For PE Operating Partners

Marketing leadership that moves EBITDA.

We partner with PE operating teams to install marketing leadership, unify post-acquisition brands, and accelerate revenue across portfolio companies — at holding period speed.

  • $1.73B

    Attributable pipeline built from a standing start

  • 80+

    Person global marketing org led as de facto CMO

  • Day 1

    Integration playbook ready to deploy on close

  • 40%+

    Of deal value is now PE add-on acquisitions

The Problem

Most acquisitions destroy value in the first 18 months because marketing gets deprioritized.

The pattern is consistent across deal types and fund sizes. Marketing, brand, and customer experience integration gets handed to an internal resource who isn't qualified, an agency that doesn't understand the transaction context, or nobody at all. Meanwhile, the clock is running.

Customer confusion accelerates churn. Competing brand identities erode the combined firm's position. Marketing spend continues without attribution. And by the time the problem surfaces in the numbers, 12 months of holding period have been consumed fixing preventable damage.

  • Integration delay is a returns problem

    With holding periods at historic highs, every quarter of marketing dysfunction is a quarter where customer relationships drift and competitive positioning weakens — directly impacting exit valuation.

  • Add-on complexity compounds fast

    40%+ of PE deal value is add-on acquisitions. Each one multiplies brand confusion, tech debt, and customer experience fragmentation unless someone owns the integration architecture from Day 1.

  • Marketing spend without attribution is liability

    Most portfolio company marketing teams can't connect spend to pipeline. That's not a reporting problem — it's a structural failure that makes marketing invisible in board-level investment discussions.

  • Full-time CMO hire is the wrong tool

    A $400K+ executive search takes six months and ties the company to a permanent hire before the operating model is stable. You need an operator embedded now — not eventually.

An operator vs. an advisor

We don't just advise. We operate.

What you're hiring today

An agency that reports on activity

Campaign performance. Impression counts. Social engagement. Deliverables filed in a shared folder. A monthly call where they present metrics and you ask what it means for the business. No accountability to pipeline, retention, or enterprise value.

What changes with RSP

An operator accountable to your numbers

Embedded inside the portfolio company. Sitting in leadership meetings. Owning the marketing function, the technology, and the team. Reporting to you with attribution modeling that connects spend to pipeline to revenue. Measured the same way you measure everything else.

What We Do

Six ways we accelerate value in portfolio companies.

  • Marketing Leadership Installation

    Embedded fractional CMO from Day 1. Executive team integration, board prep, investor narrative development. Full ownership of marketing strategy and execution until the permanent hire is ready — or indefinitely.

    • 90-day revenue acceleration plan with defined KPIs and milestones

    • Team assessment, talent development, and organizational design

    • Board-level reporting and investor narratives

  • M&A Marketing Integration

    Day 1 to Day 100 integration playbook. Brand architecture decisions — consolidate, endorse, or house of brands — with data-driven recommendation. Customer communication strategy that protects relationships through the transition.

    • Pre-close integration planning available on request

    • Tech stack consolidation and data migration planning

    • Culture alignment and talent assessment across legacy organizations

  • Revenue Architecture & Growth Operations

    Build the demand infrastructure that makes marketing visible in the P&L. Enterprise Demand Center design, full-funnel attribution modeling, pipeline analytics, and dashboards that make performance defensible at the board level.

    • Marketing and sales alignment with shared KPIs and SLAs

    • Revenue attribution modeling — spend to pipeline to outcomes

    • Investor-ready analytics and performance reporting

  • Technology Strategy & MarTech Architecture

    Most portfolio companies have accumulated technology without architecture. We audit, rationalize, and build a multi-year MarTech roadmap — eliminating redundant spend and deploying infrastructure that scales with the business.

    • Full stack audit with cost-benefit analysis

    • CDP and journey orchestration implementation

    • Vendor selection, negotiation, and implementation oversight

  • Brand Architecture & Go-to-Market

    Multi-entity brand strategy for holding companies and complex post-acquisition portfolios. We specialize in the brand challenges generalist agencies can't solve — regulated industries, B2B2C distribution models, PE portfolio coherence.

    • Portfolio brand architecture and positioning

    • Go-to-market planning for new products and markets

    • Competitive intelligence and white space analysis

  • AI & Marketing Transformation

    We've built AI-powered systems at enterprise scale — not proposed them. Predictive models, recommendation engines, content generation infrastructure — deployed where they move revenue, not where they look good in a board deck.

    • AI readiness assessment: data, team, use case prioritization

    • Predictive analytics: churn, LTV, territory scoring

    • AI governance frameworks for responsible deployment

Track record

What operator-led marketing produces.

Results from prior engagements in financial services — a highly regulated, relationship-based commercial environment with B2B2C distribution dynamics common across PE portfolio companies.

  • $1.73B

    Attributable pipeline

    Built from a standing start at Cetera Financial Group. Largest in company history. 2025 Wealthies Digital Campaign of the Year.

  • +266%

    Organic web traffic

    Driven by demand infrastructure and content tied to commercial intent — not agency spend. Built to compound.

  • 38%

    Lead conversion rate

    From a starting point of 28% — driven by journey architecture and marketing-sales alignment with shared accountability.

  • 2.28x

    ROAS improvement

    Paid media performance through audience segmentation, DMP integration, and attribution-informed budget reallocation.

  • 125%

    Lead capture increase

    Through funnel architecture redesign and conversion optimization — without increasing media spend.

  • $300M+

    Marketing budgets managed

    Across Cetera, Petco, Aflac, and Franklin Templeton — with direct accountability to revenue outcomes.

How we engage

Built for the holding period. Deployable pre-close or Day 1.

01

Week 1–2

Portfolio Marketing Assessment

A structured review of the portfolio company's marketing infrastructure: leadership gaps, tech stack health, revenue attribution capability, brand architecture, and customer intelligence maturity. Delivers a scored report and prioritized 90-day roadmap. Available pre-close on request.


02

Day 1–30

Operator Embed & Stabilization

We embed immediately — joining leadership meetings, assessing the team, auditing spend, and establishing the analytics foundation. No ramp-up period. No introductory deliverables. Revenue intelligence begins from Day 1.


03

Day 30–100

Revenue Architecture Build

Execute against the 90-day plan: demand infrastructure, attribution modeling, team restructuring, MarTech rationalization, and brand decisions. Every workstream is tied to a revenue metric and reported at the operating partner level.


04

Month 4–18+

Scale & Transition

Operate the function through the growth phase. Build the team and systems that sustain after we leave — or stay embedded through exit preparation. We document everything so the transition to a permanent hire doesn't reset the clock.


Engagement models

Structured for how operating teams actually work.

Entry Point

Portfolio Marketing Assessment

A structured diagnostic of a portfolio company's marketing infrastructure. Scored report with prioritized roadmap. Available pre-close or Day 1. Most operating teams use this to build internal alignment before committing to a longer engagement.

$5,000 – $10,000
1 week · Deliverable on Day 7

Most Common

Fractional CMO Embed

Full marketing function ownership inside the portfolio company. Executive team integration, board prep, team assessment, demand infrastructure. 2–4 days per week, structured around the operating partner's reporting cadence.

$10,000 – $25,000 / month
6–18 month terms

Project-Based

Integration Playbook & M&A Support

Defined scope, clear deliverables, 4–12 weeks. Day 1–100 integration playbooks, brand architecture decisions, MarTech stack audits, post-acquisition brand modernization, go-to-market strategy.

$15,000 – $75,000
4–12 weeks · Fixed fee

Not sure where to start?

Run a Portfolio Marketing Assessment on a specific company first.

Our free self-assessment scores any portfolio company across five dimensions in five minutes — marketing leadership, BD infrastructure, client intelligence, brand positioning, and revenue analytics. Use it to build internal alignment before committing to a full engagement.

Free · 5 minutes · Instant results

Marketing leadership that moves
at holding period speed.

Tell us about the portfolio company. We'll tell you honestly whether we're the right fit — and what a 90-day engagement would produce in your specific context.