Robin Daniels

Zensai

Working to elevate how people become more successful, happy, and fulfilled.

I lead:
- Product
- Marketing
- Pre-sales & Post-sales
- Category-creation

The company is growing at over 50% year over year, due to our award-winning Human Success Platform built for the Microsoft eco-system.

Chief Business Officer

byFounders

byFounders is an early stage venture fund actively investing in tech startups across the Nordics and Baltics. Made up of some of the region's most accomplished entrepreneurs (Zendesk, Unity, Skype, and more), the byFounders Collective invests in and supports the next generation of globally ambitious founders. I help byFounders portfolio companies with deal sourcing, go-to-market strategy, business development, and fundraising advice.

Founding Member & Advisor

Stage 2 Capital

The Go-To-Market Venture Capital Fund backed by elite GTM executives investing in and helping software companies scale sustainable revenue.

Limited Partner

Robin Daniels Inc.

Advisor, investor, and board member to a number of companies, including:

Beamery
N26
Uizard (acquired by Miro)
Singulate
Radious
Pult
Commsor
Cutover
Multiplier
ELO Health
Lative
Shouter
Doubble
Lighthouse (Formerly OTA Insights)
Rhombus Systems
Labster
Guide
Outfunnel
Synata

Advisor & Board Member & Investor

Sequoia Capital

Working with Sequoia on finding the next great founding teams.

Scout for Great Companies and Great Talent

Matterport

We took Matterport public on July 23rd, 2021. 

During my time at Matterport we saw:
- 500% subscriber growth
- IPO that 10x'ed the value of the company
- 2x revenue growth

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

WeWork

Led a global marketing team of ~400 people.

Key results include:
- Significant increase in lead quality which led to massive increases in revenue
- Activation of the community to share love for the brand
- Introduction of new products to the market

LinkedIn

Leader for the product, partner and transformation marketing teams for LinkedIn Talent Solutions.

This includes:
- LinkedIn Recruiter
- LinkedIn Jobs
- LinkedIn Talent Media
- LinkedIn Talent Insights
- Competitive and Market Intelligence
- Program and Innovation Management
- Evangelism
- Field Transformation and Enablement
- Partner Marketing

Global Head of Product, Partner, and Transformation Marketing

Help System Inc

I was CMO at VERA - Acquired by HelpSystems in December of 2020.

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), responsible for Marketing and Business Development. Ran sales + marketing as CRO for a year.

Responsible for:
- Marketing
- Business Development and Partnerships
- Strategic Growth Initiatives
- Fund-raising
- Company Culture

Chief Marketing Officer at Vera (CMO)

Synata

Acquired by Cisco in 2017.

Advisor to the CEO on GTM.

Advisor

Chief Business Officer @ Zensai #HumanSuccess & #AI | 3xCMO | 2.5xIPOs 😆 | Ex @Salesforce @WeWork @LinkedIn @Box @Matterport | LinkedIn Top Voice | Creator of Epic Teams | Dad | Runner | Made in Denmark 🇩🇰

I'm an experienced executive focused on growth, marketing, GTM, product innovation, and leadership development to deliver epic results through ground-breaking, fun, and highly differentiated activities, while empowering people and teams to do the best work of their lives. 

I'm Chief Business & Product Officer for Zensai (zensai.com).

Throughout my career I've held executive leadership roles in high growth companies of all sizes, including Matterport (IPO) WeWork (near IPO), Salesforce, LinkedIn, Box (IPO), Veritas, and Vera (acquired).

My areas of expertise include growth strategy, product innovation, marketing, product marketing communications and media, GTM strategies, org design, leadership development, innovation management, mergers & acquisitions, top-level leadership, category-creation, brand building, public speaking, and sales transformation.

Here's more about my life story and journey during the last two decades: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/roadmap-life-love-happiness-robin-daniels/

I spent over 20 years in the US and UK, but I'm from Copenhagen, Denmark and an avid runner and movie nerd.

Tara McDonagh Communications Inc

www.taramcdonagh.com

As a Company Communications Executive, you're constantly fighting the epidemic of busy-work, and you cringe when C-suite executives question the value of communications, or worse, ask only for tactics. 

You're exhausted from fighting triage battles and are ready to bring in a communications consultant and partner to lighten the strategic load and help you advance you and your teams' reputation as a critical business advisors.
  
With the right support, you can:  
✔️Proactively partner with business areas instead of respond to requests
✔️ Move business goals forward through Strategic Communications
✔️ Experience what it's like to get requests from peers that focus on helping achieve business goals, not tactical communications requests
✔️ Get invited to the decision-making table more often
✔️ Get the team resources, budget and respect you deserve!

I partner with Communications Executives to stop constant triage-mode and find joy in the accomplishment that comes from proactively protecting and advancing business goals. Communications Leaders come to me to get their teams out of constant triage mode and elevate their department's reputation as critical business advisors, not only Communications product-producers. 

We accomplish this through developing long-term Communications Strategy, Team Workshops and ongoing coaching or counsel.

Like you, I led Corporate Communications functions for major global and national brands. Through these experiences, I learned  how to turn the communications function into a strategic business partner, not only a product-producer. 

I get where you're coming from and know that "it's not that simple." I get it because I've been there too. In me, you'll find a partner to help lighten the strategic load and change the conversation to elevate your entire department's reputation. 
  
Ready to stop the merry-go-round of triage? Send a DM.

Chief Communications Strategist, CEO & Partner to Communications teams

Raise the Tide™

Raise the Tide is an intimate and powerful community, coaching, mentorship and professional development program for women Communications Leaders in the Corporate environment. 

In Raise the Tide, we create genuine connections to elevate, celebrate, support, and problem-solve with each other in our careers. Doing the REAL TALK, not surface-level nonsense no one has time for. 

This is NOT some watered-down typical  program for professional development or networking-focused low-touch program of community. Low touch is low impact. We don't have time for that. This program Is designed for impact so it's ALL the things. 

It's our vision to achieve a corporate world that not only invites Communications leaders to act as critical business advisors, but REQUIRES it, everywhere. It's the difference between being invited to the table with an expectation that you'll be grateful you were invited, and being required at the table there because they (leaders) cannot move forward without hearing your voice. 

And with women as the majority in our field, some distinct challenges for women in corporate leadership roles, and misperceptions and oversimplifications in our field ... we have some work to do to achieve this vision.

This is the program that you didn't even know you needed, but makes all the difference in your career. 

What's the impact of Raise the Tide? 

Promotions into jobs that didn't even exist
Salary increases between 10-30% (yes, for multiple women). 
Salary increases during times of layoffs and zero percent equity increases at some companies.
New bonuses and equity/stock awards in the near $100,000 range 
Doubling of Department budgets. 
New staff/team members (when told this was not happening for them). 

It has ALL happened in this program - in under a year . For many, it's happened in under six months. 

A rising tide raises all ships.

We're not the ships, we're the tide, raising the ships for our industry. 

More about the program: www.raisethetide.net

Founder 

Ahold Delhaize

If you need change communications support, counsel on setting up a new organizational structure and business model, or ideas on how to set up a new brand, culture and operate a communications center of excellence, I'm your go-to pro.

When I started with Ahold Delhaize, one of the top 5 largest retailers operating in the U.S., the company was experiencing significant change. The company had merged two companies and six brands and was now setting up a new organizational structure and operating model.  
 
A new company was created to share best practices across all of the brands (Stop & Shop, Hannaford, Food Lion, Giant/Martins, Peapod and Giant Food).  
 
I led internal/employee communications at this new organization.  
 
This included:  
✔️ Creating a center of excellence to share best-practices across brands  
✔️ Leading complex communications work that applied across all brands. 
✔️ Standing up the culture at the company and communicating the value of the organization to the other brands.  
✔️ Engaging employees in change.  
✔️ Setting up the Communications Channels for the new company from scratch, so we could share information and engage in conversations to create culture (Intranet, Town Hals, Emails, Internal Social Channels, other)

Head of Internal Communications, RBS, a company of Ahold Delhaize USA 

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts

In my seven years at this multi-billion dollar organization, I led Public Relations, Crisis Communications, Strategic Planning and Public Affairs.  With expertise gained here, I now help my clients:   
✔️ manage entirely matrixed teams, set up and manage integrated communications plans (cross-department plans)
✔️ advise the executive team and resolve issues to benefit the business.  
✔️Lead and manage a crisis while spotting one coming. 
✔️ Move a product from unknown to dominant by creating positive visibility, even when it's an unknown or controversial product or service. 
✔️ Edit (alter) business decisions as the executive team considers communications impact on the issue.
 
CRISIS: I led PR and raised the reputation of a health insurance company to over 90% positive rating during the battle over the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) when health insurance companies were in the line-of-fire as public enemy #1. I also managed a major data breach involving tens of thousands of social security numbers, an abrupt hospital closure impacting a remote community, and more.
 
MOVE A PRODUCT/SERVICE FROM UNKNOWN TO DOMINANT: I created positive visibility for a controversial new product/payment model which many feared would be a return to "managed care" where patients were prevented from getting the care they needed. Instead, using five specific communications strategies, it received highly favorable national attention, including stories in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. It's now the dominant physician payment model in the U.S.  
 
ISSUES MANAGEMENT: I led communications for a change that prevented patients from going to the physician or hospital they're familiar with because insurance wouldn't pay for their care. Through leveling the playing field with influencers and the public, we ensured the company's view was heard. When the issue resolved, provider contracting attributed communications preparedness with setting the tone for favorable negotiations.

Head of Public Relations, Public Affairs, & Crisis Communications; Corporate Communications

Monster

I led Communications at Monster.com during a time of explosive growth and eventual market dominance. Through experiences gained at Monster.com, I now bring to my clients:  
 ✔️ Proven methods to successfully triage requests to focus on the business goals 
 ✔️ Skills to grow the Communications' department reputation and eventually be regularly invited to the decision-making table. 
✔️ Approaches to developing internal partnerships with Marketing, HR, Finance, Investor Relations, Product, Sales, and other business areas to get ahead of communications and use internal communications and public relations as strategic functions to impact business goals.  
✔️ Ways to turn skeptics or tactical requestors into partners and advocates for strategic Corporate Communications.  
✔️ Knowledge and experience on how to build a brand into the undisputed category leader.  
✔️ An expertise in internal communications and organizational change plans that are honest about the tough stuff, engage employees in participating, and change employee behavior.  
✔️ An understanding of how to navigate change including multiple leadership changes (3 CEOs in 2 years) with as little business disruption as possible.  
✔️ Expertise in crisis communications connected to multiple company issues at the time (data breaches, leadership and investor scrutiny, and more).  
 
... and how to handle it all with a tiny team.

Head of Global Public Relations & Internal Communications 

PR Agencies like: Weber Shandwick, PAN Communications  and More

During my 7-year agency career (including roles at agencies like Weber Shandwick and PAN Communications), I learned how to manage many priorities and clients, manage matrixed teams, bridge strategy with execution, and become exceptional at bread-and-butter communications skills of media relations, writing, strategic campaign planning and execution.
 
These are all skills I leveraged later in my career as I began to get into the mind of the client to know what they need (because I became one!), and deliver exceptional client service later on in my own external communications consultant practice.

I was regularly promoted in these roles and led the teams with the most earned revenue for the agency - because I was trusted to excel.

Public Relations Agency Manager

You’re a Corporate Communications Executive who’s fighting the epidemic of busy-work, and you cringe when C-suite executives question the value of communications, or worse, ask only for tactics. 

If only you could get to the strategic work you know will TRULY make a difference to the business. If only .... 
  
✔️ You could circumvent random requests for press releases, employee messages or [insert tactical request here].
✔️Your internal business partners would clue you in to the newsworthy stuff earlier so you could create a strategic plan.
✔️Your peers understood you’re a critical business function that can partner with them to achieve their goals, not simply “get publicity” or “send emails to employees”.  
✔️Your team members had skills and tools to elevate their work as advisors, not only product-producers.   
  
Because you know that doing work that’s not connected to business goals feels like throwing darts blindfolded … and sometimes the dart board isn’t even there. 
 
You have the skills to fight these battles, but you’re exhausted and are ready to bring in a communications consultant partner to lighten the strategic load and make an impact – showing the C-Suite how strategic communications delivers on the bottom-line.  You want someone who understands the corporate world. Someone who's been there too. 
  
With the right support, you know your team can:  
✔️Proactively partner with peer departments
✔️ Move business goals forward with Strategic Communications approaches
✔️ Start hearing requests from business areas for support to achieve business goals, not support for communications tactics
✔️Get invited into that decision-making table, consistently. 

I partner with Communications Executives to stop the dart game, remove the blindfolds, and find joy in the accomplishment that comes from solid contributions that protect and advance the brand and impact the business.

I know how to do this because I've been you. 

I led Corporate Communications functions for major brands. I learned how to turn the communications function into the role of trusted business advisor. 

I get where you’re coming from and know that "it's not that simple" ... really, I do. I get it because I've been there too. In me, you'll find a partner to help lighten the load and change the conversation to elevate your department's reputation. 
  
Ready to stop the cycle? Send a message. Let's talk.

taplio

The Battle

Robin Daniels

Tara McDonagh

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