Top 15 Fractional CMOs for PE-Backed Companies (2026)
Private equity-backed companies hire fractional CMOs to hit value creation plans quickly without adding a full-time executive. These 15 certified fractional CMOs say in their own profiles that they work with PE-backed companies, portfolio companies or operating partners.
By Sangram Vajre, Co-founder of GTM Partners
Key takeaways
- PE-backed marketing is measured on pipeline, efficient growth and enterprise value, so look for a leader who reports in revenue terms, not activity.
- The first 90 days usually cover a go-to-market (GTM) diagnostic, a focused ideal customer profile and a pipeline plan tied to the investment thesis.
- Operating partners can match several portfolio companies with certified leaders through GTM Partners at no cost.
The 15 certified fractional CMOs for PE-backed companies
Alphabetical, not ranked. Every leader is a GTM OS Certified Partner you can contact directly, free.
Abel Lomas
Fractional CMO & GTM Leader GTM OS Certified
Best for: B2B SaaS, AI Tech, and Services companies generating $4M to $100M ARR facing slowed growth and operational friction
Abel Lomas supports private-equity-backed B2B SaaS and services companies generating $10M to $100M in ARR that face slowed growth and operational friction. Operating partners engage Abel to eliminate revenue bottlenecks, resolve internal misalignment, and protect portfolio valuations. With over 25 years of experience leading go-to-market teams, he systematizes revenue operations across sales, marketing, and customer success. Abel resolves poor handoffs that trigger churn, helping European and North American portfolio organizations unlock predictable enterprise revenue and drive durable expansion.
Alan Gonsenhauser
Fractional CMO & GTM Leader GTM OS Certified
Best for: PE-backed B2B and B2B2C mid-market software and healthtech companies needing aligned GTM strategy, pipeline growth, and revenue efficiency
Alan Gonsenhauser supports private equity operating partners and portfolio company CEOs needing to protect enterprise value, improve revenue efficiency, and accelerate exit readiness. He addresses stalled pipeline, poor pipeline quality, and go-to-market strategy misalignment following acquisitions, buyouts, or carve-outs. Alan has served as an 11-time Chief Marketing Officer and 3-time general manager, coaching more than 150 CMOs while at SiriusDecisions and Forrester. His private equity portfolio client engagements include companies such as FinThrive, Precisely, Quest Software, Cornerstone OnDemand, and SoftwareOne.
Caitlin Clark-Zigmond
Fractional CMO & GTM Leader GTM OS Certified
Best for: B2B SaaS, enterprise software, and tech companies needing to align sales, marketing, and product into a unified revenue engine
Caitlin Clark-Zigmond supports private-equity-backed software companies needing to establish predictable go-to-market systems and accelerate value creation. Operating partners bring in Caitlin to address fragmented revenue engines, improve pipeline efficiency, and establish rigorous metrics across CAC, LTV, and net retention. A former marketing leader at Intuit, Intel, and Verizon Business, she aligns marketing, sales, and product to drive rapid expansion. Caitlin has delivered 300%+ year-over-year growth at private-equity-backed startups, helping portfolio scaleups turn around stalled pipelines and scale revenue efficiently.
Charles Gold
Fractional CMO & GTM Leader GTM OS Certified
Best for: B2B cybersecurity software companies building repeatable go-to-market motions, sharpening positioning, and scaling past founder-led sales
Charles Gold supports private equity operating partners and leadership teams at growth-stage cybersecurity software companies generating $10M to $60M in ARR. He solves critical scale bottlenecks, including inefficient customer acquisition costs, pipeline coverage shortfalls, and organizational friction across revenue teams. Backed by 25-plus years of go-to-market operating experience, Charles has served as CMO for two PE-backed go-to-market turnarounds in cybersecurity. He validates growth assumptions, evaluates marketing leadership capabilities, and builds sustainable commercial systems that drive portfolio value creation.
Dee Bowers
Fractional CMO, CRO & GTM Leader GTM OS Certified
Best for: Founder-led, partner-led, and PE-backed B2B service firms scaling from $7M to $100M revenue in North America
Dee Bowers partners with private-equity-backed B2B service firms scaling from $7M to $100M revenue that face investor pressure to create predictable value. Dee resolves issues where marketing operates under sales without transparency, or where portfolio companies rely on isolated partner relationships. By implementing a cohesive go-to-market structure across marketing, sales, and client success, Dee improves demand generation and commercial visibility. Dee draws on executive background as a CMO and CRO in Top 25 accounting firms and high-growth technology providers to deliver dependable portfolio growth.
Doug Mow
Fractional CMO & GTM Leader GTM OS Certified
Best for: Small to mid-sized SaaS, enterprise software, MSPs, and cloud providers facing stalled revenue growth and extending sales cycles
Doug Mow partners with private-equity-backed technology firms generating $10 million to $25 million in EBITDA that face stalled expansion and extended sales cycles. He builds sustainable revenue engines by conducting go-to-market assessments and addressing cross-functional misalignment between marketing, sales, and customer success. Operating as Managing Director of Silver Stream Advisory, Doug focuses on pipeline velocity and expanding installed bases to accelerate portfolio value creation. Across his career, he has guided companies through multiple exits and IPOs while helping drive public-company stock prices up by more than 300 percent.
Keith Woodward
Fractional CMO & GTM Leader GTM OS Certified
Best for: Growth-stage and PE-backed B2B SaaS companies fixing broken demand systems, ICP drift, and revenue leakage across commercial teams
Keith Woodward partners with private equity operating partners and portfolio CEOs to accelerate ARR, reduce customer acquisition costs, and turn marketing into a predictable growth driver. Keith targets revenue leakage caused by broken commercial handoffs, weak attribution, and inefficient marketing spend in PE-backed B2B SaaS firms. He aligns sales, marketing, and product around a repeatable go-to-market operating system designed for enterprise value creation. Bringing more than 20 years of commercial leadership and two successful exits, Keith establishes disciplined lead-to-opportunity optimization and Agentic commercial infrastructure.
Lance Weatherby
Fractional CMO, CRO & GTM Leader GTM OS Certified
Best for: Seed, Series A, and PE-backed B2B SaaS and AI-native software companies building repeatable, scalable revenue engines post-product-market fit
Lance Weatherby supports private-equity-backed software companies and operating partners facing investor pressure for predictable, efficient portfolio growth. Lance resolves fragmented revenue reporting, misaligned marketing and sales motions, and unvalidated messaging across businesses with 10 to 150 employees. By deploying a unified go-to-market architecture alongside AI-assisted reporting and account sourcing, he creates operational clarity without expanding headcount unnecessarily. His strategic interventions have delivered a 10x valuation increase and expanded client revenues from $3M to $20M ARR within a 24-month period.
Lynne DeRoche
Fractional CMO & GTM Leader GTM OS Certified
Best for: Growth-stage travel, traveltech SaaS, and hospitality companies scaling revenue and building disciplined go-to-market engines
Lynne DeRoche partners with private equity operating partners and executive teams managing portfolio companies in travel, hospitality, and TravelTech generating $10M or more. Lynne addresses inefficient marketing spend, fragmented commercial motions, and low revenue visibility across hotel groups and software platforms. She drives value creation by establishing structured operating rhythms, implementing performance scorecards, and scaling revenue operations. With over 25 years of sector growth leadership, Lynne unifies sales and marketing to optimize go-to-market spend, accelerate qualified pipeline generation, and ensure predictable, disciplined expansion.
Michele Hodde
Fractional CMO, COO & GTM Leader GTM OS Certified
Best for: $5M–$50M founder-led and VC/PE-backed industrial technology and engineered-product companies in North America moving beyond founder-led growth
Michele Hodde partners with private equity operating partners and sponsors managing $5M to $50M industrial tech and engineered-product portfolio companies across North America. She addresses commercial inefficiencies such as unpredictable pipelines, weak positioning leading to price pressure, and uneven sales performance where top sellers outproduce the median. A former CEO, COO, and CMO, Michele conducts strategic go-to-market diagnostics to identify growth bottlenecks. She then embeds as a fractional leader to align marketing, sales, and support, driving sustainable value creation and commercial execution.
Michele Reister
Fractional CMO & GTM Leader GTM OS Certified
Focus: Helping B2B SaaS and technical services companies replace random acts of marketing with a repeatable go-to-market operating system
Michele Reister supports private-equity-backed B2B SaaS companies and operating partners facing portfolio go-to-market realignment or post-merger integration. Michele resolves cross-functional friction between sales, marketing, and customer success to restore executive confidence in revenue ownership. Rather than relying on disconnected tactics, Michele establishes a unified operating model and uses artificial intelligence tools to drive execution efficiency without adding operational noise. Backed by 25 years of experience scaling software businesses up to $75M ARR, Michele builds disciplined, predictable pipeline generation that accelerates enterprise value creation.
Natasha Sinutko Morgan
Fractional CMO & GTM Leader GTM OS Certified
Best for: VC- and PE-backed B2B SaaS companies at $10–150M ARR building repeatable GTM systems to scale beyond existing playbooks
Natasha Sinutko Morgan partners with private-equity-backed B2B SaaS companies at $30M to $150M ARR to accelerate portfolio value creation. Natasha targets the specific operational bottlenecks capping growth, aligning marketing, sales, and customer success around unified metrics to drive efficient net revenue retention. She eliminates fragmented commercial motions across acquisitions to establish scalable go-to-market systems. In a previous executive role, Natasha scaled a private-equity-backed B2B SaaS portfolio of four brands from $80M to $230M ARR in just two years.
Peter Cullinan
Fractional CMO & GTM Leader GTM OS Certified
Best for: B2B technology, healthcare tech, and PE-backed SaaS companies needing to transform fractured marketing into a repeatable demand generation engine
Peter Cullinan helps private equity operating partners and portfolio executives eliminate inefficient marketing spend and build disciplined, repeatable demand engines. Peter is engaged when portfolio companies with strong products struggle with stalled pipeline, poor sales alignment, or unreliable attribution. With 25 years of experience scaling revenue functions across enterprise and middle-market firms up to 100 million dollars, he conducts go-to-market audits and strengthens marketing operations. Peter integrates frameworks like EOS and Forrester SiriusDecisions, aligning sales, RevOps, and product teams to drive capital-efficient growth and transparent pipeline accountability.
Ralf Paschen
Fractional CMO & GTM Leader GTM OS Certified
Best for: B2B SaaS companies generating $3M to $75M ARR transitioning from founder-led sales to predictable, team-led hybrid GTM motions
Ralf Paschen partners with private-equity-backed B2B SaaS portfolio companies with $3M to $75M ARR to install operational discipline and accelerate value creation. Ralf addresses growth friction under board scrutiny, focusing on structural revenue drivers such as CAC efficiency, net retention rate performance, and Rule of 40 alignment. He diagnoses revenue engines, eliminates marketing-to-sales misalignment, and fixes broken pipeline conversion from lead to closed won. PE operating partners hire Ralf for 90-day transformation sprints and interim leadership to stabilize forecasting, expand into EMEA or US markets, and scale enterprise go-to-market motions.
Stacy Sutton
Fractional CMO & GTM Leader GTM OS Certified
Best for: Lower middle-market B2B services, manufacturing, and tech companies addressing stalled growth, weak positioning, and reactive marketing
Stacy Sutton supports private equity sponsors and portfolio companies that need to professionalize commercial operations and build durable value. She steps into lower middle-market businesses experiencing revenue concentration risk, founder dependency, or plateaued revenue. Stacy applies an investor perspective to clarify positioning, eliminate reactive marketing, and build structured go-to-market roadmaps that hold up under diligence. Her background includes leading growth at a private equity firm, sitting on the investment committee as founding CMO at a venture studio, and building and selling her own marketing agency.
More curated lists
When a PE-backed company should hire a fractional CMO
Common triggers are the first 100 days after an acquisition, a missed growth plan, a platform-plus-add-on integration that needs one go-to-market story, or a gap between marketing leaders. A fractional CMO can diagnose, set the plan and stand up the team while the board decides on a permanent hire.
What a fractional CMO costs
Most providers don't publish prices. These are roll-ups of 181 engagements registered by 62 GTM Partners certified partners (November 2026).
- Median contract
- $30,000
- Typical retainer
- ~$10,000/mo
- Median retainer engagement
- $67,500 / 6 mo
- Median project
- $12,000
Middle half of retainers: $6,250 to $16,700 a month. Typical initial term 3 months (average 5). Partners set their own rates; GTM Partners takes no cut.
How we selected
- Certified. Trained and certified by GTM Partners on the 8 pillars of the GTM Operating System™, the cross-functional go-to-market framework.
- Self-described fractional CMO. The title comes from the leader's own profile. We don't assign titles.
- Fit for this list. States private equity, PE-backed or portfolio companies as a focus in their own profile or registered engagements.
- Weighed on evidence. Certification level, registered client engagements, concrete results in their profile and time in the network. Individuals only; agencies are listed separately.
Names are alphabetical; we don't publish rankings or scores. Everyone on this list is a GTM Partners certified partner. GTM Partners doesn’t charge buyers or take a cut of engagements. Partners pay GTM Partners for certification, training and tooling. There is no fee to be included on this list.
Frequently asked questions
What does a fractional CMO do for a private equity-backed company?
They tie marketing to the value creation plan: focusing the ideal customer profile, fixing positioning after acquisitions, building pipeline the board can forecast, and cutting spend that doesn’t produce revenue. Many also help integrate add-on acquisitions into one go-to-market motion.
Can PE operating partners use GTM Partners across a portfolio?
Yes. Operating partners can use the free matching engine for each portfolio company and contact certified leaders directly. Because every partner is trained on the same GTM Operating System, the diagnostics and plans are comparable across companies.
How much does a fractional CMO cost?
Most firms and marketplaces don’t publish fractional CMO pricing. Across 181 engagements registered by GTM Partners certified partners (as of November 2026), the median contract was $30,000 and the average about $64,000. Ongoing retainers had a median of $67,500 over 6 months, about $10,000 a month. Scoped projects had a median of $12,000.
Can I hire a fractional leader without paying a placement fee?
Yes. GTM Partners doesn’t charge buyers and takes no cut of engagements. Describe your company and go-to-market (GTM) challenge in the free matching engine, or browse certified partner profiles, then contact the leaders you like directly and agree terms with them.
How were these leaders selected? Did anyone pay to be listed?
Everyone listed is a GTM Partners certified partner who calls themselves a fractional CMO in their own profile. We weighed certification level, registered client engagements, concrete results in their profile and time in the network, then list names alphabetically. There is no fee to be included. Partners pay GTM Partners for certification, training and tooling, not for placement.
Not sure who fits? Get a free shortlist.
Describe your company, stage and go-to-market (GTM) challenge. The free matching engine suggests certified fractional leaders you can contact directly. No placement fee, no cut.