Erin Phinney
😈 Startup marketer who loves to dream, tinker, create and execute. I take the work seriously. I don't take myself seriously.
Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
Validated traits
Artifacts
Nava Benefits · November 2024When I joined Nava Benefits as the second marketing hire, the company was disrupting the traditional brokerage model by delivering higher-quality benefits without inflated costs. The challenge was significant: the industry was staunchly sales-led with no established inbound playbook, and we needed to build an entirely new pipeline function from scratch to find prospects open to rethinking their benefits approach through a modern lens. I launched a multi-channel testing strategy, starting with low-cost tactics like webinars, email marketing, and owned content to validate our approach. We sponsored and attended industry events to build trust, then expanded into lead magnets, paid advertising, and a field marketing program. Our strategy centered on adding value and educating prospects rather than hard selling. This helped us target decision-makers actively looking to modernize their benefits strategy. Throughout hundreds of experiments, I tracked cost per lead and lead-to-opportunity conversion rates. In true startup fashion, our tracking was messy but effective, and we constantly reevaluated why customers chose us to refine our messaging and targeting. This ground-up approach ultimately led the pipeline to double year over year. By year 4 we generated $20M in qualified pipeline. Beyond the pipeline number, we established repeatable acquisition channels and a testing framework that positioned Nava's growth team to scale sustainably as the company grew.
Trove · CMO · July 2026Trove is a disruptor company, and like every disruptor, we started from zero. In the early days you're solving two problems at the same time: building something people need, and making sure anyone knows you exist. I knew early on our team would benefit from a different kind of opinion in the room based on our skillsets. We cared about the problem personally, but we needed people who deeply understand careers at a larger scale. Most often that's people leaders. They're practitioners inside real organizations. They see, nurture, and assess tens, hundreds, sometimes thousands of careers a year, on top of managing their own. So I set out to build a small group of advisors whose opinions we actually wanted. The board isn't complicated. We have five stellar people leaders with two jobs to be done: shape the product from the user side, and help us tell the story when we go to market. To build this board, we took a highly targeted approach. My team and I built a curated list of people we admired in the space, then pursued a mix of referrals, warm networking, and cold outreach to open conversations with potential fits. Rather than rushing to sign people up, we had in-depth conversations to assess whether our working styles and their bandwidth aligned with what we needed. We were explicit that we wanted advisors in it for the long haul, not just a logo on our website. The fantastic people who will be building alongside us: - Mike Gutner: Chief People Officer, Toast. Former astrophysicist, nine years at Google. - Tessa White: Founder, The Job Doctor. Author of "The Unspoken Truths for Career Success." Former Fortune 50 HR exec. - Claude Silver: Chief Heart Officer, VaynerX. The world's first Chief Heart Officer. Author of "Be Yourself at Work." - Sharon Pollard VP, Head of People & Culture, CloudZero. AI systems builder and organizational psychologist. - Andrew Stockwell: People leader, formerly Vendr. 20+ years scaling teams, including ZoomInfo.
Testimonials
Sr. Revenue Enablement Manager at Nava Benefits
Head of Events & Field Marketing at Empowerly
Work history
Mar 2026 - Present · 8 months · CMO
Jan 2025 - Jan 2026 · 1.1 years · VP of Marketing
Apr 2021 - Nov 2025 · 4.7 years · Associate Director of Growth
Jul 2018 - Apr 2021 · 2.8 years · Senior Manager of Events & Experiential Marketing
Aug 2016 - Jun 2018 · 1.9 years · Account Manager
Apr 2014 - Aug 2016 · 2.4 years · Event Coordinator
May 2012 - May 2013 · 1.1 years · Special Programs Events Assistant
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