Ron Kagan
VP of Growth Marketing. B2B SaaS in fintech, fraud and risk, payroll and HCM. Marketing leader for growth-stage companies in regulated markets: demand generation, paid media, marketing operations and partner marketing run as one accountable system, budget to sourced pipeline to closed-won.
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Experience
VP of Growth Marketing, OnPay
- Built the AI-visibility program from scratch: instrumented citation tracking across ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity, then set the answer-first content strategy behind it. OnPay is now the third most-cited domain in AI answers for payroll prompts, ahead of Paychex, Intuit and Rippling, and the top citation in AI Overviews on niche strengths like nonprofit and farm payroll.
- Lifted cohort signup-to-enrollment conversion from 25.4% to 36.9%, a four-year high, through continuous testing and iteration.
- Reversed a multi-year new-client decline: up 24.4% year over year on 20.8% fewer signups.
- Reallocated roughly $1M away from below-breakeven affiliate spend and rebuilt Google Ads around a customer-value bid signal and a 90-day window.
Global Head of Digital Demand Generation and Marketing Operations, Feedzai
- In-housed and rebuilt global SEO and SEM on an AI-first workflow: 33% more conversions on 22% less spend.
- Found and fixed a silent measurement failure within weeks of starting, and extended CAC, LTV and pipeline-velocity reporting into LATAM alongside North America and EMEA.
- Rebuilt the global demand engine on omni-channel ABM, contributing to 27% year over year revenue growth and doubling field-marketing ROI. Received the company award for excellence in management.
Marketing Director, Major League Hacking (MLH)
- Lifted sales-accepted pipeline 300% at flat CAC through high-velocity ABX, converting nine Fortune 200 accounts into qualified opportunities.
- Authored the open-source ecosystem eBook that became the primary lead magnet.
Director, Growth Marketing and Operations, Within3
- Promoted from individual contributor to build and lead the global SDR and marketing-operations teams, driving 25% closed-won growth through ABM against top-100 global pharma accounts.
- Architected the global martech stack (Salesforce, HubSpot, Gong, 6sense) into a single source of truth at 95% or better adoption, with CAC, LTV and pipeline-velocity measurement across North America, EMEA and APAC.
Head of Marketing Operations, Demand, Paid and SDRs, Code Climate
- Grew pipeline 70% within three weeks through Google Ads optimization, proved 5x lower CPL on Meta versus LinkedIn for technical B2B, and built the operational infrastructure that positioned the company for its $50M Series C.
Head of Demand Generation and Marketing Operations, Expo (formerly Pared)
- First marketing operations and demand generation hire. Built both functions from scratch into the demand engine that cut CAC 50%, contributed 30% of closed-won pipeline, and fueled growth from a $10M Series A to a $30M Series B.
VP, Head of Marketing, Global, Advisen
- Headed demand generation and sales enablement globally, executed a go-to-market turnaround, and added 33% to pipeline, which contributed to the company's acquisition by Zywave.
Earlier career
- Campaign Analytics Manager, Argyle Executive Forum (2015 to 2017): sourced $3.6M in event revenue, up 25% year over year, as lead Marketo administrator.
- Head of Community and Customer Care, Backstage (2012 to 2015): grew B2B2C revenue 400% in one year by self-teaching Python and Ruby to automate HubSpot engagement, and cut subscriber churn 50%.
Founder, Skill Trade (skilltrade.marketing), a marketing-education brand covering demand generation, marketing operations and GTM stacks.
Recognition and education
- HubSpot Worldwide Champion, top 0.01% of users, with five HubSpot Academy certifications: AEO Fundamentals, Implementing AEO With HubSpot, AEO Dual Certified, Content Marketing, and Inbound.
- Clay Outbound Automation Certification (92/100). Feedzai Award for Excellence in Management. Google Ads Certified Professional.
- MFA, Acting, Florida State University and Asolo Conservatory (one of 12 admitted from roughly 2,000 applicants).
- BA, Theatre, summa cum laude, Hunter College, CUNY, Macaulay Honors College. Non-degree study, philosophy of language and Roman history, University of Oxford.
- LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts, born and raised in Manhattan.
The acting years
Before marketing there was the stage, and the stage is why the persuasion works. Roger Rees called Ron "the next Dustin Hoffman", and the Wall Street Journal's Terry Teachout named him one of "Twelve Superior Actors" for Asolo Rep's 12 Angry Men. The record lives on at IMDb, Backstage and Broadway World. If you were searching for the zoo director or the bioinformatics scientist, that is a different Ron Kagan, though this one salutes your research diligence.
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