - Brand building & content strategy - MarTech stack optimization & marketing automation - Data architecture & revenue forecasting - Account-based marketing & predictive analytics Fair warning: I also have strong opinions about swag. Cheap pens are a brand liability. A pair of kicks with your logo on them? Win. Tools of the trade: Salesforce, HubSpot, Marketo, Eloqua, Pardot, Demandbase, 6Sense, Optimizely, Clay, Influ2, Cognism, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Zapier, and more. 📧 [email protected] | 📱 651-210-7782
Evotix is an EHS&S software company on a mission to make sure every employee goes home safe. I lead the global marketing function and build the strategy, team, and engine needed to grow the brand and drive pipeline in a market that genuinely matters. -Build and scale a world-class global marketing organization -Develop GTM strategy and positioning to educate the market on the importance of EHS&S software -Drive demand generation and pipeline creation across enterprise markets -Partner with sales to build a revenue engine that supports aggressive growth goals -Overhaul brand and content strategy to reflect Evotix's mission and market leadership
Vendavo, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company, is a leading provider of Price Optimization & Management, Configure Price Quote, and Incentive Management software, serving enterprise manufacturing and distribution organizations. •Provide overall GTM strategy for the marketing and business development teams. •Deliver on pipeline creation goals •Develop differentiated positioning that fuels specific sales plays to enable the sales team and creates pipeline in areas where we have a compelling right to win. •Overhauled brand to focus on improved positioning, customer outcomes, industry expertise, how products drive measurable value, and thought leadership. •Produce sales enablement materials to assist the sales team in generating revenue. •Doubled the number of published customer stories over the past 18 months. •Maintain marketing P&L to ensure we’re contributing to companywide ARR growth and EBIDTA goals.
In addition, also ran Developer Marketing and Global Events.
Inform the market about the amazing tech Optimizely has and shape global content strategy across verticals with a primary focus on our customers and our customers-customer. Also, be a huge cheerleader for the awesome Optimizely team!
Insite Software provides a leading eCommerce toolset that's specifically designed to meet the unique business challenges of B2B manufacturing and distribution companies. We go beyond commerce, by unifying the experience between people, products and channels. We provide powerful enterprise solutions, with scalable models designed to grow with any sized business. Insite was acquired by Optimizely in December 2019. • Provide strategic direction and executive leadership for the marketing organization. Areas of focus: top of funnel pipeline creation, content strategy, brand, marketing operations, ABM, product marketing, sales enablement, events and trade shows, and BDR team. • P&L and budget authority for marketing team. • As a member of the executive leadership team, helped steer the company through the acquisition process and continue to lead the the marketing team through integration with the broader Optimizely organization. • Led organization through a brand overhaul to become customer centric and adopted a tone that resonated better with prospects and customers. • Lead product marketing efforts to communicate product value in an easy-to-understand manner, improve customer stories, and drive sales enablement. • Increased new top of funnel opportunities by 35% compared to previous year. - Averaging 60% of new business revenue being sourced by marketing. • Provide guidance around marketing ops and data governance (MA tool: Pardot. CRM: Salesforce, ABM tool: Demandbase, Business Development: Salesloft). • Analyst Relations: Forrester, Gartner, IDC. • Work along Chief Customer Officer and AE team to drive new business - 3 record new business quarters in a row. • Continually motivating the entire organization to be customer centric in every area of the business.
Reeher, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company, is the leading developer of cutting-edge software applications to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of fundraising efforts for colleges and universities. Reeher was acquired by Blackbaud in 2018. • Provide strategic direction and executive leadership for demand generation, marketing operations, content marketing, product marketing, sales enablement, events and tradeshows, and BDR teams. • P&L and budget authority for marketing team. • As a member of the executive leadership team, helped steer the company through numerous rounds of investor presentations to private equity firms and led the marketing team through acquisition and integration with the greater Blackbaud organization. • Increased new business opportunities by 25% compared to previous year. - Averaging 63% of new business revenue being sourced by marketing. - Moved average cost-per-qualified lead from over $2K down to $1,025. • Provide strategic guidance around demand generation and marketing operations (primary MA tool: Marketo. Primary CRM: Salesforce). • Determine necessity of, and negotiate contracts for, existing and new MarTech applications. • Overhauled content marketing strategy – 4X increase in the number of content pieces being developed by moving from long form heavy research projects to shorter, accessible pieces that are tailored for specific audiences and persona. • Re-worked lead routing and attribution sourcing to give better visibility into which channels were producing the opportunities. • Launched a new website that focuses on better marketplace positioning, improved SEO, and increased lead generation. • Manage BDR team to ensure marketing and sales alignment. • Hire, onboard, and coach marketing team staff. • Contribute to the organizations thought leadership efforts. Speak at conferences and industry events on behalf of the organization.
Relationship One is a world-class marketing technology systems integrator and consulting firm. We specialize in making the Oracle Marketing Cloud suite of services (Eloqua, SRM, Compendium, Responsys, BlueKai, Maxymiser) do things never thought possible before. From complex integrations with CRM and outside data sources, to advanced data analysis and system customization, we deliver results for enterprise level marketing departments across the globe. • Oversee and lead a high-growth sales team - Revenue growth of 87% from 2013 - 2016. • Develop, implement and continually refine the strategic vision for the marketing department, outside sales and account management. • Hire and develop staff allowing them to contribute, succeed, and advance in their career while becoming the best-in-class MarTech professionals. • Serve as primary Solutions Engineer for the sales team to advance the growth of the services business. • Lead the Outside Sales and Account Management team to ensure quotas are met, clients are happy, and the business is growing. • Serve as the thought leader and and content strategist to position the organization as the industry leader in our space. • Provide industry thought leadership through blogging, speaking engagements, industry panel discussions and conversations with our clients. – Favorite topics include: Managing your MarTech stack, the convergence of MarTech/AdTech, integrations with multiple systems, and optimizing your tech investments. • Manage the Marketing and Sales budget; including staffing plans, revenue projections, expenses, and profit margins. • Provide mentoring and coaching for all members of the marketing and sales teams so they can grow in their skill set, gain industry knowledge, and excel at their jobs.
• Oversee and lead a high-growth business line. Consultant team grew from 7 to 25. Hired, onboarded and directly or indirectly managed the entire team. • Develop, implement and continually refine the strategic vision for the entire services side of the business. • Hire and develop staff allowing them to contribute, succeed, and advance in their career while becoming the best-in-class MarTech consultants. • Serve as primary Solutions Engineer for the sales team to advance the growth of the Services business. • Develop strategies to expand service offerings into new geographical regions and new lines of business. • Lead professional services delivery to customers around the world. • Manage logistical aspects professional services delivery. • Manage the Professional Services budget; including staffing plans, revenue projections, expenses, and profit margins. • Lead the team in support of other departments for additional service delivery as needed.
I have the privilege of leading a team of world class demand generation consultants who work on our clients behalf to solve the problems no one else can figure out. I am focused on team building, staff development, client satisfaction and knowledge sharing. In addition to guiding the team, I work to maximize staff profitability, manage resource loads, lead strategic account development, increase corporate marketing effectiveness, and assist the sales team by serving as a pre-sales solutions consultant.