The Top 25 Demand Generation Mentors To Learn From And Work For - 2024
Overview
The way we acquire job knowledge has changed. We learn more from each other than we do at school. The Demand Generation Mentor List shows you the top 25 demand generation practitioners to learn from to develop your career. All of these leaders have contributed content that Sharebird users find helpful.
Methodology
Sharebird's algorithm ranks contributors based on how helpful our users perceive their demand generation - related content to be. We do not handpick people. To be considered for this list, mentors need to be current demand generation practitioners and in a leadership role. We look at the following factors with Sharebird content: views, saves, and followers. We then apply a proprietary algorithm to calculate content credibility and helpfulness. Views show us content relevancy, saves show us content quality, and followers show us content credibility.
Sharebird does not accept payment to be included on this list, which allows us to maintain objectivity and independence. We update this list every year. For any questions about this list, please contact [email protected].
About Sharebird
Sharebird is where leading executives answer your questions. Get easily digestible tips and insights from leaders at the fastest-growing companies, so that you can solve your hardest work challenges and reach your career potential.
In Alphabetical Order by Company:
Adam Kaiser
6sense VP, Growth Marketing
Career Path Tip: As you advance in demand generation or any role, consistently question how you can contribute value. Dismiss the notion of 'that's not my job', and instead, examine each aspect of marketing. Focus on how your and your team's efforts can be effectively expanded across all marketing touchpoints. Success isn't about isolated tactics; it's about developing engaging interactions with prospects that lead to tangible results. To achieve this, adopt a comprehensive, ambitious approach.
Laura Lewis
Addigy Director | Head of Marketing
Career Path Tip: Information is your gateway to success. Never stop questioning and wondering - why is the data this way? why is the company making this bet? who can influence this change? - and use your understanding to propose changes, speak intelligently, and drive impact.
Sierra Summers
Albertsons Companies Director of B2B Marketing
Career Path Tip: Don’t be afraid to fail. Failure is the key to growth. Try new things, test your hypothesis, understand why things do and don’t work. Be relentless yet respectfully curious in all things.
Jeff Jewett
Atlassian Head of Global Lifecycle Marketing, Work Management
Career Path Tip: I had a CMO once say, after we ran a paid ad program that basically flopped: "Nobody died! Learn what you can from the program and why it didn't work, then go plan a campaign that will get you the engagement you wanted." She was telling us it's ok to fail, just learn from it and be better the next time!
Mindy Servello
Calendly Head of Demand Generation
Career Path Tip: I highly encourage individuals growing within the demand generation world to become an expert in their organization's MarTech stack and operational processes. Mastering the understanding of operations like lead routing, lead scoring, lead statuses and how each platform works together, allows you to craft a GTM strategy much more efficiently, get to market much faster and display yourself as a true expert/partner to sales. Befriend Marketing Operations and be curious!
Nash Haywood
Cloudflare Head of Digital Marketing
Career Path Tip: Focus on tangible business outcomes. Develop expertise in a particular area you can do your best work -- and then connect that back to the clear impact to revenue and company growth across both you and your team.
Erika Barbosa
Counterpart Marketing Lead
Career Path Tip: It’s all about perspective and a growth mindset. I highly encourage your career path to be inclusive of curiosity, proactivity, communication, and relationships, all while embracing the ups and downs.
Steve Armenti
DigitalOcean VP Revenue Marketing
Career Path Tip: Life is a series of choices. This also applies to your professional life and the situations you will encounter on a daily basis. In order to make the best choices, the most important thing you can do is to have a philosophy and system for how you operate in a professional setting. Continuously refine your philosophy and your system so that it gets better over time. Eventually it will become your personal brand and the compounding impact of the choices you've made over the years will have a transformational result on your career growth.
Andy Ramirez ✪
Docker SVP, Growth Marketing (CMO Role)
Career Path Tip: You cannot drive growth for what you don't fully understand. Take the time to truly learn your business' metrics, the whole business, and you will see opportunities to drive growth in just about every aspect of your company. Prioritize and execute on the biggest gaps and opportunities. Developing the ability to take action on data is one of the greatest things you can do for your career.
Carlos Mario Tobon Camacho
Eightfold Senior Director of Demand Generation
Career Path Tip: Overall, the process for figuring out which metrics to hold demand generation accountable for requires a deep understanding of your company's goals, target audience, and channels. The metrics that matter most and drive growth and success vary by industry, company/market maturity and so on, so always review your company's business model and be flexible to adapt and change.
Bhavisha Oza
Gong Performance Marketing Lead
Career Path Tip: Successful and respected growth marketers I have worked with do these three things really well. 1) Focus on metrics that matter. 2) Experiment relentlessly. There is always room for improvement. 3) Be comfortable with the uncomfortable. When faced with something you have never done before, just do it.
Micha Hershman
Heap Chief Marketing Officer
Career Path Tip: Real talk: You work for your boss, period. Your boss is the key to your near-term promotion and compensation increase. Swallow your pride and personal preferences. Show your boss that you understand what they care about, solve the problems that frustrate them, and make their lives easier. They will be grateful, and you will be rewarded for it.
Sheena Sharma
Heap Vice President, Marketing Acquisition & Growth
Career Path Tip: In times of uncertainty, there are often many opportunities for growth. I've reliably been able to grow my career by saying "yes" to smart risks and building my skillset in new areas of marketing. I always made sure I was doing really well with my day-to-day and found chances for stretch assignments or taking on new functions or direct reports.
Nicolette Konkol
Morningstar Global Head of Demand Generation
Career Path Tip: Doing your job well is table stakes. To be exceptional, build bridges by knowledge sharing. Tap into resources that help you be a better marketer and then thoughtfully share the wealth with your team members.
Katie Jane Parkes
Nexus Communications VP of Creative
Career Path Tip: Excelling at demand generation means understanding how, why, and when creative content can and should be leveraged to drive pipeline, brand awareness, and customer retention. To lead high performing campaigns you must strive to find the sweet spot between science and art, merging creative risk with informed decisions. Your brand will stand out if you trust your instinct as much as the numbers.
Jordan Hwang
OpenPhone VP of Marketing
Career Path Tip: The key to making an impact is truly understanding how the business works, and what creates happy customers (and revenue). If you understand that, then you'll know exactly which problems you need to be spending your time and resources on.
Sheridan Gaenger
Own VP of Growth Marketing
Career Path Tip: In any strategy, it's not just about how much you measure but also what you’re measure and why. It's about setting the barometer for what success looks like and how KPIs are monitored, discussed, and leveraged to drive improvements.
Matt Hummel
Pipeline360 Vice President of Marketing
Career Path Tip: Successful demand begins with truly knowing your customer. Everything else - messaging, content, channels - follows. Give yourself an edge by taking the time to build that strong foundation.
Keara Cho
Salesforce Sr. Director, Field Marketing
Career Path Tip: Yes, you can be good at your job and hit all your customer acquisition and upsell goals but what will set you apart is your ability to understand the business, ask the tough questions, try new things and act as a trusted advisor to your sales/product counterparts. To lead a high performance team you have to be a servant leader - take care of your people first and the results will follow.
Kexin Chen
Salesforce Vice President, C-Suite Marketing
Career Path Tip: As a marketer, knowing your audience is critical. Internal stakeholders are no different. I view them as your internal audience. Generally, I will schedule an initial kick off call to learn their priorities, areas of concern/learnings if it is a run rate program, and their communication preferences. Getting specificity and clarity on the role they'd like to play the expectations they have on how they'll stay up to date on the project are critical to your and the project's success.
Sam Clarke
Second Nature VP of Marketing
Career Path Tip: If you are the first demand generation hire at a company, chances are you are going to need to advocate for some immediate changes to your funnel. They probably hired a demand generator because something needs to be addressed. However, question everything and confirm what needs to be addressed yourself.
Moon Kang 🚀
Showpad Director of Digital Marketing & ABM
Career Path Tip: Demand gen is a very fun and interesting path but don't forget that demand gen doesn't stop at simply generating demand with awareness campaigns. It's important to focus on capturing demand and aligning with your sales counterparts to ensure the demand you are capturing actually turns into opportunities and dollar signs for the business. Do not create a silo for yourself and your team where you simply pass over leads without creating a proper journey for your prospects from the first ad impression to their signature on the contract.
Liz Bernardo
Snow Software Director of Demand Generation & Partner Marketing - Americas
Career Path Tip: Learn to live beyond your job title and embrace unexpected roles and responsibilities when those doors open. If you see something broken, take the initiative to fix it and be the "chameleon" the organization needs. Always leaning in is the surest way to make connections and create new opportunities for yourself.
Kanchan Belavadi
Snowflake Head of Enterprise Marketing, India
Career Path Tip: Align with the business objectives! That’s the framework. Understand and fix the gaps. You deliver whatever the business needs.
Joann Guo
Spotify Associate Director, Growth Marketing
Career Path Tip: In your career, remember that doing great work is important, but it may not always speak for itself. Actively seek opportunities to champion your work across various settings. While self-promotion may feel uncomfortable for some and come naturally to others, honing this skill is crucial. This is particularly pertinent in large organizations or remote settings where information can easily be overlooked or lost.