Product Marketing Leader Atlanta, GA

Clarity from complexity.

I turn deeply technical products in cybersecurity, fintech, and enterprise SaaS into clear market stories, sharp positioning, and real pipeline. Twenty plus years building go-to-market from zero.

Brian Carroll
20+ yrs
SaaS · Fintech · Security
Zero to one
GTM builder
0
Years in product marketing
0
Global SaaS business scaled
0
Marketers led across 3 regions
0
Capital raise supported
About

A storyteller for technical products and the people who buy them.

My career has lived at the intersection of complex technology and the buyers who need to understand it fast. I have built product marketing functions from scratch, repositioned companies, and led launches across cybersecurity, fintech, and enterprise SaaS, consistently translating dense capability into a story that lands with both practitioners and executives.

Today I lead product marketing for a cyber risk platform built for financial institutions. Along the way I built the first PMM function for a $150M global business at Nasdaq, scaled it across three regions, drove investment-product go-to-market at Invesco, and now help a lean team punch far above its weight by operationalizing AI.

What I do best

01
Zero-to-one GTMStanding up positioning, messaging, and motion where none existed
02
Repositioning & categoryReframing how buyers and investors see a company
03
Two-audience translationSpeaking to the practitioner and the executive at once
04
AI as leverageTurning repetitive GTM work into repeatable AI systems
Experience

A track record across security, finance, and SaaS.

Two decades of building go-to-market in technical, regulated, and high-stakes markets.

DefenseStorm

2025 to Present
Head of Product Marketing

Owns positioning, messaging, and go-to-market for a cyber risk platform spanning SIEM/SOC, EDR, fraud, and governance for banks and credit unions. Built the function end to end, authored the master messaging architecture for CISO, CFO, and Board personas, and is operationalizing AI across the marketing team.

Gray Carroll Consulting

2023 to Present
Founder & Principal Consultant

Advises SaaS, fintech, and security companies on positioning, category strategy, and go-to-market. Repositioned Drawbridge from a services-led firm to a technology-first cybersecurity platform, elevating perception with enterprise buyers and growth-equity investors.

ClickDimensions

2022 to 2023
VP, Product Marketing

Reporting to the CEO, built product and partner marketing from the ground up and led the launch of two new products, including a bundled CRM platform. Net-new motions, not optimization of an existing playbook.

Nasdaq

2018 to 2022
AVP, Global Head of Marketing

Built and scaled the first dedicated product marketing function for a $150M global SaaS business, growing the team to more than 20 marketers across North America, EMEA, and APAC, and partnering with product on portfolio strategy and enterprise positioning.

Invesco

Earlier
Investment Product Go-to-Market

Drove go-to-market strategy and marketing for investment products at a global asset manager with more than $1.6T in AUM, contributing to over $250M in capital raised.

Selected Work

The work behind the story.

A sample of the go-to-market problems I take on and the systems I build to solve them.

Repositioning & category

Reframed a services-led cybersecurity firm as a technology-first platform, shifting how enterprise buyers and growth-equity investors valued the company.

Master messaging architecture

Built the single source of truth for how a security platform talks about itself across CISO, CFO, and Board personas, including risk and governance narratives.

Sales enablement overhaul

Rebuilt ICP, pitch narrative, product messaging, and competitive battlecards to sharpen seller effectiveness in competitive security deals.

Voice of Customer research

Ran structured interviews with bank and credit union security leaders to ground messaging in the buyer's own language across personas.

Pricing & packaging

Led services packaging and a refreshed pricing and packaging strategy, aligning capability tiers with how financial institutions actually buy.

Product launches

Led net-new product launches from zero, including a bundled CRM platform, with cross-functional alignment across product, sales, and partnerships.

Work Samples

Interactive samples of how I think.

Generalized, hands-on versions of real frameworks I have built and used. Each opens in a new tab. All content is illustrative, with no proprietary data or client information.

AI in Practice

Making AI a force multiplier for go-to-market.

Most marketers talk about AI. I build the use cases, content systems, and reusable tools that let a lean team operate like a much larger one.

Signature

Co-defined a marketing AI roadmap, then built it

Helped set the AI strategy for a marketing org, where my nominated use cases, market and competitive intelligence and persona-based messaging, became the highest-voted founding pillars. Then turned strategy into working systems rather than slideware.

Content engine

The Content Machine

Contributor to an AI-assisted content pipeline, from idea engine to brief to draft to brand QA to human review, that lets a four-person team deliver five-person output.

Competitive intel

Daily market monitor

Built a reusable skill that scans news, regulatory shifts, and competitor moves every day and translates them into content ideas and battlecard updates.

Workflow automation

Self-running priorities

Automated my own recurring workflow with a skill that generates weekly priorities from project activity, a small but real example of agentic GTM ops.

Thought leadership

Synthetic-voice fraud

Authored a point of view on detecting AI-powered voice deepfakes before they become a wire transfer, translating an emerging threat for financial-institution buyers.

Point of View
The best product marketing makes a hard thing feel obvious. My job is to find the clearest path from a complex capability to a decision a buyer can actually make.
A principle that runs through every function I have built.
Capabilities

The toolkit.

Category CreationZero-to-One GTMPositioning & MessagingProduct LaunchesICP & Buyer PersonasSales EnablementCompetitive IntelligenceAnalyst RelationsPartner / Ecosystem GTMPricing & PackagingPipeline & ARR OwnershipTeam BuildingAI for GTMVoice of Customer
Get in touch

Let's talk shop.

Always happy to trade notes on positioning, go-to-market, and where AI is actually moving the needle.

Based in Atlanta, GA