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"The willingness to go back out and get it right when others would have defended what they'd already done - that's the commitment to our success. I've never seen anything like that." - Bryan Gernert, CEO
When Bryan Gernert needed to hire a Chief Marketing Officer for Resonate, he knew exactly what he was looking for. Actually finding it proved far harder than expected.
Resonate built a consumer data and intelligence platform that predicts not just what consumers will buy, but why they'll buy it. By analyzing over 30 billion consumer behaviors daily, the company understands individual human motivations at scale.
When Gernert and his co-founders started the company, they asked a deceptively simple question: "Can we understand every person in the United States and why they make decisions? What they value, what they believe, what's most relevant to them."
The market research world said it couldn't be done.
Traditional approaches relied on demographics or household-level data from loyalty cards. "They don't know if it's you shopping or your husband or your kid," Gernert explains. "There's no other understanding about you beyond your purchase."
Resonate's team approached it as a predictive modeling challenge. They built models that could predict individual behavior with remarkable accuracy. The proof? For fun, they predict presidential elections and have never been wrong. In Pennsylvania's 2024 election, with nearly 7 million votes cast, their predictions were off by just 13,000.
That level of precision translates directly to business value. Major brands use Resonate to understand not just who their customers are, but why they make the choices they do.
Proving their technology worked was never the challenge; but scaling what they’d built was.
Resonate's technical team was strong. The product was proven. Major brands were using it. And Resonate wanted to seize the opportunity.
They could evolve from a point solution into an enterprise platform, shifting from transactional sales to strategic partnerships and from manager conversations to C-suite relationships.
The company needed leaders who could sell a vision, not just a feature set. A CMO who could position Resonate as a category leader. A CRO who could build Fortune 1000 partnerships. And critically, both needed to be genuinely AI-fluent.
Finding executives with that combination proved difficult. "Everybody was using ChatGPT or talking about it," Gernert says. "But knowing what to do and doing it is a whole other thing."
The market was full of people who could articulate an AI strategy. Resonate needed people who had already built something, measured the impact, and could inspire teams to push further.
For a private equity-backed company, there was an added complication: PE firms have their preferred vendors. Large, established recruiting firms with proven track records. Choosing a smaller, less-known partner meant going against conventional wisdom.
But Gernert had worked with most of the major executive search firms before, and he knew the pattern: the senior partner makes the pitch, junior recruiters do the search, and the client hopes for the best.
And that’s why we put Casey, our head of executive search, on the project.
When Casey approached Resonate, she offered something unusual: genuine partnership. "She acknowledged the risk of working with a smaller firm," Gernert recalls. "But she said, 'If you're willing to take that risk, we're ready to take it with you. We'll earn your trust.'"
That confidence mattered.
The first search for a Chief Revenue Officer validated that bet. Resonate hired Chris McArdle, a seasoned executive with a track record scaling sales organizations across AdTech, MarTech, and SaaS. McArdle had led teams at Neustar, Smartly.io, and NextEra Energy Investments, building a reputation for exceeding revenue targets and driving market share growth across early-stage, mid-stage, and Fortune 500 companies. He brought exactly what Resonate needed: a partnership-first approach to enterprise sales. The relationship was working.
Then came the CMO search.
"They found us candidates who were amazing," Gernert says. Strong credentials. Deep experience. Impressive backgrounds. Resonate brought three finalists in for three-hour interviews.
All three were wrong. They weren't unqualified. They weren't bad hires. But the AI fluency wasn't there. The cultural fit wasn't there. They weren't right for Resonate.
Gernert called Casey. "I know you've been working on this search. I think they are great people. They're not right for us."
Most recruiting firms would defend the candidates. Point to credentials. Suggest the client was being too picky. After months of work and three finalists from top companies in the space, this was supposed to be the close.
Casey's response was different. She didn't defend the work. She didn't push back. She dug in to understand and then she went back out.
Here's what made the difference: neither Resonate nor Captivate knew exactly how to define AI fluency at the start of the search. "We didn't know how to define AI fluency until we were within the search," Casey explains. "Pivoting at the last minute was painful, but there were key learnings we had in real time that couldn't be ignored."
It was a discovery process for both sides. Through the interviews, Gernert and his team learned what true AI fluency looked like in practice. The first three finalists were exceptional executives who went on to join other top companies and thrive. They just weren't right for Resonate at this inflection point.
What enabled Casey to go back out and find better candidates was Gernert's unusual level of openness. "On every call I was able to share things like win rate and pipeline and why people were leaving the company," Casey says. "They hid nothing."
That transparency created trust. And that trust meant Casey could refine the search based on what they'd learned together. She identified the top two competencies that mattered most: leadership (decisiveness and mentorship) and the ability to stretch resources. Armed with that clarity, she went back to market.
"The level of effort and excitement that Casey went back out after it and got even better candidates," Gernert says. "Having worked with a number of firms, I've never seen anything like that."
A few months later, Resonate hired Meredith Albertson as CMO. An award-winning executive with over 15 years leading high-growth SaaS companies, Albertson had demonstrated real AI fluency through production systems and measurable results, not just slide decks.
"We had one guy who was writing a book on AI and marketing, but at the end of the day, it was a book, not driving business impact," Gernert says. Meredith was the real thing.
Both executives passed what Gernert calls the dinner test. "The whole thing I'm looking for is: How do you interact with the people around you? How do you treat the host or hostess? How do you treat the waiter?"
The dinner test reveals character, not credentials. "If they're not aware of those people, they're not going to be aware of the people that aren't on their same level."
Both Meredith and Chris were aware. Both said thank you. Both treated everyone around them with genuine respect. "Quality of the person matters," Gernert says.
Within 45 days of Meredith joining, the shift was visible – not in deliverables or new campaigns launched, but in the team itself.
"The biggest shift that Meredith's made already is that her team is super inspired," Gernert says. "They're highly focused on how to create value. They're inspired to go discover, figure things out."
Chris brought a similar transformation to the sales organization. He introduced a partnership framework that shifted Resonate from transactional selling to building true strategic relationships.
"He brought a great perspective on how we work with Fortune 1000 brands," Gernert says. "Not just the approach of selling to those brands, but how we create true partnerships at that level. That's given the sales team confidence in that process."
Gernert has been building companies and hiring executives for over two decades. Here’s a few pieces of advice for other founders hiring right now:
Don't settle. "Most people would go back and just hire the best of the four," Gernert says about the three wrong CMO finalists. The pressure to close is real, especially with a board or PE firm asking questions. But a wrong hire is worse than no hire. His second-least-favorite conversation after rejecting the candidates? "Going back to my private equity firm and telling them we're starting over."
Evaluate the recruiter like they evaluate candidates. Ask about process. Ask who's actually doing the work. Ask why they're better. Pay attention to how much they invest in understanding you before they commit. "If the answer is always like, 'Yeah, we can do whatever you want,' that's not a great answer."
Be open with your recruiting partner. Gernert shared win rates, pipeline data, and why people were leaving the company. That transparency enabled Casey to refine the search based on what they learned together in real time.
Expect to learn what you're looking for during the search. Resonate didn't know how to define AI fluency until they were interviewing candidates. The best searches are discovery processes, not just matching exercises.
Great partners pivot when the criteria evolve. The story Gernert tells other founders isn't about Casey finding the perfect candidate on the first try. It's about her commitment to going back out when the learning required it. "That's the commitment to our success," he says.
With new go-to-market leadership in place, Resonate is positioned to define the category it created. As predictive intelligence becomes essential infrastructure, companies that can explain why consumers make decisions will win.
"We get to work with some really cool brands and help them figure out how to drive their business and be more successful.
The known unknowns are knowable. You just need the right models and the right team.
About Resonate: Private equity-backed predictive consumer intelligence company
Roles placed: Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Revenue Officer
Why it worked: "The willingness to go back out and get it right when others would have defended what they'd already done - that's the commitment to our success. I've never seen anything like that." - Bryan Gernert, CEO
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Resonate is a Reston, VA-based AI-driven consumer data and analytics company that delivers predictive, privacy-safe insights at scale.
When Bryan Gernert needed to hire a Chief Marketing Officer for Resonate, he knew exactly what he was looking for. Actually finding it proved far harder than expected.
Resonate built a consumer data and intelligence platform that predicts not just what consumers will buy, but why they'll buy it. By analyzing over 30 billion consumer behaviors daily, the company understands individual human motivations at scale.
When Gernert and his co-founders started the company, they asked a deceptively simple question: "Can we understand every person in the United States and why they make decisions? What they value, what they believe, what's most relevant to them."
The market research world said it couldn't be done.
Traditional approaches relied on demographics or household-level data from loyalty cards. "They don't know if it's you shopping or your husband or your kid," Gernert explains. "There's no other understanding about you beyond your purchase."
Resonate's team approached it as a predictive modeling challenge. They built models that could predict individual behavior with remarkable accuracy. The proof? For fun, they predict presidential elections and have never been wrong. In Pennsylvania's 2024 election, with nearly 7 million votes cast, their predictions were off by just 13,000.
That level of precision translates directly to business value. Major brands use Resonate to understand not just who their customers are, but why they make the choices they do.
Proving their technology worked was never the challenge; but scaling what they’d built was.
Resonate's technical team was strong. The product was proven. Major brands were using it. And Resonate wanted to seize the opportunity.
They could evolve from a point solution into an enterprise platform, shifting from transactional sales to strategic partnerships and from manager conversations to C-suite relationships.
The company needed leaders who could sell a vision, not just a feature set. A CMO who could position Resonate as a category leader. A CRO who could build Fortune 1000 partnerships. And critically, both needed to be genuinely AI-fluent.
Finding executives with that combination proved difficult. "Everybody was using ChatGPT or talking about it," Gernert says. "But knowing what to do and doing it is a whole other thing."
The market was full of people who could articulate an AI strategy. Resonate needed people who had already built something, measured the impact, and could inspire teams to push further.
For a private equity-backed company, there was an added complication: PE firms have their preferred vendors. Large, established recruiting firms with proven track records. Choosing a smaller, less-known partner meant going against conventional wisdom.
But Gernert had worked with most of the major executive search firms before, and he knew the pattern: the senior partner makes the pitch, junior recruiters do the search, and the client hopes for the best.
And that’s why we put Casey, our head of executive search, on the project.
When Casey approached Resonate, she offered something unusual: genuine partnership. "She acknowledged the risk of working with a smaller firm," Gernert recalls. "But she said, 'If you're willing to take that risk, we're ready to take it with you. We'll earn your trust.'"
That confidence mattered.
The first search for a Chief Revenue Officer validated that bet. Resonate hired Chris McArdle, a seasoned executive with a track record scaling sales organizations across AdTech, MarTech, and SaaS. McArdle had led teams at Neustar, Smartly.io, and NextEra Energy Investments, building a reputation for exceeding revenue targets and driving market share growth across early-stage, mid-stage, and Fortune 500 companies. He brought exactly what Resonate needed: a partnership-first approach to enterprise sales. The relationship was working.
Then came the CMO search.
"They found us candidates who were amazing," Gernert says. Strong credentials. Deep experience. Impressive backgrounds. Resonate brought three finalists in for three-hour interviews.
All three were wrong. They weren't unqualified. They weren't bad hires. But the AI fluency wasn't there. The cultural fit wasn't there. They weren't right for Resonate.
Gernert called Casey. "I know you've been working on this search. I think they are great people. They're not right for us."
Most recruiting firms would defend the candidates. Point to credentials. Suggest the client was being too picky. After months of work and three finalists from top companies in the space, this was supposed to be the close.
Casey's response was different. She didn't defend the work. She didn't push back. She dug in to understand and then she went back out.
Here's what made the difference: neither Resonate nor Captivate knew exactly how to define AI fluency at the start of the search. "We didn't know how to define AI fluency until we were within the search," Casey explains. "Pivoting at the last minute was painful, but there were key learnings we had in real time that couldn't be ignored."
It was a discovery process for both sides. Through the interviews, Gernert and his team learned what true AI fluency looked like in practice. The first three finalists were exceptional executives who went on to join other top companies and thrive. They just weren't right for Resonate at this inflection point.
What enabled Casey to go back out and find better candidates was Gernert's unusual level of openness. "On every call I was able to share things like win rate and pipeline and why people were leaving the company," Casey says. "They hid nothing."
That transparency created trust. And that trust meant Casey could refine the search based on what they'd learned together. She identified the top two competencies that mattered most: leadership (decisiveness and mentorship) and the ability to stretch resources. Armed with that clarity, she went back to market.
"The level of effort and excitement that Casey went back out after it and got even better candidates," Gernert says. "Having worked with a number of firms, I've never seen anything like that."
A few months later, Resonate hired Meredith Albertson as CMO. An award-winning executive with over 15 years leading high-growth SaaS companies, Albertson had demonstrated real AI fluency through production systems and measurable results, not just slide decks.
"We had one guy who was writing a book on AI and marketing, but at the end of the day, it was a book, not driving business impact," Gernert says. Meredith was the real thing.
Both executives passed what Gernert calls the dinner test. "The whole thing I'm looking for is: How do you interact with the people around you? How do you treat the host or hostess? How do you treat the waiter?"
The dinner test reveals character, not credentials. "If they're not aware of those people, they're not going to be aware of the people that aren't on their same level."
Both Meredith and Chris were aware. Both said thank you. Both treated everyone around them with genuine respect. "Quality of the person matters," Gernert says.
Within 45 days of Meredith joining, the shift was visible – not in deliverables or new campaigns launched, but in the team itself.
"The biggest shift that Meredith's made already is that her team is super inspired," Gernert says. "They're highly focused on how to create value. They're inspired to go discover, figure things out."
Chris brought a similar transformation to the sales organization. He introduced a partnership framework that shifted Resonate from transactional selling to building true strategic relationships.
"He brought a great perspective on how we work with Fortune 1000 brands," Gernert says. "Not just the approach of selling to those brands, but how we create true partnerships at that level. That's given the sales team confidence in that process."
Gernert has been building companies and hiring executives for over two decades. Here’s a few pieces of advice for other founders hiring right now:
Don't settle. "Most people would go back and just hire the best of the four," Gernert says about the three wrong CMO finalists. The pressure to close is real, especially with a board or PE firm asking questions. But a wrong hire is worse than no hire. His second-least-favorite conversation after rejecting the candidates? "Going back to my private equity firm and telling them we're starting over."
Evaluate the recruiter like they evaluate candidates. Ask about process. Ask who's actually doing the work. Ask why they're better. Pay attention to how much they invest in understanding you before they commit. "If the answer is always like, 'Yeah, we can do whatever you want,' that's not a great answer."
Be open with your recruiting partner. Gernert shared win rates, pipeline data, and why people were leaving the company. That transparency enabled Casey to refine the search based on what they learned together in real time.
Expect to learn what you're looking for during the search. Resonate didn't know how to define AI fluency until they were interviewing candidates. The best searches are discovery processes, not just matching exercises.
Great partners pivot when the criteria evolve. The story Gernert tells other founders isn't about Casey finding the perfect candidate on the first try. It's about her commitment to going back out when the learning required it. "That's the commitment to our success," he says.
With new go-to-market leadership in place, Resonate is positioned to define the category it created. As predictive intelligence becomes essential infrastructure, companies that can explain why consumers make decisions will win.
"We get to work with some really cool brands and help them figure out how to drive their business and be more successful.
The known unknowns are knowable. You just need the right models and the right team.
About Resonate: Private equity-backed predictive consumer intelligence company
Roles placed: Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Revenue Officer
Why it worked: "The willingness to go back out and get it right when others would have defended what they'd already done - that's the commitment to our success. I've never seen anything like that." - Bryan Gernert, CEO
