Will Gray

I take the CMO seat at companies that have marketing happening but nobody senior owning it.

That means the whole function rather than a channel. The annual and quarterly plan, budget allocation, positioning and offer architecture, the agency and vendor bench, lifecycle and retention, the first marketing hires, and one set of numbers the CEO and CFO both trust. Weekly leadership call, monthly executive review, every channel on one page against booked revenue.

I came up as an operator, not a consultant. As Head of Marketing for a national location-based entertainment brand I built the in-house performance team, directed five outside agencies, closed 200+ brand partnerships, and grew revenue from roughly $1.5M to $60M+ across 20+ markets in four years. Earlier I ran business operations for a national lifestyle publication, doubling subscription revenue in six months and closing its largest distribution deal, into 22 countries.

MOST RECENT SEAT A 37-location fast-casual restaurant group. I opened with a full-funnel diagnostic across paid, lifecycle, SEO, and their guest-data platform, and reframed the problem from pricing to new-guest acquisition and churn. From there I rebuilt measurement so reporting reconciled to POS revenue, restructured the creative agency against KPIs the CEO signed off on, and replaced an underperforming web vendor. The engagement returned 30x my fee.

THE PROBLEM I KEEP GETTING HIRED FOR Your ad platforms, your agency, and your books all report different numbers, so nobody can say what marketing actually returned. I rebuild measurement first, including server-side tagging, conversions API, and warehouse reporting on your own fiscal calendar and definitions. Then I run the function off numbers your CFO will sign.

WHERE I DO MY BEST WORK Founder-led multi-location consumer brands (restaurants, hospitality, location-based entertainment, multi-unit retail) and B2B SaaS companies running real budgets, with a team or agency already in place and nobody to direct it.

HOW I WORK Roughly two days a week, front-loaded in the first 60 days. Weekly leadership call and scorecard, monthly executive review. I direct creative, web, and media vendors rather than produce or buy. Most engagements open with a two-week diagnostic covering a full-funnel audit, a measurement review, and a 90-day roadmap you keep either way.