Strategic Operator

JD
PRATER

Position. Build. Align.

The output is a marketing function that shapes how the market thinks, builds a compounding growth engine, and owns the number.

3x VP of Marketing 4 Companies Acquired AI-Native
JD Prater
The rare combo

I'm a 3x VP of Marketing who came up in performance and grew into go-to-market strategy. The person who can hold ROAS to account and write the brand brief.

0 → 1

Build the function from scratch. ICP, messaging, demand engine, first hires. Have it generating pipeline in six months.

1 → 10

Reposition and scale past the ceiling. New market, new category, new story. With the measurement system to prove it's working.

New Leader

Step in when the VP moves on. Land fast, protect momentum, raise the standard of what marketing is held accountable for.


Depth Map

My strengths, stack-ranked. Hover each bar.

Positioning + Category
Positioning + Category
  • Category creation
  • Narrative & messaging
  • ICP development
  • Sales enablement
  • Competitive positioning
Performance + Demand Gen
Performance + Demand Gen
  • Pipeline generation
  • Paid acquisition
  • ABM programs
  • Full-funnel analytics
  • Lifecycle marketing
Brand + Creative
Brand + Creative
  • Brand strategy
  • Copy & voice
  • Creative direction
  • Conference speaking
  • Audience psychology
AI-Native Marketing
AI-Native Marketing
  • 6 AI workflows built
  • AI startup PMM
  • Competitive intel system
  • Customer signal miner
  • Autonomous reporting
Revenue Measurement
Revenue Measurement
  • Mutinex MMM
  • Marketing mix modeling
  • CFO-ready reporting
  • Attribution frameworks
  • Budget optimization
Technical Marketing
Technical Marketing
  • Snowflake + Looker
  • HubSpot lifecycle
  • SEO/AEO infrastructure
  • MarTech stack
  • Vibe-coding
What I'm not

a brand creative, an event factory, or a VP who disappears into strategy and resurfaces at the quarterly review. I came up in performance. I still think that way. The strategy always has to work in market or it's just an expensive deck.


Case Studies

The Work

The situation. What I built. What happened.

01
Ting
VP Marketing Strategy  ·  Jun 2025 – Present
The Situation

20-market fiber and mobile provider. Flat budget. No attribution model. Marketing measured by last click attribution. The CFO had no way to connect spend to revenue.

What I Built

Mutinex Marketing Mix Model to give every dollar an ROI. A HubSpot lifecycle program from scratch and six AI workflows that cleared repeatable intelligence work off the team's plate. A brand brief that reframed us from "another ISP" to the open, fair, and honest fiber provider that treats the customer like a neighbor.

Results
20% YoY revenue growth on flat budget
47% Marketing ROI improvement
3 Consecutive quarters of growth
18% Increase in mobile attach rate
02
AssemblyAI
Head of Product Marketing  ·  Jun 2024 – Jun 2025
The Situation

Category-leading speech AI API positioned as infrastructure. Enterprise buyers who could pay 10x didn't know why they should. No differentiation from a dozen cheaper alternatives.

What I Built

GTM Bullseye framework: segmented the market by use case, identified conversational intelligence as the highest-value segment, built messaging and sales enablement to enter it. Repositioned the company from generic API vendor to the intelligence layer inside mission-critical voice products.

Results
2x Revenue growth
70% Close rate, conversational intelligence segment
03
VP of Marketing  ·  Jun 2021 – Jan 2023
The Situation

Data ingestion startup with no category and no language. Competing against Fivetran, Airbyte, and Informatica with a fraction of the brand recognition. Sales pitching features instead of decisions.

What I Built

Named "first-mile data ingestion" as the category before the market had language for it. Built the positioning from scratch: the argument, the ICP, the narrative, the sales motion. Whoever names the category controls how it gets evaluated.

Results
$2M Pipeline in 6 months post-SLG pivot
Netflix Plus Harman, Rahi, Taxbit, Sage Intacct
04
Quora
Head of Product Marketing  ·  Aug 2018 – Jul 2020
The Situation

Quora Ads at $10M ARR. Known to every marketer as a place to read interesting answers. Not a B2B advertising platform. No product marketer, no positioning, no narrative. First PMM hire in the company.

What I Built

Repositioned from consumer Q&A site to B2B intent platform. Built the messaging, the sales narrative, and the self-serve category architecture. Hired and led the first PMM team in company history.

Results
400% Revenue growth in 18 months
$50M+ ARR
Earlier Work
Amazon Web Services
Global Head of PMM, Activate
15% new member growth. 60% product adoption in 3 months across 330K+ developers.
Graft
VP of Marketing
$1M qualified pipeline in 6 months from zero. No ICP, no messaging, no infrastructure on day one.
Acquired
AdStage
Director of Marketing
43% MRR growth. 47% ARPU increase. Built the marketing function from scratch.
Acquired
Hanapin Marketing
Director of Strategy
Scaled social advertising from 2% to 15% of company revenue.
Acquired

Tools I've Built

Tools

Free tools built on frameworks I use on real problems.

5M Constraints Diagnostic
Diagnose which of five core marketing constraints is blocking growth. Ten questions. Instant output with a confidence tier.
Pricing Research Finder
Match your pricing question to the right research methodology. Built on Wynter and Ariely frameworks.

Open Folders

Writing

Marketing science applied to real decisions. Evidence over instinct.

Older posts →

The playbook doesn't build itself

I've built it three times. The situations look different. The work is always the same: build the engine, own the number, give the CFO something to defend.

Let's build it.