FRACTIONAL CRO AND GTM ADVISOR
Most CROs come up through sales. I didn’t.
I'm Simon Cobby. I typically work as an embedded fractional CRO, helping ambitious B2B tech businesses build or rebuild a customer-first GTM function. After 25 years in full-time leadership roles I made a deliberate choice to work fractionally. The businesses I work with are at the stage where GTM foundations are being laid or rebuilt, and that's where outside perspective and experience makes the biggest difference.
How I work →
$15m to $150m+
B2B revenue scaled
$1m to $50m+
New revenue stream built from zero
20,000+
Customers acquired and retained
NPS 70+
At scale, sustained
HOW I THINK ABOUT GROWTH
Human centred is the input. Commercial results are the lagging indicator.
The businesses that grow sustainably are the ones that are genuinely human centred. Not as a values statement, but as an operating principle. Human centred means two groups, not one: customers who feel genuinely served, and employees who feel genuinely invested. When those two things are aligned, you build better products, better experiences and better teams. The product has to be great. But in B2B today, people aren't just evaluating what you sell. They're evaluating whether they want to be associated with you.
That's why the product experience matters as much as the product itself. And it's why, in a world where AI is accelerating everything about GTM, the human centred approach matters more than ever. More automation, more noise, more speed. The businesses that win won't be the ones that automate the most. They'll be the ones that stay closest to their customers and their people.
| AI is a tool. Human centred is the strategy.
Simon Cobby, Lunic.
CREATING A HUMAN CENTRED FLYWHEEL FOR GROWTH
This is how I start thinking about GTM.
A flywheel built around the customer that gets shaped to fit the specific challenge.
| The product has to be great. But in B2B today, people aren’t just evaluating what you sell. They’re evaluating whether they want to be associated with you.
Simon Cobby, Lunic.
IS THIS A FIT
Better to know now.
Good fit
You need someone to think across the whole GTM function, not just own a sales number
You want a marketing and customer-led approach to growth, not a sales methodology dropped in from outside
You believe your customers and your people both matter, and you want a GTM that reflects that
You’re building something new or fixing something that has drifted
Probably not
You need a pure sales leader with a CRO title
You want someone to implement a specific sales methodology or tool stack
You’re looking for a short-term fix rather than building something that lasts
Commercial results are the goal,, not the outcome of getting everything else right
A RECENT ENAGAGEMENT
Distribution Engine is an employee-owned tech business with a market leading Salesforce-native product. When I joined there was no GTM function. No proactive sales motion, no customer success, no RevOps ownership, no revenue leadership. Just occasional marketing activity and a single order taker. The business had plateaued and ARR was in decline.
In under 18 months we built a GTM function from scratch across the UK and US. Defined a clear ICP, built new customer and commercial models, refreshed the brand, operationalised performance marketing, designed the handoffs between teams, introduced a tiered pricing framework, and put the right metrics and performance management in place.
ARR decline has been stopped and we're back growing. And the business landed its first $1m deal, won on the basis of the human centred experience we delivered through the buyer journey. That's not a coincidence. It's the whole point.
Distribution Engine / NC Squared, 2024 to present. Fractional CRO engagement.