VP of Marketing @ HYCU | #5to9: Keeping Up With 2 Kiddos

My first job was bussing tables at my dad’s restaurant, where I learned something that still shapes how I lead today: it’s not just the product that keeps people coming back, it’s the experience.

That idea is at the core of how I approach growth. Whether it’s a restaurant or a B2B company, sustainable growth comes from creating experiences that customers care about, understand, and want to return to. In practice, that means combining clear positioning, disciplined targeting, customer insight, and a willingness to experiment, all grounded in data and accountability, to build programs that drive pipeline, improve retention, and support long-term growth.

I’ve built and led marketing and growth teams across enterprise, mid-market, and startup environments, helping companies move from reactive execution to focused, predictable growth. Along the way I’ve rebranded companies, built revenue engines, scaled teams, and helped leadership teams clarify how they show up in the market.

Most recently, I led marketing at PathFactory, where I oversaw the merger with Uberflip — unifying messaging, content, and teams to position the business for its next phase of growth. Before that, I’ve held senior leadership roles at HYCU, Alyce, Avid Technology, Iron Mountain, and EMC.

In addition to my operating roles, I advise B2B startups and mid-size companies on how to simplify their strategy, find their edge, and build growth programs that connect clearly to revenue.

I tend to do my best work where there’s momentum, complexity, and opportunity — and where leadership wants a partner who can help turn strategy into execution and execution into results.

Contact:  lorenco.pete@gmail.com

Pete Lorenco

Gwen Lafage 🐝

VP Marketing, Global Brand and Content @ Sinch 🚀 I B2b tech marketing leader, brand builder

Why do you need a strong brand? 
Because it is the only true differentiator that can’t be copied. And yes that’s also true for b2b companies. 

Think about it: products and features are all becoming the same. Sure you can be a little cheaper or a little better. But why not use your brand to win instead? Your brand is your future-proof competitive edge. 
A strong brand means recognition, credibility, trust, loyalty. 

And that’s why I’ve dedicated my career to building strong brands. BRAVE brands. Brands that connect with people. Brands that dare to be different. Brands with strong beliefs. Brand that build new categories and become their kings. 

I personally believe in the power of communication and creativity. I believe in doing things with passion and taking risks. I spent 10 years in the best Ad agencies in London and Paris, working on the world's leading consumer brands. In my late 20s, I traveled the world for one year. In my 30s, I opened an art gallery in San Francisco before going back to marketing and branding for B2B tech companies in Silicon Valley. In 2017 I moved to Sweden to open the European office of a b2b tech creative agency. 
In 2023 I came back to the US to continue to lead the brand growth of one of the fastest growing tech company in the world, Sinch. 

I’m now VP of Brand at Sinch, where I lead global brand strategy, though-leadership, communications, global events and creative direction for one of the fastest growing tech companies in the world. 

Bottom line: when I want to do something, I make it happen. 
I apply this ‘can-do-attitude’ to everything I do. 

I am always looking for new challenges, opportunities, and learnings, and I love networking and sharing knowledge with other professionals in my field.
Feel free to get in touch.

Specialties: B2B Marketing, Marketing Strategy, B2B SaaS Marketing, Data-driven Marketing, Growth Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Digital Marketing, Branding, Messaging, Content Marketing, Demand Generation, Account-Based Marketing, Engagement Marketing & Events, Project Management, Client Relationship Management, New Business, Campaign Management, Leadership, Operational Excellence.

Interests: B2B Marketing, Brands, Design, Technology, SAAS, Startups, Growth, Women in Tech, Green Tech, Sustainability, Meditation.

Executive member

The Pavilion is a private, invitation-only community of sales and marketing executives at growth-focused companies.

I’m 48 today. 
And I’ve never been more clear!

Looks like I’ve entered my pink era 💕
New pink hair and pink Lego flowers for my birthday.

Let’s clear something up.

Authority is not beige. Competence does not live in neutral hair tones. Experience does not require you to hide.

At 18, I thought credibility meant fitting in. 
At 28, I thought success meant proving myself. 
At 38, I was still negotiating how much of me was “too much.”

At 48, I know exactly what I’m doing. 
I know the value I bring. 
And I know how my brain works.

I’ve built teams, started a business and closed it, restarted my career more than once, moved countries, grown little humans, and reinvented myself in completely different contexts. I’ve seen cycles.

I worked hard. I still do because there is a price to success.

What changes with time isn’t ambition or energy, it’s clarity. 

Experience compounds. 
I am better at my job than I’ve ever been and not because I hustle more, but because I know more. I’ve failed, adapted, and led through change.

And let’s say this clearly: 
Women in their 40s (and beyond!) are not aging out💥 We are operating with more clarity, more courage, and more power.

Strategic calm. Empathy with boundaries. Zero appetite for nonsense. Deep pattern recognition.

So yes, pink.💖

Not to prove anything. Not to look younger.
Just because I can. For fun. 

Because clarity looks like this: 
you know who you are, you work hard, you care deeply, and you stop asking for permission!

⚠️Underestimate women in their 40s+ at your own risk!! 💪🙌✨

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I’ve lost count of how many MWCs I’ve been to. This year felt different.

The tech was impressive, the crowd huge, the booths as big as always, everyone talked about AI, the parties were fun. That’s every year now.

What was different is harder to point at.

It’s a chat on a bus to the Google after-party with someone you’ve never met. 
The late-night discussions where the real thinking happens. 
And the booth conversations that start somewhere completely new: a lot less “So what does Sinch do?”  and a lot more “we’ve been wanting to talk to you.” 😃

That’s new.

It doesn’t happen by accident. Weeks of event prep, months of brand work, the refresh that we’ve been building in pieces. 🐝
You do all of that and you wonder if it will land.

Then one day, Barcelona. 🔥

The brand showed up this week. Really showed up. And so did we! 

Sinch is building the future of communications. This week, Barcelona felt like proof.

Momentum is quiet. Until it becomes visible.
We’re going up, up, up. It’s our moment. 🚀

And we’re just getting started.​​​!!

#MWC2026 #WeAreSinch

Today feels different. 

We're launching our refreshed Sinch brand. 
And for me, this one hits hard.

Not only because of what you see. 
But because of what it represents.

Five years ago, I joined a Swedish scale-up. Since then, we've become a global leader through growth and acquisitions. Incredible products. Brilliant people. But we started with a fragmented story. Different brands. Different identities. Different chapters.

Since then, we've done the work most people don't see. 
We've aligned our products. 
We've clarified our strategy. 
We've written and rewritten the narrative to reflect who we truly are today. Not who we were five years ago. 
We've defined what Sinch stands for in a world where communications is becoming intelligent, automated, and critical. 
We've built the architecture that allows us to show up as one company with one story. 
We've built the systems that allow our teams to scale, empower creativity, and stay on brand.
We've matured as a team, a brand, a company.

This refresh isn't (just) cosmetic. 
It's structural.

Brand architecture. 
Narrative clarity. 
Design systems. 
Governance.

The kind of work that takes years, not quarters. 
The kind of work that can feel invisible, even painful at times, while you're doing it, but changes everything once it's done! 

There were hard conversations. 
Tough trade-offs. Moments of doubt. And a lot of belief.

I'm incredibly proud of what the team built. 
The craft. The resilience. The debates. The details.
Wilmari Pienaar Junia Kall Monika Dionysius Tim Walker Sariana Fernández Monsalve François Sahli Cyrille Hervet Kim Kirby Beatriz Redondo Alfredo Salkeld Shannon Goch and everyone I'm forgetting 😅 

Grateful to our agency partners Ben Fitter-Harding and the team at Dodgems and Floss, Dmitry Shamis, Jenn Webb-Proud and the team at OhSnap!, Amy Cox, Yann Lhomme and the team at Thinkmojo who elevated the work and pushed us forward. 
And thankful to my boss 🙂 Jonathan Bean for trusting the process and giving us the space to do this right.

💥 A brave brand is never built in a moment. 
But sometimes there are moments that crystallize years of work and are worth celebrating 🙌 

Powered by trust. Powered by Sinch. 🐝

#WeAreSinch

We built carousels for IWD this year. 
Real women at Sinch already changing perception every day. 
The line between honest and performative can be very fine. Do you think we got it right?

Every year I wonder if awareness days like this actually move anything. 
Every year I decide to post anyway. Because the alternative is cynicism, and awareness is the first step to changing default images. 

Picture a CEO, a tech sales leader, an AI engineer. 
Most of us still see a man first. 

The women in these carousels aren't waiting for a spotlight, they're already doing the work, and we're just making that visible.
That's what today is for. More than a one-day celebration, it's about awarenes. And the quiet belief that visibility, over time, shifts something.

It's on all of us to keep showing up. 
Today and every day.

#IWD2026 #InternationalWomensDay #WomenInTech #WeAreSinch

Sinch IWD 

What my week felt like: 🔄

👉 Context switching is the tax you pay for scope.

Early in my career, I could spend days deep in one project. Now it’s a constant zoom in, zoom out. 😅

In a single day, I might:
✅ workshop a campaign concept
✅ present OKRs to leadership
✅ give feedback on a strategy deck
✅ review branded search & campaign KPIs
✅ prep annual performance reviews
✅ go back and forth with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini
✅ answer Slack from 100 people
✅ review candidates
✅ approve booth design
✅ talk to finance about budget
✅ post on LinkedIn 😉

Strategic to tactical. Creative to analytical. Coach to peer to operator. Sometimes before lunch! 

That shift is not accidental. It is the role.

What I have learned is that the risk is not the switching itself. It is losing altitude, stepping in too often. Going deep when the bigger value is direction.

The difference between energized and spinning is rarely workload. It is intention.

The real skill is knowing when to dive and when to stay high.

Some days I touch ten things without finishing any of them.

👉 Leadership is not about finishing everything. It is about moving everything forward.

What’s the ROI of SKO? 
Asking for a friend…

It’s been SKO season for weeks. 😅

My feed is full of keynote energy, matching hoodies, and sales teams getting fired up for the year ahead. 🔥

This year I’m noticing a shift. 
More companies going beyond the Sales Kickoff. Revenue KO. Business KO. Marketing, CS, product all in the room together with sales. 
The idea: shared energy across the whole org is worth more than energy within one team
Probably makes sense, right? 
If the goal is alignment before the year gets chaotic, why limit it to one function?

But these events are also getting bigger every year. More days, more prep, higher-end production, more people flying in from everywhere.
👉 More budget. More work for the organizing team.

Funny how in B2B marketing, we justify everything, we measure everything, we attribute everything. SKO seems to be the one thing that gets a pass!! 😉

So I’m curious: what do you do, and what does success actually look like for you? 
How do you make sure that Jan/Feb energy drives impact after April?

What did you build on Lovable yesterday?

After a week away for work, Sunday had to be a family day. No work stuff.
So I spent the afternoon building with my son. 

⚽ We shipped a cool penalty game.  
🇫🇷 Then we made a French dictée app connected to Claude to help him practice: his favorite manga characters, little rewards and fun quotes, a fun experience. 
Writing recognition isn't perfect yet but we had fun and I even made him prep this week's dictée without (too much) drama!

At dinner he asked if there was an API key to connect Lovable to Roblox. 😂 
Ok there isn't. But nine years old!! 🤯 

Big FOMO missing the Stockholm event with my Swedish 🦹‍♀️  Frida Ahrenby 🧚🏼, Fredrika Bennison, Johanna Fagerstedt and co.
But I touched grass, had lunch with family, and apparently I'm quietly raising a developer who uses Claude and Lovable before he can spell in French!!

I'll take it 😁 

#SheBuildsonLovable
#IWD2026

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Gwen Lafage 🐝

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