Marlborough Street Partners

Marlborough provides an integrated portfolio of transformational services that helps private equity firms and venture capitalists address the strategic challenges, operational dysfunction, and capitalization issues in their portfolio companies.

We also work with these firms to evaluate marginal investment opportunities and identify sale or merger opportunities. We use a proprietary methodology and a proven set of analytics, diagnostics, and development tools that help companies get up, get going, and get better.

Our partners are entrepreneurs who have founded companies, raised or managed hundreds of millions of dollars of capital in seed, growth, and mezzanine financings, had successful IPOs, and managed M&A processes from both the buy and sell sides.

Marlborough Insights

Is TikTok a knock-knock joke? The current kerfuffle shines a light on some important security issues.

The bailout of Silicon Valley Bank says something interesting about strategy. Was SVB too focused to fail?

Venture capital and bank financing are hard to find. It is time for the great hunker down.

It’s Sunday night and one of your portfolio companies is in trouble. Do you need theory or practice? 

At some stage, every company reaches an inflection point. To move forward it is important to act boldly. 

Many management teams align sales and marketing more often than their automobile tires. How do you find real alignment? 

Vision is a nice start, but without the right people and tools it is just an illusion. What is the right place to begin? 

Our partners are based in Boston, New York, St. Louis, and Washington, DC. We manage client engagements across the U.S. and for companies in Europe and Israel that want to get here.  Our core team is supported by affiliates that extend our skill set, market focus, and geographic coverage.

Managing Partner Ken Marshall was previously Executive Chairman and CEO of Centage, Chairman, co-founder and CEO of QuickPivot, CEO of Correlsense, CEO of Carbonflow, President and COO of Giga Information Group, and CEO of Object Design (a #1 company in the Inc. 500). Mr. Marshall was also a group vice president at Oracle Corporation and was the founder of Oracle’s consulting services business. He has served as an independent Director of several technology companies including; Actuate Corp., Streambase Systems, Current Analysis, and Visix Software. He has a B.A. from Northeastern University and an M.A. from Boston College. You can reach Ken here.

Principal Jonathan Bain is an attorney and technologist with over 30-years experience in the software industry. Jon has acted as both in-house and outside counsel in environments ranging from AmLaw 50 firms to boutiques. Jon’s business experience includes stints in business development and consulting, as well as serving on the boards of several startups. His technical background ranges from pre-relational databases to IoT. Jon is currently a Principal at Intangible Strategies, where he advises technology companies on strategic partnering, intellectual property, and privacy. He served in various roles at Object Design (acquired by Progress Software), Access Technologies (acquired by CA Technologies), Dynamics Associates, and WilmerHale. He holds a BA from Dartmouth College and a JD from Yale Law School.

Partner William Blundon has been a senior executive for companies ranging in size from start-ups to a $7 billion global corporation. He is currently Chairman and CEO at AdvertOne, Inc., a MadTech company. Bill previously served as a COO, CPO, CSO, EVP, and four-time CMO in companies ranging from information security to multi-channel marketing. He has extensive international experience including resident assignments in Paris and Amsterdam. He was on the board a leading industry consortium and is a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals and the Boston CTO Club.

Partner Mike Curtin is an entrepreneurial-focused senior operations executive and top corporate officer leveraging over 25 years of experience in disruptive SaaS technology platforms, operational leadership, business development, sales, go-to-market strategy, and customer success. He was most recently Senior Vice President, Digital Marketing and Technology for Vericast Corporation.  Prior to this he served as CEO and CRO of QuickPivot Corporation, a provider of Customer Data Platform technology, leading the company through a successful exit.  Mike was also co- founder and CEO of SmartSource Corporation leading this company from start-up to a successful exit.

Partner Jennifer Gabler is an expert in operational and venture finance. As a CFO and CPA, she has extensive experience in complex capital structures, budgeting, forecasting and management reporting, internal controls and systems, and investor relations. She is a co-founder of The Refinery, an accelerator for women-led companies. She was a lecturer and researcher at both Tuck and Harvard Business Schools. She has an AB from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Columbia University.

Partner Bill Haines leverages his product management and marketing experience to help organizations deliver and communicate relevant value to customers. He has deep experience in the methodologies critical to product management, solution planning, and foundational marketing. Bill previously served as VP Product & Marketing within leading information companies Elsevier and Wolters Kluwer, and within a large-scale start-up in the medical information space. He has also held executive positions at a software development firm and at an award-winning marketing communications agency. He is author of the book: The 21 Rules of B2B Marketing. This combination of product and marketing experience lets Bill bring a strong market-facing emphasis to engagements.

Partner Jeff Massa was President of Redbox, a business and strategic consulting firm focused on strategic planning, product development, and M&A. He was also President and CEO of YellowBrix, where he developed software to categorize, summarize, and extract information from 8,000 licensed global publications. He did four acquisitions and applied for patents in contextual ad matching and learned behavior modeling. Earlier in his career he was SVP Technology at Intell-X and VP Technology at Comtex Scientific Corporation. Jeff also worked for the National Security Council where he served three presidents as Deputy Director in charge of situation support systems.

Partner Alan Nugent has been a technology leader at some of the software industry’s largest companies as well as a CEO and board member. He was most recently SVP Cloud Architecture and SVP Cancer Research Cloud at Oracle. He served as CTO at Medialets (a mobile advertising platform), EVP and CTO at CA, CTO at Novell, CTO at Xerox, head of Product Development and Technology at eBay Enterprise, and CIO at Bell South. He was CEO at Mzinga and served on the board of directors at Lavoro Technologies, Adaptive Computing, and Telogis among others. In addition to his executive career, Al is also a prolific author whose publications include Big Data for Dummies, and a variety of articles on cognitive computing, leadership, cultural transformation, and aligning information technology and business.

Partner Ed Perry has served as a senior executive for more than 25-years with an impressive blend of consulting, sales, and operations experience.  He has successfully grown revenues and expanded customer bases at both early stage and large enterprises.  He has managed consulting practices, support functions and enterprise software sales teams. Ed has a strong knowledge of quote-to-cash business processes, financial applications, internal controls, performance metrics, and operations.  He has developed businesses in the US, Canada, Caribbean, Latin America, and Australia. Ed was a consultant with Touche Ross & Co. (now Deloitte), Regional Manager with Oracle Consulting, Sales Director with Kenan Systems (acquired by Lucent), Vice President Sales at Telution (acquired by CSG), Vice President Sales at Integra5, and Vice President Sales at Correlsense.  He has a BS from Ithaca College and an MBA from Boston University.

Partner Jerry Rulli uses his extensive experience as a tech executive to create effective go-to-market strategies that deliver successful revenue generation at scale. Jerry has led sales teams in companies ranging in size from $100M to $3B and engineered transformations that enabled companies to penetrate new markets through vertical sales. He has deep experience in M&A and integrating disparate sales models. Jerry’s knowledge in operating, scaling, and leading International organizations has provided him with the expertise to manage and lead complex organizations.  He was most recently COO of Progress Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS). Previous roles included EVP Sales at Iron Mountain (NYSE: IRM), and several executive management roles at Infor including President Americas and President Enterprise Systems Group.

Partner  Jeff Swartz has launched, managed, and advised businesses in North America, Europe and Asia. He has been responsible for capital raises of more than $50 million to finance entrepreneurial ventures. He has diverse experience as an entrepreneur, executive, and consultant in technology- and information-intensive businesses. Jef served as CEO, Interim CEO, COO, and senior executive in businesses such as IT market research/analyst services, health care services and software, dispute resolution, software development outsourcing, biomass energy production, waste recycling, specialty food products, life sciences, marketing analytics software, consumer health food products, and education technology.  Jeff was Vice Chairman and Partner at Business Strategy Group, President of Hundsun Global Services, CEO of Current Analysis, among other leadership positions.

We provide a series of packaged and custom services that address key inflection points in your business. We typically work with private equity firms to improve the operating performance of the small to mid-size companies in their portfolios and with venture capitalists on their Series A and later round investments.

Inflections points can take many forms. They include: strategy resets, go-to-market and customer success issues, failed product launches, operating model challenges, capitalization issues, executive management concerns, and compliance among others,

Evaluate

We deliver a series of business assessment services to benchmark your company against competitors. We identify what’s working and deliver an actionable plan to fix what’s not. Most of our clients have reached an inflection point in their business. Our services focus on getting through it successfully.

Business Assessment

This service dissects the business across a dozen domains ranging from high level Market Opportunity, Value Proposition and Exit Strategy through various detailed operating analyses including Product Strategy, Go-to-Market, Distribution Channels, Financial Plan and Capital Requirements. We analyze Current State versus Desired State across each domain and make detailed recommendations for achieving objectives.

Capitalization

Our partners have raised dozens of rounds of venture financing and private equity investments across multiple companies. We develop and fine-tune our client’s strategy, value proposition, business plan, and corporate materials. We also identify the most appropriate list of potential investors and arrange introductions. 

Revitalize

We focus on implementing or fixing critical processes across strategy, product planning, sales and marketing, and operational finance.

Business Alignment

In the normal course of business, companies sometimes go astray. Getting costs and revenue into alignment can be a wrenching experience.  We deliver an unbiased and workable plan that will get the company back on track.

Customer Insight

While many companies are focused on scouring big data sets to gain insights into their business, others recognize that their clients and prospects represent a tremendous source for actionable insights. We provide a portfolio of customer insight services to deliver an actionable understanding of your customer interactions.

Technology Reengineering

Many of our clients are technology companies and every customer relies on software to automate their business. Our technical team consists of CTO and senior IT executives who have solved many issues in technology strategy, major software releases, scaling, and infrastructure refreshes.

Operate

Marlborough provides full-time or part time CXO resources to lead your company to the next level. We also assist your organization in raising capital and identifying complementary products and services.

Interim Leadership

Regardless of their stage of growth, companies often experience a gap in corporate leadership. While the company begins the often-lengthy process of replacing members of the executive management team, we can provide interim leadership for CXO roles. 

Monetize

We help you prepare for a liquidity event by tuning key operating metrics and uncovering strategic opportunities.

Mergers and Acquisitions

Many Marlborough clients undertake a merger or acquisition to expand their product line, available market, geographic coverage, or growth rate. We advise clients on potential partners, and develop a set of targets.

For more information on our company and services please email Ken Marshall here.

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