Founder, P33 | Executive Thought Leadership Agency

Helped 50+ B2B tech companies build their Founder/CEO Brand and implement Executive Thought Leadership Programs for LinkedIn. Customers, results & process: project33.io

About me:

I'm Finn, 29, grew up in Bremen, Germany, studied Physics & Philosophy in Heidelberg for 3 semesters, dropped out of college in 2017 because I was doing it for other people, flew to New York with no plans, documented the journey on Linkedin, Instagram and Youtube, and started my first company (Project 33) on the back of having grown a small audience. We're a small remote agency that helps B2B founders & execs create thought leadership content for Linkedin.

In my free time, which I try to have as much as possible of, I read (fav author: Nassim N. Taleb), write, run, lift, code (currently building an app), cook, make Youtube videos, turn books into Instagram accounts, grapple (BJJ), and travel (lived in NYC, Cape Town, Bali, Minsk, CMDX, Lima & Antalya so far). In December 2020 I married the most beautiful woman in the world. In January 2023, I became dad to the most beautiful baby girl. We currently live in Berlin, Germany.

Finn Thormeier

If you're in B2B marketing, you should be studying Sydney Sloan. She was: CMO at G2, CMO at Salesloft, CMO at Drata 🤯 Plus 16 years of multiple leadership roles at Adobe.

And last week, I got to sit down with her and ask about her biggest lessons + advice for GTM leaders going into 2026.

Some of the things we cover:

- The advice Sydney would give herself before her first CMO role
- Buyer research shifted from 29% to 50% on AI chatbots in 4 months, and what that means for you AEO strategy
- Why you probably don't need marketing automation the way you used to
- “Human in the loop” vs “human in the lead”
- The Show-Up-Bigger-Than-You-Are playbook
- Reorganizing GTM teams around outcomes, not functions

You can listen here:
-- YouTube: https://lnkd.in/daewkRiJ
-- Spotify: https://lnkd.in/dtpHYD4Y
-- Apple: https://lnkd.in/dstuaPUb
-- Substack: https://lnkd.in/dJnX9Sud

Some of my takeaways:

1. The shift to AI search is happening FAST. G2 data showed that in April 2025, 29% of buyers said they started their research in of of the AI chatbots. By August that number hit 50%, just 4 months later. In 2026, every company needs to make sure their brand is the citation source LLMs use

2. Sydney got this advice from the CMOs of Okta and Snyk: Show up bigger than you are. You don’t need a massive budget, you need one anchor event or one bold move. At Drata, they bought out every ad space for two blocks around Moscone Center for RSA conference so attendees couldn’t miss them. At Salesloft, they bought a billboard on Highway 101, but the ROI didn’t come from the traffic driving by, it came from leveraging photos of it online. Big one-off events can signal momentum to investors and customers more than anything else

3. We’re entering the “Rick Rubin economy” - AI lowers the barrier to entry for content and code, so the only differentiator is taste. You can’t prompt your way to good taste. You need to hire for context and judgment, or leverage advisory boards of influencers who actually understand the market. AI provides the speed, but humans provide the creative direction that determines if anyone actually cares

4. Do we need GTM Architects? Everyone is rushing to hire GTM Engineers and build AI workflows, but in software development, you need engineers and architects. They work at different levels of abstraction - software engineers build and maintain software, software architects design the system as a whole. We need this for GTM: someone to map the strategy, choose the agentic platforms, and decide *what* to automate before you build it. Sydney sees this as a separate role, likely sitting in RevOps

5. The biggest mistake new CMOs make: obsessing over their domain of the marketing department. Sydney’s advice: Spend your first 90 days building deep relationships with your peers - the CFO, CRO, CEO. If you don’t understand the business context and have alignment with your peers, even the best marketing strategy in the world won’t save you

Top LinkedIn ghostwriting agency for CEOs, founders & execs -- Founder at Project 33 and Host of the Executive Brand Podcast

People forget that *high engagement* usually means *easy to engage with*. What's easy to engage with? Short posts, selfies, black/white takes. 

That's the real reason why there's so much of that stuff on Linkedin.

So when your local Linkedin influenster who gets hundreds of likes on every post and whose main product is a $99 course tells you that this is the kind of content your NEED to create, remember:

In B2B, inbound/customers/conversations with VPs+ often come from high trust. 

What builds high trust? Deep insights, balanced/nuanced takes, complete breakdowns - aka stuff that can't be skimmed in 3 seconds.

I discovered Louis Grenier a couple weeks ago - how did it take me so long?? This man grew his LinkedIn to 39,000+ followers and built a successful solo-consulting biz while breaking ALL the rules of LinkedIn the "gurus" want you to believe in:

- Bright orange profile pic
- Uses the F word ALL the time
- Spent $8,500 to produce a YouTube (!) mini-series to market his services
- Wildly mixes his post formats
- Regularly includes links in the post copy
- Publicly ROASTS his sponsors
- Pays zero attention to the algorithm

Dave Gerhardt called him the french Harry Dry

If the all LinkedIn Gurus were right, Louis should be nowhere near where he is today, getting nowhere near the results he's getting.

Want to learn how he does it?

This Thursday at 11am EST, I'm doing a live Zoom call with Louis to ask him about his approach and how, you too, can Stand The F*ck Out. We'll include audience Q&A, so you can bring your own questions.

Join us here: https://lnkd.in/dQ7J9vXh

I strongly believe almost all companies who currently do great marketing, I'd eg. list Clay, PostHog, 37signals, have some version of this mindset when it comes to brand. Here articulated by Chris Evans, co-founder of incident.io. 

You gotta have taste, take some risks, have fun, think about the customer, and just trust that it will all somehow, in the end, benefit your company. You can't measure it and you shouldn't even try. Almost by definition, if you could measure and attribute brand marketing, it would be called demand gen.

In prepping for a podcast episode, I was reading a CEO's Linkedin content today. What stood out to me: I actually LEARNED things. It's crazy that this feels like a rare experience these days on Linkedin.

The posts weren't formatted with tons of bullet points and 5-part lists and one-line paragraphs.

The hook was just a regular sentence that didn't feel "optimized"

The overall posts and topics didn't feel engineered - no trend jacking - just grounded lessons from 10 years being in the industry.

The average post of this CEO got 20-40 likes.

There's plenty of people in his space that are getting 10x that.

But he was talking about marketing fundamentals, lessons learned, deeply thought-out takes or rebuttals on current trends, and I actually found myself taking notes, rethinking certain decisions of mind, doing additional research to fully understand his point of view.

Maybe because of this, when I looked at the 20-40 people who did engage, many were CMOs, VPs, CEOs, and a good amount of lengthy comments, people who actually, read, internalized and responded to the post with their own thoughts.

This is much rarer than it should be.

So much of content is performance. Probably my own included. Trying to fit some template. Trying to stick to some "best practices". Optimized and engineered for engagement, which is often a race to the bottom.

My sense is that this CEO has his own quality bar. Decides what to publish based on what *he* deems insightful, not what the algorithm is nudging him towards. Maybe I'm wrong here.

We should normalize publishing content we feel PROUD of, in the style that feels like ourselves - that's the bar.

My podcast episode with Jessica Gilmartin is live!!! Jessica has an insanely impressive track record: CMO at Calendly, Head of Revenue Marketing at Asana, Head of Product Marketing at Google. Today, she advises founders and first-time CMOs through $100M ARR on marketing, GTM strategy, hiring and org design.

And last week, she joined me on The Executive Brand podcast.

What we cover:

- Why CMO + CRO combo roles usually fail
- Why companies now hire CMOs from smaller, scrappier startups
- Where AI is truly useful vs pure hype
- Why random acts of marketing kill momentum
- How Calendly moved from viral PLG to focused enterprise ABM
- The real reason CMOs only last 18 months
- Why taste, courage, and focus still matter more than tools
- And much more

Listen here:

-- YouTube: https://lnkd.in/grQb6kgv
-- Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gpBmkJWg
-- Apple: https://lnkd.in/gXPSpKEU
-- Substack: https://lnkd.in/gBeDP56X

Some of my takeaways:

1. We’ll replace most of our day-to-day work with AI in 5-10 years. But right now board members are mandating AI adoption without specific use cases. The reality is AI is making teams 10-20% more efficient and that it works as an enabler, but not as a replacement. The best use cases she’s seeing are data enrichment for lead prioritization, competitive research for product marketing, and using LLMs as synthetic customer panels

2. There are three paths to CMO: via product marketing, via demand gen, and via brand. In B2B, 50% of CMOs come from product marketing, 50% from demand gen, almost none from brand. That might be an opportunity

3. CEOs keep hiring the wrong CMO. They want a unicorn who's great at both strategic messaging (product marketing) and growth (demand gen). It’s like finding an engineer who's great at backend AND designing beautiful interfaces. Hire for your actual problem/bottleneck right now, not the one you’ll have at $100M

4. Attribution is broken and that’s okay. You’re getting 70-80% accuracy at best. Jessica’s approach is to use the 80-20 rule. Get directionally correct data so teams understand where they can make impact and then work from there. The bigger issue is that companies wait too long to implement basic data and reporting infrastructure

5. Random acts of marketing kill focus. At Calendly, Jessica pivoted the entire team to one thing: repositioning for enterprise customers. Marketers hate focus and they want to sprinkle seeds everywhere. But the winning strategy is making big bets, being explicit about trade-offs, and ensuring no one goes off track

Reminder: your most interesting thoughts are those you want to keep to yourself.

LinkedIn Playbook with Jess Cook and Joshua Perk of Vector 👻

Third Sector Intelligence

• Spearheaded the national expansion of Early Childhood Integrated Data Systems (ECIDS) across multiple states, enhancing service accessibility.  
• Co-developed product strategy for the Child Universal Success Platform (CUSP), aligning market needs with innovative solutions.  
• Fostered strategic partnerships with state leaders to modernize early childhood data, leading to improved decision-making processes.

Vice President of Strategic Partnerships

• Collaborated with state and federal agencies to optimize data for children ages Birth to Five, leading to improved decision-making and program performance.
• Built systems to guide agencies in enhancing early childhood education access and identifying disparities, ultimately optimizing public policies.
• Worked with Third Sector Intelligence to develop the Child Universal Success Platform (CUSP), enabling efficient collaboration among agencies to improve child and family outcomes.

Director of Strategic Partnerships

Invo Healthcare

• Spearheaded the development of custom district solutions for ABA and Special Education, impacting over districts nationwide.  
• Negotiated and secured large-scale contracts with public school systems to enhance student support services.  
• Designed and implemented service delivery models focused on compliance and educational outcomes, driving measurable improvements.

Sonoma Technology, Inc.

• Spearheaded international business development strategy across twelve sectors, including software, education, monitors/sensors, air quality, wildfire science, and weather.  
• Established multimillion-dollar partnerships with global agencies and Fortune 100 companies, enhancing market presence.  
• Developed comprehensive business development processes from the ground up, fostering cross-functional collaboration among teams.

Vice President Of Business Development

• Provided thought leadership and advised on marketing/communications strategies to support high-impact strategic projects and initiatives for business growth.
• Captured six and seven figure business opportunities to drive company expansion and development of new product lines.
• Contributed to executive planning for global expansion through mergers, acquisitions, and innovative business development practices.

Senior Business Strategist and Program Lead for Education and Outreach

Ed Tech Authority

• Founded Ed Tech Authority, specializing in AR/VR learning products for diverse learners.  
• Led product development from concept to classroom implementation, significantly enhancing educational engagement.  
• Advised tech firms on market entry strategies, driving growth in the education sector.  
• Collaborated with clients to conceptualize innovative educational products, resulting in unique learning experiences.

Founder

DisruptED

• Co-founded DisruptED, revolutionizing children's publishing with immersive AR/VR technology.  
• Pioneered multi-state partnerships to enhance K-12 engagement and learning experiences.  
• Developed innovative Proof of Concepts for corporate partners, driving educational advancements.  
• Created a COVID-responsive learning experience focused on hygiene education for children.

Co-Founder

No Bully

Led the charge at No Bully, an international non-profit, to combat bullying and cyber-bullying in schools worldwide. Expanded operations across the US, serving 300,000+ students and forming partnerships with industry giants like ESPN and Major League Baseball (MLB).

• Spearheaded initiatives to eradicate bullying globally.
• Collaborated with top organizations to amplify impact.
• Enhanced international footprint and student reach.

Vice President of Education

Sausalito Marin City School District

• Oversaw district operations and strategic planning for a K-8 district, ensuring the best outcomes for all students.
• Collaborated with community stakeholders to implement innovative educational programs and initiatives.
• Led efforts to improve student achievement and foster a positive learning environment.

Superintendent

Red Bluff Union Elementary School District

In my role as Superintendent at Red Bluff Union Elementary School District, I provided leadership to a large district with multiple schools, overseeing operations, negotiations, and communications. 

• Led negotiations with key associations
• Facilitated School Board communications
• Acted as primary communicator on district issues

Experienced leader in corporate, non-profit and education

Secret Sauce: 2 scoops techy, 4 scoops work ethic, 5 scoops ambition, 7 scoops collaboration, and 50 scoops of sincere belief that the right team—treated well—can change the world.

I’ve been called a “business unicorn". I bring a rare blend of experience across public education, corporate leadership, nonprofit management, and tech entrepreneurship. From running school districts to scaling startups, I bridge worlds that rarely intersect—delivering people-centered strategy with measurable outcomes.

As a consultant, CEO, and former Superintendent, I’ve led high-impact transformations across sectors. I thrive at the intersection of vision, execution, and empathy—building future-ready organizations rooted in practical strategy and inspired leadership.

🔑 Career Highlights
CEO in both nonprofit and for-profit sectors; former K–12 Superintendent

Recognized as a White House “Champion for Change” for advancing equity

Secured exclusive global partnership with a Fortune 100 company

Led an international nonprofit across multiple continents

Founded and scaled two EdTech companies

Negotiated strategic collaborations with ESPN, MLB, Hasbro, Google for Education, and Meta

Authored five books on leadership, education, and business

Speaker at international conferences across education and innovation

I enjoy working with passionate professionals who are committed to meaningful work—and I’m energized by challenges that require strategy, creativity, and heart.

📩 For consulting, board roles, speaking engagements, or executive opportunities, contact me at wsmconsults@gmail.com.

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The Battle

Finn Thormeier

William McCoy

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taplio

The Battle

Finn Thormeier

William McCoy

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Finn Thormeier's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreFinn Thormeier's LinkedIn Performance