Be the CMO they can't afford to lose.
There are two kinds of CMOs. One endures second-guessing. The other leads strategy. Shift into the second. With coaching and tools that prove ROI and secure your seat at the executive table
Trusted By CMOs & Marketing Leaders at:
Marketing leadership gets harder every year
- Tenures are short: 18 months isn’t long enough to show the board everything you’re capable of.
- Broken alignment: There’s no cross functional alignment unless you drive the strategy.
- Brand vs. Performance Tension: You're responsible for long term growth, but the company is addicted to short-term results.
Marketing leadership gets harder every year
- Tenures are short: 18 months isn’t long enough to show the board everything you’re capable of.
- Broken alignment: There’s no cross functional alignment unless you drive the strategy.
- Brand vs. Performance Tension: You're responsible for long term growth, but the company is addicted to short-term results.
Introducing Strategic CMO Coaching
Private Equity's
Favorite Chief Marketer.
CMOs & Marketing Executives
Top people have top-notch coaches. After mentoring over 150 marketing leaders, I’ve developed a process that transforms how CMOs operate. And how they communicate value. Through targeted weekly coaching sessions, we’ll build frameworks that align marketing initiatives with business objectives, establish clear metrics that the board understands, and position you as the strategic leader your organization needs.
Private Equity Investors & CEOs
Portfolio Companies need a focused professional marketing leader, doing the right things the right way.
As interim CMO or fractional CMO, Alan leads the portco marketing team and builds the infrastructure for long-term growth. He mobilizes the team, and aligns their processes, technology, data analytics and pricing.
For half a decade he’s been scaling portcos, establishing their long-term growth and brand equity. Including Precisely, FinThrive, Brightly Software (now Siemens), Tungsten Automation, Cornerstone OnDemand, Paysafe, Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence, Koerber Supply Chain Software, and Quest Software.
His PE clients include Clearlake Capital, Insight Partners, KKR, CVC, Blackstone and TA Associates.
Introducing Strategic CMO Coaching
Private Equity's
Favorite Chief Marketer.
CMOs & Marketing Executives
Top people have top-notch coaches. After mentoring over 150 marketing leaders, I’ve developed a process that transforms how CMOs operate. And how they communicate value. Through targeted weekly coaching sessions, we’ll build frameworks that align marketing initiatives with business objectives, establish clear metrics that the board understands, and position you as the strategic leader your organization needs.
Private Equity Investors & CEOs
Portfolio Companies need a focused professional marketing leader, doing the right things the right way.
As interim CMO or fractional CMO, Alan leads the portco marketing team and builds the infrastructure for long-term growth. He mobilizes the team, and aligns their processes, technology, data analytics and pricing.
For half a decade he’s been scaling portcos, establishing their long-term growth and brand equity. Including Precisely, FinThrive, Brightly Software (now Siemens), Tungsten Automation, Cornerstone OnDemand, Paysafe, Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence, Koerber Supply Chain Software, and Quest Software.
His PE clients include Clearlake Capital, Insight Partners, KKR, CVC, Blackstone and TA Associates.
How we'll get you there
- The One-Hour Weekly Strategy Planner: You're never more than 6 days from your next course correction or decision breakthrough.
- Communication, Reimagined: We'll develop the compelling narratives that justify marketing investments to the C-suite and board.
- Cross-Functional Alignment Strategy: It's time to bridge the gaps between marketing, sales, product, customer success, and finance for unified business growth.
- ROI Models That Work: Quantify marketing's impact in terms that resonate with CFOs and boards.
- Accelerate Your Influence: Position yourself as a strategic business partner period.
How we'll get you there
- The One-Hour Weekly Strategy Planner: You're never more than 6 days from your next course correction or decision breakthrough.
- The One-Hour Weekly Strategy Planner: You're never more than 6 days from your next course correction or decision breakthrough.
- Communication, Reimagined: We'll develop the compelling narratives that justify marketing investments to the C-suite and board.
- Cross-Functional Alignment Strategy: It's time to bridge the gaps between marketing, sales, product, customer success, and finance for unified business growth.
- ROI Models That Work: Quantify marketing's impact in terms that resonate with CFOs and boards.
- Accelerate Your Influence: Position yourself as a strategic business partner period.
CMO Coach,
Advisor, and Mentor
Alan helps CMOs and marketing executives advance into great leadership roles, shift Marketing from tactics to a unified strategy, and consistently prove Marketing’s ROI. Primarily for mid-market and larger HealthTech, SaaS, enterprise software firms.
Interim CMO and
Fractional CMO
Alan performs as an interim CMO or fractional CMO for private equity investors to accelerate portfolio company ROl. He joins the Executive Leadership Team to lead marketing, build Marketing’s infrastructure, deploy aligned growth plays, and onboard and coach the new CMO.
This is where Alan Gonsenhauser comes in, he sat in your seat multiple times.
Trusted across PE-backed portfolio companies
- Brightly Software / Siemens Infrastructure (Clearlake Capital) 12,000 customers, Employees: ~800
- FinThrive (Clearlake Capital) $700M revenue, Healthcare RCM serving 3,200+ providers
- Precisely (Clearlake Capital and Insight Partners) $652.2 Million, 12,000 customers
- Koerber Supply Chain Software (KKR) $550M revenue
- Quest Software (Clearlake Capital) Global cybersecurity and data management
- Cornerstone OnDemand (Clearlake Capital) ~$600M revenue, 7,000 employees
- Tungsten Automation (Clearlake Capital) $500M revenue, 2,200 employees
- Paysafe (Blackstone and CVC) $1.71B–$1.73B revenue, 3,300 employees
- SoftwareONE (KKR) ~$1.4B revenue, 12,700 employees
3 ways to unlock revenue growth
The right engagement model depends on where the portco is in its growth cycle, who is in the CMO seat, and what the board needs to see.
For the CMO already in seat
CMO Coaching
Ongoing strategic leadership
Interim & Fractional CMO
Hands-on GTM partnership
GTM Advisor
Marketing = NOT Just creating and managing demand!
- Influence net revenue retention (NRR), expansion, and long-term financial value
- Shift from pipeline thinking to full-funnel lifecycle ownership.
- Reframe their role as business builders, not just brand leaders.
- Includes the Growth Architect Checklist, lifecycle frameworks, and board-level language shifts
- Get Alan Gonsenhauser’s weekly briefings, concise, practical strategies for becoming a boardroom-ready CMO
Be the CMO they can’t afford to lose.
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Demand Revenue is a Certified GTM Partners Advisor
We bring proven frameworks, benchmarks, and playbooks from hundreds of C-suite GTM assessments combined with my experience at Forrester and SiriusDecisions as a CMO advisor.
You don’t need more marketing noise. You need a repeatable, investor-grade GTM system.
Demand Revenue is a Certified GTM Partners Advisor
We bring proven frameworks, benchmarks, and playbooks from hundreds of C-suite GTM assessments combined with my experience at Forrester and SiriusDecisions as a CMO advisor.
You don’t need more marketing noise. You need a repeatable, investor-grade GTM system.
Stories from Alan's
Private Equity + CMO clients
“As a global software leader transforming rapidly under private equity ownership, Precisely must operate with great speed and agility to stay out in front of market trends. One of the ways we’ve done this within the Precisely Marketing organization is to engage Alan and Demand Revenue to apply focus and industry best practices to key initiatives”
Kevin Ruane
CMO Precisely
“Alan was a key partner in helping me plan for marketing organizational change, integration of a team due to M&A, and our overall GTM evolution. He is experienced and knowledgeable about the space, having both done the work and helped dozens of other leaders as an advisor. He is also extremely easy to work with and generous in his approach to helping others. As a CMO, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking we know it all (we don’t), and finding people like Alan to help remind us that there are many ways to solve problems is always a gift. He can range from the very strategic to the highly practical, and he keeps his commitments. You should know him, work with him, and learn from him if you get the opportunity.”
Norman Guadagno
CMO Carbonite; Now CMO Mimecast
“Alan provided significant value as a trusted Marketing Advisor and partner to me with Philip’s global product-to-audience transformation of our marketing organizations. He presented to our CEO in Amsterdam and built relationships on multiple levels, helping us with organization design, change management, focusing on growth segments and audiences, and key metrics to track our progress.”
Thomas Lisewski
Global CMO, Philips Healthcare
“As a new VP of Marketing at Vocera, I needed support from someone that knew the healthcare market and how to grow a marketing team to be innovative, relevant and results oriented. Alan was the perfect prescription. He helped me with org design, determining how to move from a VP of Marketing to a CMO, how to leverage the tools to assess brand strength when integrating a newly acquired company, and helped me to develop a strategy to evolve field marketing as the company expanded its international focus”
Kathy English
CMO Vocera, a Stryker Company
“I have the privilege of being mentored by Alan. He is a fantastic marketing leader with extensive background as a CMO and brings a unique blend of strategic acumen and hands-on expertise. Alan’s methodical approach emphasizes crafting the right foundation before executing impactful plans. His mentorship, honed through guiding many senior marketing executives, distinguishes him as a leader committed not only to strategic excellence but also to the growth and success of those he mentors.”
Alisa Barber
Chief Marketing Officer, Paysafe
“If you are a marketing leader and are looking for help with your marketing strategy, organizational design operations, and execution across all marketing domains, I highly recommend Alan. Using his vast experience as a CMO and industry analyst, we specifically leveraged Alan’s expertise to help us across multiple projects to help identify our ideal customer profile and create a framework for integrated campaigns.”
Bernd Leger
CMO CornerstoneOnDemand
“Alan’s ability in assessing, benchmarking, augmenting organizational gaps, tackling the demand generation engine and prioritizing marketing spend is outstanding. He has a wealth of specialist resources at his disposal that can accelerate marketing transformation and he uses them wisely. As an experienced executive, Alan has a strategic mind and gains the respect of the ELT and the board rapidly to execute on delivering results rapidly.”
Payam Taaghol
Clearlake Capital
“Alan was our Interim CMO at FinThrive while we were undergoing a brand transformation and scaling up our demand generation engine.
As a seasoned CMO, he worked incredibly well with our leadership team and our private equity sponsors to deliver a very successful outcome. Given my experience, I’ve recommended Alan for additional interim CMO assignments.”
Rick Pleczko
CEO, Operating Executive Group, CapStreet Group; Vice Chairman, FinThrive Board
“Alan Gonsenhauser served as our Interim CMO / Fractional CMO at Brightly Software, a Siemens Company, from August, 2022 through January 2023. During this time, Alan played a key role on our executive leadership team, and in driving stability and alignment within the 25+ person global marketing team.
Alan brought a wealth of expertise and leadership to the role, quickly stabilizing the marketing organization during a time of significant change and our Siemens integration.”
Kevin Kemmerer
CEO Brightly Software, a Siemens company
“True professional. We recently executed a company rebrand and engaged Alan as an Advisor. Alan brought a strong Private Equity background that identified several ‘unknowns’ which allowed me to allocate resources efficiently. This was especially helpful as my team executed cross-functional governance and designed success metrics to drive success. Alan remained consistent and steadfast in his advice which kept us focused on the most important priorities. All resulting in a very successful brand launch at our annual sales kick off event.”
Chris Huff
Chief Growth Officer at Tungsten Automation
“Alan was an invaluable advisor to me in my CMO role, providing support and guidance in my ongoing quest to stay externally focused. And I often referenced the C-Suite dashboards we collaborated on in my CMO and CEO roles. The types of dashboards and marketing tools Alan provided were always useful (not overly complex) and helped to convey a clear marketing value story.”
Virginia Brailey
Vice President, Marketing and Strategy ADP
“As a global software leader transforming rapidly under private equity ownership, Precisely must operate with great speed and agility to stay out in front of market trends. One of the ways we’ve done this within the Precisely Marketing organization is to engage Alan and Demand Revenue to apply focus and industry best practices to key initiatives”
Kevin Ruane
CMO Precisely
CMO Coach and Interim CMO
at PE Portfolio Companies
Alan worked for 25 years as CMO and P&L GM for global B2B firms in SaaS, enterprise software, health tech and professional services.
Before starting Demand Revenue, he was CMO Coach and Executive Advisor at Forrester and SiriusDecisions for six years.
Strategic marketing leadership
never happens by accident
It requires frameworks, metrics, and influence – all achievable with the right guidance.
FAQs
How is this different from other marketing consultants?
I focus on developing your marketing leadership with strategic frameworks, not tactical execution. After being both a CMO coach and interim CMO for PE portfolio companies, I bring practical experience in translating marketing initiatives into business outcomes that boards and investors value. We’re going to transform how you operate and communicate as a marketing leader, not just campaign runner.
What kind of results can I expect?
Longer tenure at every company, more influence in strategic decisions, better board relationships, and clear demonstrations of Marketing’s contribution to revenue and long-term growth.
How quickly will I see results?
My clients report immediate benefits from our first session. With advice and frameworks they can implement that week. Meaningful organizational change usually happens in 30-90 days as new measurement approaches and communication strategies take hold. The full transformation of your marketing leadership position usually requires 3-6 months of consistent application.
Do you work with specific industries?
My frameworks apply across sectors, but I do have particular depth in B2B SaaS, Health Tech, Enterprise Software, and technology-enabled services companies. The common thread is complex buying journeys where Marketing has to demonstrate a clear contribution to revenue growth and company valuation.
How deeply does Alan understand portco marketing problems?
Very. Alan has worked directly with nearly a dozen portcos, and several times that number when he worked for Forrester/Sirius. Sirius should be SiriusDecisions.
Does Alan work mainly with large or smaller portcos?
Mainly larger ones, with ARR of $200MM+
How familiar is Alan with how PE firms operate?
Some PE firms like to invest, some like to divest, and others decide case by case. Alan understands the various VCPs and matches your firm’s goals.
How does Alan help portco CMOs and their teams?
Armed with decades of experience and hundreds of models and frameworks, Alan upgrades their processes, martech stacks, and personnel into high-performing operations and individuals.