Sumant Vasan

CEO @ Spark Hat | I help healthcare companies acquire customers | $100M+ generated for my clients

The brutal truth? Your ideal customers are searching right now.

They're typing questions into Google. They're asking ChatGPT for recommendations. They're scrolling through AI-powered search results.

-And they're finding your competitors instead of you-

I'm Sumant Vasan, and I've spent 14 years fixing this exact problem for businesses that refuse to stay invisible.

Here's what I deliver:

✅ SEO that actually works - Not 500 blog posts hoping something sticks. Strategic optimization that puts you where your customers are already looking.

✅ AI-age website optimization - Your site needs to speak to both humans AND the AI systems now powering search. I make sure it does both fluently.

✅ Profitable advertising - Stop throwing money at ads that don't convert. I've managed $500K+ in spend and know exactly what turns clicks into customers.

What success looks like:
→ Your lead pipeline full of qualified leads
→ You stop losing customers to competitors you've never heard of
→ Your marketing budget actually generates measurable ROI
→ You become the obvious choice when customers search

The reality? Most businesses are playing yesterday's game while search evolves every day. Google's AI updates, ChatGPT's influence, Perplexity's growth (the landscape is shifting fast).

I help forward-thinking brands stay ahead of these changes, not behind them.

My track record speaks:

• Helped a health testing company dominate COVID testing with monster revenue
• Helped a drug testing business achieve 300% revenue growth in 18 months
• Helped a jewelry brand grow from $100K to $350K monthly revenue

The question isn't whether your customers are searching. They are.
The question is: Will they find you or your competition?

Ready to stop being your industry's best-kept secret? Let's talk.

Fractional CMO

- Helped design pre launch roadmap for fintech application
- Built influencer marketing program
- Designed content strategy and investor pitch collateral
- Coordinated app build with dev team to ensure optimal customer experience

Archita Fritz

Fractional Product Marketing Leader | I help operationalize product roadmaps for commercial success | Strategic Board Advisor | Workplace Culture

I help private equity–backed CEOs and value creation teams turn fragmented go-to-market efforts into a system that drives top-line growth, margin expansion, and commercial readiness for exit.

Most of the companies I support are post-acquisition, sitting around $15M–$50M in ARR, and moving fast toward their growth targets. But behind the scenes? The GTM motion is often still being driven by legacy sales instincts, founder-era marketing, and a whole lot of duct tape.

The symptoms are familiar:
⟶ Sales blaming marketing.
⟶ Marketing running plays that don’t align to revenue.
⟶ No clear ICP, no pricing discipline, and no real GTM narrative investors can buy into.

That’s where I come in.

With 20+ years across global MedTech, SaaS, and industrial technology—leading product launches in 80+ markets—I now partner with portcos as a short-term operator to unblock growth and build real commercial infrastructure.

Here’s how I support the PE lifecycle:

In the first 100 days
→ Run a GTM audit, identify gaps, and prioritize high-ROI quick wins.
→ Bring visibility to what’s actually driving pipeline, not just vanity metrics.

During the build phase
→ Align sales, marketing, and product around one repeatable commercial motion.
→ Fix positioning, pricing, segmentation, and campaign logic.
→ Install weekly operating cadence, dashboards, and conversion discipline.

As you scale
→ Shift from hero selling to system selling.
→ Equip reps with enablement that sticks, and codify what works.
→ Build segment-level GTM plays that actually reduce CAC over time.

Ahead of exit
→ Translate the growth story into buyer-ready clarity.
→ Highlight pipeline velocity, retention drivers, and future upside.
→ Package GTM IP as repeatable, not founder-dependent.

I’ve done this across portcos of AKKR, EQT, Cinven, and Nordic Capital, and across sectors from life sciences to enterprise SaaS.

Outside of portcos, I sit on four boards, keynote international stages, and host the Embracing Only podcast on leadership, identity, and transformation.

If you want marketing to “look busy,” hire an agency. If you want a GTM system that builds enterprise value, call me.

👉🏽 Learn more here: https://calendly.com/archita-e-fm/1-1-work-with-archita-intro-call

What my clients say:

“Archita turned GTM chaos into clarity! And she did it fast!”
— David Hall Rode, CEO, Blue Mountain (AKKR Portco)

“She built our product marketing function and aligned commercial with product.”
— Patrick Hughes, CRO, CluePoints (EQT Portco)

Chief Marketing Officer

We rise by lifting others! Driven by a commitment to build psychologically safe workplaces where people can unapologetically be themselves Archita is resolutely focused to work with partners who want to look beyond metrics to help shape cultures of belonging and cancel out the silent acceptance of bullying and harassment in the workplace.

Archita is the strategy and marketing lead on campaigns, partnerships, products and promotion. If you want to partner with Speak Out on organisational campaigns or partnerships please connect with her.

I completed my first HYROX last Sunday. #HyroxNice2026

It was the hardest physical thing I have ever done.

I’m a runner. For years my “hard thing” looked like 5Ks, 10Ks, half marathons. Then HYROX started circling in my gym and I felt this pull: 

I want to do something my body can’t already do. 


And phew…HYROX was different. 

Heavy sleds. 
Wall balls. 
Burpees. 
Lunges. 

Movements my body had never really been trained to handle for extended periods of time  and under fatigue. 

I started training in November last year. 

I worked with a coach in the gym. I trained through the holidays, through travel. I started with an ambitious target because it sounded like the kind of goal you’re supposed to say out loud. 

Then training did what it always does: it removed fantasy. Halfway through, I could see what and where I was actually ready for, so I set two numbers, a stretch and a realistic goal, and I trained to those.

Race day was messy and brutal and exactly as advertised. 

I executed the plan I trained. 
I finished. 
I felt proud.

Then I saw my ranking. 
Bottom 2%.

The next day, my husband picked me up at the airport in Düsseldorf. He said, “I’m so proud of you. You came in 1001.”

I tried to laugh it off. 
“So there were like five people after me?”

He said, “Yes. Exactly five.”

And suddenly I wasn’t thinking about sled pushes or wall balls. I was thinking: 

👉🏽 did I aim too low? 

What does it say about me that my “hard thing” landed in the bottom 2% of that room?

What I have been thinking about since is not the time. (Ok I am lying, I do think about it!)

𝑰𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒊𝒕 𝒊𝒔, 𝒂𝒔 𝒂𝒏 𝒂𝒅𝒖𝒍𝒕, 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒂𝒕 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒏 𝒑𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒄. 

Most of us build lives that reward competence. We choose rooms where we know the rules. We stay in lanes where our strengths show up quickly. 

When you walk into a room where you are genuinely a beginner, you cannot hide behind polish. You have to be willing to look slow, to look awkward, to be nowhere near the best, and to keep going anyway.

So some questions I am noodling and hope it helps you too: 

👉🏽 Where else do we set goals that feel brave in our head, but quietly keep us safe? 

👉🏽 Where else do we judge our effort based on how it looks, not what it took? 

👉🏽 And why are we so quick to turn a number into a story about our worth?

If you are in the early stages of something right now and it feels uncomfortable because you are not great at it yet, I hope you do not read that as a sign you do not belong. 

𝑰𝒕 𝒎𝒂𝒚 𝒃𝒆 𝒂 𝒔𝒊𝒈𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒑𝒊𝒄𝒌𝒆𝒅 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒉 𝒈𝒓𝒐𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐.

PS: All my glamour shots below of doing my insanely “hard thing” last Sunday! Anyone else caught the HYROX bug? On to training for my next one. Only up from here!

Archita Fritz 

Partner to Private Equity CEOs | GTM & Value Creation | Board Member | 2 x Top 100 Product Marketing Leader

My first HYROX in NICE 
Women’s Single Open

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If you’re 30, you think board seats are “later.”
If you’re 50, you wonder if you should have started sooner.

Both thoughts quietly keep good people out of the room.

I started my board journey in my 30s, not because I thought I was ready, but because I didn’t want my first serious governance role to be the moment I was also expected to already understand founder dynamics, power, restraint, and oversight.

Over the past two years, I’ve served on six boards and stepped off two. I’ve moved from advisory seats into non-executive and supervisory roles. I became chair within six months of joining an advisory board. I’ve also been involved in interviewing and appointing board members, including my own replacement as chair.

What changed for me wasn’t ambition. 
It was clarity.

Board work looks polished from the outside. 

Inside, it is about boundaries, fit, and judgment. You will join a company that aligns on paper and later realise the dynamic isn’t right. You will see management teams who genuinely want challenge but revert to familiarity under pressure. 

You will feel the pull to “just help” operationally when the real job is to hold the governance line.

You also see how much influence boards actually have when they choose to use it. In one paid board search I participated in, nearly 90% of the candidates interviewed had intersectional identities. That didn’t happen by accident; it happened because the search was deliberately widened beyond the usual networks.

Starting early gave me room to learn through experience rather than theory. It also forced me to get honest about which seasons of companies I want to support and where I add the most value.

I wrote a longer reflection here.

If you’re in your 30s and think board work is “later,” or in your 50s and wondering whether you missed the window, I hope this gives you a different lens.

And if you are in this season, I would love to know, 

What capability are you intentionally building now that most people postpone?

If you’re building a board career, or already sitting in the seat, what’s the hardest lesson you’ve learned that no one warned you about?

Why did I start pursuing board roles earlier than most people do? Two years ago, I saw the statistic about the average age of a board director being a

Open article: How to Start a Board Career Early: Lessons from Moving from Advisory Roles to Paid Non-Executive and Supervisory Boards by Archita Fritz • 11 min read

How to Start a Board Career Early: Lessons from Moving from Advisory Roles to Paid Non-Executive and Supervisory Boards

I joined MedTech at 19. When I looked up at the industry C Suite leaders back then, it looked like this.

Fast forward 20+ years.
It still looks like this.

Quick note: Reza Zahiri didn’t build this image to make a point about representation. He compiled a snapshot of the market leaders, full stop.

But sometimes a snapshot shows you a pattern anyway.

These companies, Thermo Fisher, Abbott, Intuitive, Danaher, Stryker, Medtronic, Boston Scientific, have built extraordinary businesses. Massive enterprise value creation. Global expansion, innovation and category dominance.

But leadership representation hasn’t moved at the same pace as revenue.

Here’s what the data shows:

👉🏽 In healthcare, women are 75% of entry-level jobs.  
👉🏽 In medical equipment & supplies manufacturing, women are 38.6% of the workforce.  
👉🏽 In the U.S., women are about ~20% of engineering, manufacturing, and construction graduates (a key feeder lane for technical leadership).  
👉🏽 In medtech, women hold 24.4% of executive roles across 78 large medical device companies.  

So no, this isn’t “we can’t find them.”

It’s: women are in the system… but too often don’t get the roles that build power.

➟ Boards…consider this: succession slates don’t “happen.” They’re designed.

➟ CEOs…consider this: who gets the first real P&L / turnaround / high-risk growth role?

➟ Leaders one level down…consider this: sponsorship isn’t coffee chats. It’s saying, out loud: Put her in. I’ve got her.

In your company, what’s the gateway role that decides who becomes a future executive, and what are you doing to change who gets it?

PS: Reza Zahiri, PhD, MBA‘s original post here. Give him a follow for insights on the MedTech industry.

Can your CEO, CRO, CFO, and Board answer these three questions the same way?

	1.	What are we optimizing for this year?
	2.	What are we willing to trade off?
	3.	Who decides when priorities conflict?

If the answers don’t match, you don’t have alignment, you have four different versions of “the plan” running at the same time.

And that’s how value creation in Middle Market Private Equity quietly bleeds out.

👉🏽So we’re measuring it.

In partnership with TheOperators.pe and powered by Remesh, we’re launching an anonymous research initiative focused on Operator ↔ Board dynamics in middle-market PE-backed companies.

Why middle-market? 

Truncated timelines. 
Smaller teams. 
Less margin for mixed signals.

This work is being shaped by people who sit in the seat:

Kit Lisle — Value Creation (Acclaro Partners, The Operators.PE)

Maxwell Salazar — Leadership & Culture (Salazar Leadership Advisory)

Eemaan Khan — PE Insights / Deal Intelligence & Value Creation

Me (Archita Fritz) — Growth & GTM (Ready Set Bold)

What we’re looking to understand, role by role:

1. Where alignment holds and where it breaks
2. What changes post-acquisition that leaders don’t say out loud
3. Where investor expectations diverge from operational reality
4. Which operating rhythms actually help execution

If you’re a PortCo CXO, Operating Partner, or PE investor/deal team and you want to participate, DM me “ALIGN” and I’ll send the link.

✅ All responses are anonymous
✅ Participants get early access to the findings + a private readout session
✅ And we will be taking the learnings to IRL field events

Field Report on Middle Market Private Equity

“The higher you go, the more people manage your emotions. You don’t get the truth, you get the version that won’t create drama.”

That’s an anonymized response from a mid-market Private Equity field report we’re building (with TheOperators.pe, powered by Remesh).

And even though this research is focused on PE-backed companies, the dynamic isn’t “a PE thing.” 

It’s a human thing.

If you’re reading that quote and thinking, “Yep… I’ve been in that room,” here are a few lines you can actually use the next time things start getting watered down:

“Can I say the messy version?”
“What would we say if we weren’t trying to keep this calm?”
“What’s the part of this we’re hoping nobody asks about?”
“If this were my money, what would I want to know that isn’t on the slide?”
“Before we move on, what’s the real risk here?”

None of that is dramatic. 
It gets the real issue on the table before it blows up.

If you’re operating inside a PE-backed company (or you’ve done it recently), I’d love your perspective for the field report. It’s anonymous, takes a few minutes, and we’ll share the patterns back with the community when it’s published.

Please DM me and I will share the link to participate in the Field Research Report. 

P.S. If you’ve lived this Slack moment, you know why we’re doing this report. It is what "on track" looks like underneath. :)

Leadership and how truth get's redacted the higher up you go

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