From Zero Visibility to PE Stakeholder: Evangelizing PMM Value Internally

Elle GrossenbacherJuly 23, 2026

Founder at Dusted

The context

This case study was created from an episode of the Product Marketing Adventure Podcast. It has been adapted into Dusted's case study format to preserve and showcase the guest's real-world experience. Written to preserve the voice of the true author, Hattie the PMM.

I had my own company for six and a half years that started as a feminist body-positive lingerie brand, evolved into an e-commerce play housing other brands, and ended as a full tech play. I built the sales team, marketing function, product team—everything. We manufactured in China, Morocco, and the UK with a warehouse in Scotland. After the exit I was CMO for two years. Being in the C-suite for eight-plus years meant constant visibility: every major publication from CNBC to the Telegraph to the London Evening Standard, and active presence that even led a CEO to DM me on Twitter calling me a disruptor. A PM then headhunted and referred me internally into corporate America, where I stepped into an IC product marketing role. Everything I had been doing was product-marketing-centric even before I knew the terminology—differentiation, messaging, finding clients, competing, speaking to buyers.

The challenge

When I entered the IC role my visibility went from 100 to zero overnight. No one automatically respected my prior C-suite experience. I had a micromanager who clashed with me the entire time, causing so much stress I ground my teeth at night, invested heavily in therapy and coaching, and seriously considered quitting because of the toll on my mental and physical health. Meanwhile the company was a private-equity-backed firm of 500-plus people; I was the only UK employee and fully remote. I watched multiple rounds of layoffs (five before I eventually left). After the first round I saw a brilliant designer friend’s Slack photo turn black-and-white in real time and started shaking—I live alone, come from poverty (dad a baker, mom a cleaner), and had no safety net. Product marketing itself wasn’t understood or valued, which made it easy for others to sideline me. I realized the issue wasn’t my knowledge or skills (those had stayed the same or improved); it was pure perception and visibility. I refused to let “the man” decide my career or put me on the street.

The approach

I treated it as a growth moment and focused only on what I could control. Within weeks to a month I needed everyone to understand both what product marketing is and exactly what I was doing, why, and how it added value. Step one: stop focusing solely on quality and delivery of the tactical work; pair it with high-quality communication so I would never again be seen as an assistant or purely tactical PMM. I force-found opportunities to speak about my contributions (we don’t own pipeline metrics, so we depend on others to action our work). I also recommend every PMM take at least one improv-comedy class—ideally a full eight-week course—to master thinking on your feet, removing performance pressure, and becoming a better communicator, negotiator, and persuader. Next I defined my personal internal ICP: not the usual product or sales partners, but the person (or PE firm) who fundamentally decides my career, bonuses, promotions, and who gets cut. Once identified, I got on their radar. Step two: accept that great work does not speak for itself—people do. I mapped who outside my immediate circle could speak positively on my behalf and share the right metrics. A product-marketing charter alone is useless if it sits in the archives; I paired it with an ongoing roadshow. If someone who controls my career isn’t yet a champion, I actively manage up and turn them into one. Step three: build a repeatable system that runs visibility and perception on autopilot—not a one-off launch update, but continuous communication of improvements, evolution, and impact so I stay front-of-mind as the function itself becomes more strategic. Throughout I managed up for whoever my manager was (CMO, VP, etc.) and taught the same playbook to new PMMs as the function grew. Finally I leaned fully into being myself unapologetically—my unfair advantages and superpowers—rather than performing some generic “professional PMM” persona. That authenticity became the biggest accelerator.

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