Naresh Chouhan

Leading the complete marketing efforts for an innovative and award-winning Stage B SaaS Cybersecurity company and managing a team of 7 direct reports

Reporting to the CEO and CRO and directly responsible for pipeline generation as my primary objective and achievements

As a result of my marketing leadership, in two years we have doubled the Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), created a brand, and most importantly created an environment that has made our sales teams successful

Key Achievements:

• Pipeline Revenue Growth: From $700k in 2021 to $13.2m in 2023 – resulting in ARR growth from $1m+ in 2021 to project $9.98m currently with a projected ARR growth to $20m by end of 2023
• Inbound Lead Creation: Growing inbound high-quality lead generation by over 100% YoY by focusing on key strategies across the business, which is currently at 70% of the total revenue of the business, and specializing in digital marketing strategies, tactics and implementation (across PPC, SEO, CRM/MA, Social, Content, Nurture and onboarding)
• Product Marketing: Devising content and engagement strategies to drive greater demand, adoption and usage for the IriusRisk Threat Modeling tool by combining cybersecurity and content / product / digital marketing skills for inbound and outbound product marketing
• Marketing Team Scaling: Building and nurturing a team of high-quality marketers around Digital Marketing & Operations, Communications, Experiential Marketing, Product Marketing, Brand & Design and Demand Generation functions and taking onboard new graduates
• Budget Management: Owning a total marketing budget (CAC and Opex) cost of $1.5m annually and building the business justification, attribution and Return on Investment (ROI) analysis on an ongoing basis
• Sales Interlock and Funnel Growth: Working with Regional Sales Directors to understand key requirements, develop local marketing funded strategies
• GTM Strategy: Driving the Leadership to adopt a predictable GTM strategy to achieve business plan and investor requirements of 100% YoY ARR growth
• Communications and Value Proposition: Redefining the company’s core value proposition and messaging, then devising an PR and Social strategy for the business
• Marketing Infrastructure: Owning and running 3 websites and Community Products and Forum/Knowledge basis – devising the strategy and improvements of Salesforce, Hubspot, Data acquisition, augmentation, lead flow processes
• Sales & Channel Enablement Partner: Producing high-value competitive positioning, collateral material, training and enablement tools, incentives and programs to educate, motivate and icentivise the direct and indirect sales teams
• Channel Marketing: Working with strategic channel and alliance partners such as IBM, Accenture, KPMG, Methods, Deloitte and other VAS/ISV/Consultancy companies to focus on demand creation, awareness, go-to-market planning and execution, experiential activities and digital marketing and managing the MDF budget globally
• Drove company branding efforts to increase market presence and brand recognition.

Leading the Marketing and Demand Generation efforts across EMEA and managing a team of direct reports. Reporting in to the CMO and dotted-line to the GM of EMEA

Working with channel and alliance partners to focus on demand creation, awareness, go-to-market planning and execution, experiential activities and digital marketing

Responsible for a marketing budget of circa US$2m and ‘owning’ the marketing plan for EMEA revenue creation for US$20m across 3 key territories.

Leading the coordination and planning with EMEA-wide Sales Management and Marketing teams to drive revenue in the market for Cloudian EMEA.

Key Achievements:

• Revenue Growth: Driving the EMEA Marketing plan to deliver EMEA revenue targets
• Integrated Marketing Planning (IMP): Meeting MQL/SQL objectives by 90%
• Business Development: Implemented new outbound business development and telemarketing agencies across EMEA – delivering circa 130& growth in net new revenue
• Sales Enablement: Implementing new Intent Tools (TechTarget Priority Engine) and Data Tools such as Lusha, ZoomInfo, Discover.org as well managing Cloudian’s EMEA BrightTalk content marketing program
• Alliance Marketing: Working with VMWare, Veeam, Commvault, Splunk and Rubrik to develop joint messaging and marketing activities e.g
• Joint promotional work such as live virtual events, 5 global webinars recruiting over 1,000 MQLs
• Channel Marketing: Implementing EMEA-wide accreditation, MDF framework and incentives programs
• Implementing UKI Channel Marketing programs with large scale VARs, Distributors and Aggregators
• Sales Interlock and Funnel Growth: Working with Regional Sales Directors to understand key requirements, develop local marketing funded strategies
• India Marketing: Implementing India-wide Partner Marketing and accreditation programs and developing global systems integrator and end-user marketing campaigns.

One of three members in EMEA Leadership team and reporting to the Company CMO (based in the US), I am responsible for the 360-marketing strategy and planning from brand awareness and demand generation programs through to managing teams, agencies and all marketing activities across the EMEA region – where Western Digital / Tegile has been operational for 5 years.

I am directly accountable for overall marketing planning, execution and pipeline generation with the objective of taking EMEA to 15% contribution of the total revenue for the division

Key Achievements:

• In the fiscal year ending 31st July 31st 2019, I have grown the EMEA Pipeline by over 200% over previous years through sustained and focused field and digital marketing activities
• I have met and exceeded my entire key KPIs consistently over the past 5 years and am on target to continue that trend
• Key Achievements:
• Revenue Growth: Key contributor to growing the revenue and pipeline to $10m per quarter in successful sales in a period of 5 years from virtually zero pipeline
• Integrated Marketing Planning (IMP): Develop the EMEA plan and budget requirement to deliver sales revenue goals and delivering integrated demand generation campaigns in EMEA (digital, experiential, content, social, channel / partner, sales enablement etc.)
• Sales Interlock and Funnel Growth: Worked with Sales Leaders and Corporate to Increase overall marketing generated pipeline and revenue by 200% year-on-year through focused direct and indirect marketing led campaigns – leading to most effective region with the Western Digital DCS business unit
• Martech Stack: Implementation and administration of full ‘marketecture’ stack for EMEA region including Salesforce / Marketo and full marketing ROI measurement dashboards
• ABM: Successful implementation of focused ABM programs yielding in revenue increase in key accounts through individually focused campaigns leading to an additional 15% revenue growth
• Channel: Successful launch of channel marketing and rewards programs in three major regions including expansion to India and Middle East
• Integration: Led the successful integration of EMEA Solutions selling processes and methodologies into Western Digital (post acquisition of Tegile)