How I got here

Setting Sail: The Story Behind Keel Consulting ⛵️

My path to customer marketing started in unexpected waters: making hundreds of cold calls in sales. Those early days taught me two things: sales was definitely not my calling, and more importantly, customer proof points were critical to earning credibility and winning deals.

The real turning point came while running event marketing. Standing at our booth, I watched customers organically share their love for our product with their peers. They were telling our story better than any sales pitch ever could. That's when I realized the untapped potential of customer advocacy - we just needed to build the right foundation, bottle it up, and scale it.

This led me through roles where I built and scaled customer marketing programs at companies like ON24, Nextiva, and ClickUp. At ON24, I grew from a one-person team to leading the customer marketing function, building a community that generated millions in pipeline from referrals alone. At ClickUp, I spearheaded programs that helped close strategic Enterprise deals through customer references and launched flagship customer stories that became cornerstone assets for the sales team.

Each role taught me something valuable: At ON24, I learned how to build advocacy programs from scratch and scale them. Nextiva showed me how to drive quick wins with targeted campaigns. At ClickUp, I mastered the art of turning customer voices into a strategic growth engine.

The biggest lesson? There's no single blueprint for customer marketing success. Every company needs its own thoughtful approach.

In 2023, after welcoming my second kiddo aboard, I found my new calling: combining my passion for scaling customer marketing programs with the flexibility I was looking for as a mom. That's how I got started with Keel Consulting - a way to do what I love while building something meaningful for my family. (Update: Our crew grew again in 2025 with the arrival of our third daughter!)

Now, I partner with B2B tech companies to design and build customer marketing programs that actually scale - turning ideas into strategies and playbooks that deliver results. Whether you're launching a customer advisory board, building a reference program that sales loves, or creating compelling customer stories that close deals, I bring battle-tested strategies that work. ⚓️