Between Technology & Commercial: Product Marketing at Glean

Tell us about your journey at Glean and how you got into Product Marketing?

I’ve been at Glean for over six years now! In that time the company has more than tripled in size, we’ve launched a new product, and I’ve learnt a tonne.

Up until last year I’d held various Marketing roles, starting out predominantly in lead generation and ultimately progressing to leading the department.

The more I learnt and saw of the Product Marketing specialism, the more I realised it resonated with all the bits of Marketing I loved, like storytelling, stakeholder management, and research and analysis.

When the opportunity came to build out a Product Marketing function at Glean, I knew that was the job for me!

Why was the Product Marketing team created?

Glean has been doing Product Marketing for years - what changed last year was our decision to invest in it as a function in its own right, as opposed to it being a role within Product or Marketing.

As I mentioned, the company has grown a lot since I first joined, and something we’re really good at here is scaling our capabilities from individual contributors into whole functions, where that’s the right thing for the business.

Last year it felt the right time to do this with Product Marketing. With ambitious growth goals in the coming years, increasing our ability to do market research, make targeting decisions, and effectively position our products will be absolutely vital.

Also as we continue to grow, the need to create alignment between the technology and commercial functions becomes more important, and harder to achieve. Having Product Marketing interface between these two areas is one way of doing this.

Product Marketing sits within the technology function at Glean, rather than the wider Marketing team, what was the reason behind this? 

Correct, Product Marketing is part of the technology function at Glean which means we are in the same team as Product Management, Design and UX, Data, and Engineering.

Whether Product Marketing should be a part of Marketing or Product is a question many companies wrestle with. In a business such as Glean, where our Product is so central to everything we do, it made sense to sit alongside the broader Product teams.

Having Product Marketing embedded within the part of the business responsible for designing and building the product means that when it comes to bringing that product to market, we’re already a few steps ahead - we’ve been there through the earlier stages of the product lifecycle, and the story we tell about the value it will bring our customers is consistent with the reasons it was built that way.

What have been your biggest learnings since establishing the Product Marketing team?

Too many to list! It’s been the most intense period since I started working at Glean, but also the most enjoyable. The thing I’ve had to learn the most is how the Product org of a business works, and I’m still learning.

Gaining a deeper understanding of what goes into designing, building and releasing products has been very enjoyable and having this greater insight definitely helps make go-to-market more effective. It’s another reason I’m so glad that Product Marketing sits within the technology Function at Glean.

What are you most excited about over the next 12 months? 

Two things, because I can’t choose. Firstly, I’m very excited to bring our upcoming product releases to market, there’s some really exciting things being worked on (watch this space), and secondly I’m looking forward to growing the Product Marketing team further.

Who do you find to be a great source of insight and inspiration?

My go-tos are always Mark Ritson, Rory Sutherland, Emily Kramer, and April Dunford. But if you only follow one person on Product Marketing, it should be either Anthony Pierri or Robert Kaminski - together they share the most refreshing takes on messaging clarity you’ll find anywhere!

Interested in working for Glean?