For Recruiters & Talent Leads · Active

Growth, CRM, lifecycle, performance. Run as one team, not four spreadsheets.

Director-level CRM and lifecycle leader, 13+ years in DTC health and wellness. Retention is the deep end. The rest of the funnel is in scope. This page exists so you don't have to ask the obvious questions before we talk.

200K+
Subscribers, built from zero
150%+
YoY DTC revenue growth
40%
Revenue from lifecycle
13+
Years full-funnel
3
Brand portfolios under one CRM
The Filter

Where I fit. Where I don't.

Sharing this up front saves us both a call. If the role lines up on the left, let's talk. If it sits mostly on the right, pass the page along to someone in your network.

Strong Fit

Roles I'd move on quickly

  • Titles: Director or Head of Growth · Head of Acquisition / Retention · Director of CRM or Lifecycle · VP Marketing where the scope fits.
  • Scope: Oversight on the full growth stack: paid, organic, lifecycle, subscription, CRO, analytics. Retention is the deep end. The rest is in scope.
  • Industries: Health, wellness, supplements, DTC, ecommerce, subscription.
  • Stage: Function is being built or rebuilt. The "from-zero" pattern is my strongest mode.
  • Location: Fully remote, or NH/Boston-accessible hybrid.
  • Comp: Director-level base. Specifics on a call.
  • Engagement: Full-time W-2. Fractional via Junk Gym Digital if FT isn't the right fit.
Not the Move

Roles that won't be a fit

  • Daily in-platform buyer / trafficker work. Better handled by an agency or a full-time channel specialist doing it every day. I've led performance teams. I'm not the daily hands-on-keyboard hire.
  • IC-only "email marketer" or "campaign manager" without strategy or team ownership.
  • B2B SaaS lifecycle. Not where my proof points sit.
  • Manager-level scope wrapped in a Director title with no budget or team.
  • On-site only outside the New England corridor.
  • Relocation or in-office >2 days/week outside NH/MA.
Track Record

Programs I built.
Numbers they did.

Every metric below is an outcome from a program I built or ran. No composites, no extrapolations.

Banter by Piercing Pagoda · SMS Launch & Lifecycle Rebuild
First SMS program from scratch. Full lifecycle overhaul. Measurable revenue lift.
23%+
SMS subscriber growth
30%
CRM revenue lift
Peak-season SMS ROI
Turned a batch-and-blast program into a segmentation-driven retention channel. Built welcome, abandon cart, replenishment, and winback flows. Hit 10%+ CTR on SMS during peak season.
Signet Jewelers · Multi-Brand CRM at Scale
Currently directing CRM strategy across Kay and Peoples Jewellers in the US and Canada.
~80%
Sends built from modular blocks
5–7
Publicis agency team led
3
Brand portfolios coordinated
Designed a modular email framework where ~80% of sends ship without net-new design. Production time compressed to one week. Translate predictive insights into segmentation and personalization. Lead without formal authority across brand, merch, product, data, and agency partners.
Junk Gym Digital · Consulting Practice
Lifecycle programs driving 40%+ of total revenue for founder-led DTC health brands.
40%+
Revenue from email
50K+
Subscribers from zero
~2%
Sustained CTR
Active practice serving DTC operators since 2008. Includes a live multi-source analytics framework integrating site sales and ESP data into a product velocity burn report. Used daily for inventory control and repurchase strategy.
The Lens

"Customers tell us with their clicks what's working and what's not."

Experience gets you the directional read. Customer behavior is the scoreboard. That's the operating principle behind how I build, measure, and adjust.

01

Customer behavior is the source of truth.

Brand assumptions and customer behavior almost never line up. Clicks, opens, completed purchases, abandons. That's the only honest scoreboard. I read those before I read the brief.

02

Full-funnel attribution, not channel silos.

Performance, lifecycle, content, and ecommerce are usually reported separately and managed by different teams. I work across them so the funnel, including LTV/CAC dynamics, reads as one motion.

03

Cohort & LTV thinking, not vanity metrics.

Open rates and CTR are leading indicators. Cohort retention, repeat purchase rate, and LTV are the actual KPIs. Engagement that doesn't compound to revenue isn't engagement worth chasing.

04

Experimentation as a habit, not a project.

Weekly tests. Documented learnings. Gut calls lose to logged data every time.

AI as Leverage

Experience first.
AI lets one operator ship the output of a team.

I'm not using AI to fake competence. 13+ years of doing this work, plus the reps that come with it. AI is the layer on top.

Strategy at speed

Hypothesis sets, segmentation logic, copy variants, experiment design. Everyday CRM work compressed from days into hours. More experiments per cycle without more headcount.

Analytics without an engineering ticket

Live frameworks that merge site sales with ESP performance into views I actually use to make calls. Product velocity, repurchase windows, inventory pacing. No SQL, no analyst between me and the answer.

Tools that work together

When the integration layer doesn't exist yet, I build it. Custom MCP connectors, Python scanners, n8n flows. The build is the means, not the headline. I don't wait for IT to connect things.

Two years deep, every day

Claude, Python, n8n, Notion, MCP, GitHub Actions. How I work, not a demo I run for interviews. Example: the in-house Python scanner monitoring 240+ career pages for this search.

13 years building growth engines for brands that needed one.

Marketing leader based in Manchester, NH. CRM and lifecycle is the deep end. The way I work is full-funnel: retention, performance, content, ecommerce, and analytics as one growth motion. I'll define the journey architecture and then go build it. I report on revenue and cohort-level performance, not vanity metrics.

The thread through my career: I show up when there's nothing built yet and leave with a system that runs. MegaFood (supplements, DTC, from zero to 200K+ subscribers, 150%+ YoY growth). Banter by Piercing Pagoda (SMS launch, full lifecycle rebuild). Junk Gym Digital for founder-led DTC clients since 2008. Currently CRM Engagement Manager at Signet Jewelers, directing lifecycle for Kay and Peoples Jewellers in the US and Canada. Looking for the room where I get to build something from scratch again.

Stack: Klaviyo · Attentive · OrderGroove · Yotpo · GA4 · Adobe CDP · Claude · Python · n8n · MCP

The Other Path · Junk Gym Digital

Hire is the goal. If headcount's frozen, the work still gets done.

Junk Gym Digital is my consulting practice. Three to five clients at a time, retainer or project. Same operator, same skill set, narrower scope. If a full-time hire isn't on the table right now (timing, budget, freeze), this is the lower-friction first step. The full-time door stays open either way.

junkgym.com/work-with-me
// Two seats currently open · Free 30-min assessment · No sales call
240+
Career pages monitored daily by an in-house Python scanner I built. AI is in the workflow, not on the brochure.
40%+
Total revenue driven by email for DTC consulting clients. Sustained ~2% CTR.
18 yrs
Independent practice running since 2008. Same hands, more reps every year.
Not ready to hire?
"Headcount freezes. The work doesn't."

Easiest next step:
twenty minutes on a call.

Tell me about the role, or forward the link to the hiring manager. If it's a fit, you'll know on the call.

Book the call Email Steve