$185M
new business. I built the engine behind it
Case Study · Enterprise Defense Materials · Highly Regulated
The commercial engine behind $185M in new business.
Rebranding, demand generation and revenue operations for a U.S. defense manufacturer.
A 25-year-old American producer of critical raw materials for defense, in one of the most heavily regulated, export-controlled corners of manufacturing. When I joined in Q3 2023, it had a revolving door of executives and a public record dominated by prior-ownership litigation. I rebranded the company, built the commercial engine behind $185M in new business, and wrote the strategic narrative behind a $50M Defense Production Act award.
What I walked into, Q3 2023
$100M+
revenue, no modern GTM
2 CEOs, 3 CFOs
cycled through in my tenure
Triple-digit
annual employee turnover
Lawsuits
the public record, before the products
Export-controlled
every play runs under federal rules
Search results led with old legal disputes. I needed buyers to find the materials, capabilities and evidence of what the company could supply.
What I walked into
The best producer in its niche, and the market could not find it.
A 25-year-old American producer of critical raw materials for defense. The kind of materials that go into armor, munitions, and aerospace, in a space governed by export controls and federal compliance at every step. Technically dominant. More than 200 employees. Over $100M a year in revenue when I joined in Q3 2023.
Underneath, chaos. Prior ownership had left a stack of litigation behind it. A federal government-contract compliance settlement. An export-control matter that sat with the former owner. Employment suits. Search the company and you found the legal trouble long before you found the products.
The org would not sit still either. Two CEOs and three CFOs cycled through in my time. Triple-digit annual turnover. The commercial motion was running on memory, with no pipeline, no forecast, and no shared number. I built the commercial program through those leadership changes.
The mandate
They gave me free rein over marketing, and I was the one constant in a company that could not keep a seat filled.
Every week I run strategy with the CEO, the Chief of Staff, and the entire sales team. I own the commercial motion end to end. Direction, demand, message, and enablement, all mine to set and to answer for. In an org cycling through executives and litigation, I held the line and kept the growth compounding.
The engine
A demand machine, with intelligence in every layer.
I rebranded the company and connected demand generation, account research and sales enablement to its revenue operations.
Rebrand and get found
New identity, then SEO and AEO
The rebrand supported a multi-brand, multi-domain search program: product information, technical evidence and answers to buyer questions. The work covered both search and AI-answer visibility. This case does not isolate either channel's contribution to growth or report a measured AI-citation lift.
Know the buyer
AI-enabled sales enrichment
Company-level matching and enrichment helped sales research accounts where a match was available. Those signals were compared with account history. A company match is not proof of an individual visitor's identity or buying intent.
Hunt first
ABM and public-signal targeting
I go after accounts before they raise a hand. Job postings, defense and procurement activity, industry directories. Automated enrichment pipelines rank in-market accounts by intent and feed account-based marketing, so the team works the right ones first.
Make it close
Sales enablement, run weekly
The engine feeds qualified demand mapped to the buying committee. I build the team's materials, their data, and their plays, and I sit with them every week to make sure they can close what it feeds them.
I also stood up their CRM from zero to full adoption. Marketing and sales needed agreed definitions for their records and outcomes, the problem covered in Five Systems, One Customer.
Governed AI
Defense-grade AI. Fast, and inside the lines.
The engagement required controls on access, data use and review in an export-controlled environment.
- Controlled technical data never touches a public model.
- Restricted tooling and access, with least privilege by default.
- A human signs off on anything sensitive before it moves.
- Exceptions require review before the workflow proceeds.
These controls describe the working boundaries, not a blanket certification of compliance.
The other half
$50M
Defense Production Act award
Commercial growth is one side. Capital is the other. I work both.
I wrote the strategic narrative behind a $50M Defense Production Act award for expanded domestic production of critical defense materials. That work sat beside the commercial rebuild: demand had to grow, and so did the capacity to serve it.
The results
Reported new business and the 2026 projection.
Revenue
~3× from over $100M toward a projected $300M+
Inbound web leads per year
~10× from about 43 a year to a projected 450+
203
inbound web leads in 2025, up from 43 in 2023
$50M
strategic narrative behind a Defense Production Act award
$100M → $300M+
revenue, Q3 2023 to 2026 projected
The point
The $185M figure is new business supported by the commercial engine I built. The revenue and web-lead charts keep completed years separate from the 2026 projections. They do not attribute the results to AI alone.
The company needed more demand and the capacity to serve it. I built the commercial engine and helped make the case for that capacity.