Maria Pergolino - CMO, SPS Commerce
Maria Pergolino ran Marketo's own marketing on Marketo. As senior director of marketing from 2009 to 2012, she led its acquisition teams across growth, operations, events, and content, which meant the company's own pipeline doubled as its product demo. Philadelphia trained her first: a marketing specialist role at a real estate firm, then marketing manager and later financial analyst at chemicals maker Arkema, head of marketing programs at Chubb, and head of demand generation at Shunra, which landed more than half the Fortune 500 as customers before HP acquired it. Conga made her CMO and SVP of global marketing and sales development for five years. Anaplan then hired her as CMO, followed by more than three years in the same role at ActiveCampaign. She spent nearly two years as CMO executive in residence at Scale Venture Partners and still advises its portfolio on go-to-market. SPS Commerce named her chief marketing officer in July 2025. Pergolino also served four years on a Better Business Bureau board.
Dan Larson - CMO, Arctic Wolf
Dan Larson describes himself in three words: technologist, pitchman, leader. The technologist came first. At the University of Wisconsin he taught professors to build websites and record podcasts, and in GE Healthcare's IT leadership program he led the global deployment of SafeBoot encryption to roughly 35,000 laptops. SafeBoot then hired him as a security consultant, where he sold more than $2.5 million in his first year. McAfee acquired the company, and over nearly eight years in Minneapolis he moved from senior sales engineer to enterprise solution architect to director of technical marketing for McAfee's entire product portfolio. CrowdStrike hired him in 2015 for technical product management and promoted him twice to vice president of product marketing. Arctic Wolf brought him in as SVP of marketing in 2020 and made him chief marketing officer in May 2021, where he leads brand, communications, technical marketing, demand generation, and enablement. Few security CMOs started out installing the software themselves.
Meghan AuBuchon - CMO, Cynet Security
A user conference that grew from 200 attendees to more than 1,500 in three years marked Meghan AuBuchon's early career at PeopleNet. She spent seven years at the fleet technology company, rising from marketing communications specialist to director of marketing communications and inside sales. Earned media grew more than 500% and lead generation 145% along the way. Winland Electronics then hired her as VP of marketing to rebrand a manufacturer as a software provider. GovDelivery followed, where she improved MQL to SQL conversion 36%. At MedHub she aligned two merging brands, increased demand generation 177%, and lifted services revenue 60% year over year. After a stint at Agosto, Arctic Wolf hired her in 2019, and over six years she rose from senior director to vice president of global demand generation. Cynet named her chief marketing officer in February 2025 as the company revamped its go-to-market.
Kaitlin Shinkle - CMO, Airlock Digital
Kaitlin Shinkle started as an account coordinator at Weber Shandwick in 2003, building media lists and compiling PR results reports. Kroll Ontrack then kept her more than eight years, from public relations specialist, where she increased coverage 147%, to director of worldwide corporate communications and events, managing an internal team and a global agency network. After a stint at Arcserve, Jamf hired her in 2015 to run corporate communications and content marketing. Her eleven years there took an unusual turn. Having led marketing and communications, she moved over to product, managing the product managers and owners behind the Jamf Connect identity line, then leading product strategy for the commercial market. She returned to marketing as senior vice president in 2021. Airlock Digital named her chief marketing officer in August 2026, marketing application control software to security teams. Very few CMOs have run a product roadmap as well as a press office.
Todd Morgan - CMO, TDX Tech
Todd Morgan has worked for the same business twice. He joined PosNavitas Retail Services as marketing director in 2008, when it included TDX Tech and Aspect Loss Prevention, and spent four years there. Verisk Retail then made him vice president of marketing for nearly five years. He returned to TDX Tech as VP of marketing in 2017 and became chief marketing officer in August 2024, marketing IT hardware procurement, staging, deployment, and maintenance for retailers and other multi-site businesses through a network of thousands of technicians across North America. Alongside both employers he has run 360 Net Media as chief strategist since 2008. Nearly two decades in retail technology sit behind the job, most of them selling to people who run stores rather than people who run IT departments.
Amy Kamenick - VP Marketing & PR, Aleran Software
Amy Kamenick covered the Twin Cities advertising, marketing, and PR industries as a reporter for the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal, where she also led the publication of its Book of Lists. She spent eight years at the University of St. Thomas raising corporate and foundation money for its capital campaign, then nearly six at Weber Shandwick running digital strategy for clients including the US Treasury Department, Ernst & Young, and State Farm. In-house work came at Code42, where she helped grow paying customers of CrashPlan for Small Business 200% and launched content that influenced $156,000 in annual recurring revenue in its first year. Boston Scientific, Allina Health, and Surest followed, and at Allina she grew the digital team from three to seven and doubled conversions year over year. Cashé Software saw 50% annual ARR growth while she directed marketing there. Kamenick has run her own B2B growth consultancy since 2019 and joined Aleran Software as VP of marketing and PR in April 2025. She grew up in small-town Wisconsin.
Marisa Johnson - CMO, SmarterDx
Marisa Johnson was the first marketing hire at SmarterDx. She joined after its Series A, when it had six health system clients, and within about eighteen months the clinical AI company reached a billion-dollar valuation and more than 85 health system clients, with her campaigns driving over $200 million in pipeline. She built the brand from scratch and a team of 18, and became chief marketing officer in April 2026. Journalism came first, as an urban affairs reporter covering Chicago transit for Medill News Service and then an assistant editor at Healthcare Executive magazine. At Spok her content generated 9,000 leads and more than $11 million in pipeline. Sanvello hired her as its second marketing hire to lead the rebrand from Pacifica, and the mental health app was named Apple's App of the Day four times in 2020, while her pandemic campaign won Branch's Mobile Growth Award for best COVID adaptation. She then led member marketing for Level2, UnitedHealthcare's first condition-specific health plan.
Rebecca Martin - CMO, Glia
Rebecca Martin ran an international trade center in the mid-1990s, then sold coatings by phone for H.B. Fuller. Minnesota technology took her from there. She did field marketing at BORN, ran marketing at Shavlik Technologies, and led corporate communications at Stellent until Oracle acquired it, staying on as Oracle's director of integrated marketing. Three years as vice president of operations at Corset, Inc. followed, then integrated marketing at Trissential and three and a half years at Code42. Calabrio hired her as VP of marketing in 2016 and made her CMO in 2018 for its contact center workforce optimization software. Total Expert then made her CMO for three years, marketing customer engagement software to banks, lenders, and credit unions. Glia named her chief marketing officer in December 2023, where she markets digital customer service and AI to financial institutions. Over two decades she has been trusted with millions in venture capital to build funnels and position entrepreneurial brands across customer experience, fintech, data security, and content management.
Mike Bernard - CMO, Evotix
Mike Bernard was a college cheerleader and says it was good career training: rally the team, energize the crowd, cheer on the customer, repeat. He started at HousingLink, an affordable housing nonprofit, managing $120,000 a year in search advertising. At GovDelivery his digital programs sourced 48% of the sales pipeline in 2012 and made him a Markie Awards finalist. Relationship One grew its consulting team from seven to 25 under him. As VP of marketing at Reeher he cut the cost per qualified lead from over $2,000 to $1,025 and led the team through Blackbaud's acquisition. Insite Software made him CMO, where top-of-funnel opportunities grew 35% and marketing sourced 60% of new business revenue, and he led the team through Optimizely's acquisition. Vendavo then hired him as CMO for more than three years. Evotix named him chief marketing officer in May 2025, marketing environmental, health, and safety software built so every employee goes home safe. He considers cheap pens a brand liability.
Troy Thibodeau - CMO, Lightspeed DMS
Troy Thibodeau audited companies at PwC, ran diligence on mergers, and worked IPO engagements in Chicago and Minneapolis before he marketed anything. General Mills hired him as a financial analyst and moved him into a group assessing $1 billion in trade marketing programs. After an accelerated MBA at Carlson, he helped Wizmo raise $28 million in venture capital and launched new SaaS products at Honeywell. Gelco Information Network then made him VP of marketing, and over three years the expense management business grew from $20 million to $70 million and sold to Concur, where he stayed as VP of global strategic marketing. At Convey he scaled a regulatory reporting business from $10 million to $40 million in five years, then served as chief operating officer and later CMO and chief product officer after Sovos acquired it. CMO roles at Ascentis and Procurement Partners followed. Lightspeed DMS named him chief marketing officer in October 2024. He has mentored emerging Minnesota software companies pro bono for a decade.
The Twin Cities Loop
Minneapolis marketing runs on a short list of employers and a long memory. People leave Code42 and turn up at Calabrio, leave GovDelivery and land at Optimizely, train at Weber Shandwick and run communications at a security firm across town. That circulation does something useful: lessons travel fast, and a marketer's reputation precedes them into the next interview. It also produces a bench that knows how to sell to hard audiences, because the companies here mostly sell security, compliance, healthcare, and financial software to buyers paid to say no. The reporters, accountants, and engineers on this list turned out to be well suited to that job.