Who We Are

Mend, founded in 2022, is a growth advisory firm focused on helping organizations maximize their growth potential through fractional CMO work, project-based growth/brand/marketing consulting, and board advisory services. We work with organizations at all stages of growth - from seed funding through full maturity - and have experience in both buy-side and sell-side transactions.

Our Founder - Chris Burns

Before starting Mend, our founder spent 25 years working, as both a consultant and a senior marketing executive, for organizations that were at an inflection point in their growth trajectory.

While a marketer by training, his remit was often as much about business transformation as it was marketing and included everything from product and brand positioning to operational effectiveness to cultural alignment. During this time he realized that successful growth was as much about building an organizational aptitude for understanding markets and customers and adjusting the business to respond to those needs, as it was about the quality of an individual sales or marketing effort.

It was through this realization that the idea for Mend was born.

SELECT CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

LISA… THINKING THIS SECTION IS TOO RESUME-LIKE?

  • Chief Marketing Officer, Flipt: As the full-time, contracted CMO for this SaaS healthtech startup, I led all aspects of go to market strategy as we pivoted the business from full-service pharmacy payer to pure-play SaaS company selling their enterprise benefit and claims administration and patient engagement platforms. Beyond developing the new brand narrative for investors and prospective clients, I built the business case supporting the strategic pivot including the total redesign of the product portfolio, a new SaaS-based pricing model, and a new operating paradigm focused on growth and margin enhancement.

  • Head of Marketing, Pattern Bioscience: Served as fractional marketing leader during Series C fundraising period handling pre-launch market visibility, product marketing, branding & naming, voice of customer/voice of market research, and communications. Led the development of the core product positioning and the marketing program for the product launch.

  • Chief Strategy Officer, Exponent Health: Set direction for marketing, product development, M&A, and business transformation focused on restarting growth for this newly consolidated technology and services startup specializing in medical/pharmacy cost containment and revenue cycle management. Among several accomplishments, I defined the corporate purpose and vision for growth, directed the acquisition of two companies, and retooled the company’s pipeline and customer relationship management processes.

  • Chief Marketing Officer - IngenioRx, Anthem: Hired to lead marketing for a newly formed subsidiary of Anthem, Inc. Designed and built a standalone marketing capability for IngenioRx in six months with full-stack marketing responsibility across B2B and B2B2C markets.

  • Head of Commercial Product Marketing, Aetna: Led a team of strategic product marketers to handle product marketing for Aetna’s medical, pharmacy, behavioral health, dental, vision, voluntary, and student health lines of business as well as all related “buy-up” products. Shaped new go-to-market strategies by introducing a new plan sponsor segmentation and product bundling program to drive enterprise cross-selling and upselling efforts.

  • Director of Brand Experience, Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas: Following a year-long consulting engagement, hired by CEO & CMO to direct activation of brand strategy and creative execution of award-winning guest experience for new $4BN resort. Curated key customer touchpoints through experiential, on-property content and integration of brand strategy into key operations such as Food & Beverage, Hotel, and Retail. I was recognized with a Cannes Lions Grand Prix, one of the world’s most prestigious awards for creativity, in the category of Brand Experience and Digital Design for the work I led to create and design the welcome experience in the resort lobby.

A Note From The Founder: Why Mend?

Fellow business leader:

The idea for Mend was born from my strong desire to focus my professional life on doing impactful, customer-centered work and my love of fly fishing. With 25 years of incredible work under my belt and two daughters that would soon be off to college, I needed to take what I learned throughout my career and refocus my professional time making tangible contributions to ambitious, purpose-driven companies looking to grow.

As I marinated on the learnings I've drawn from what has been a pretty rewarding career, one particular observation stood out - businesses that grow the most, and have the strongest customer relationships, are those that embrace the idea of "Big M" marketing. Organizations that use "Big M" marketing lean on their marketing organization for more than brochures and ads. They use marketing as a strategic lever for growth that galvanizes the organization and its operations around the voice of the customer. And, as I thought through it more, I realized that capturing and using that "outside-in" perspective was not only one of my proverbial "superpowers" as a business professional, but it also had lots of parallels to things that I've learned on the river while out fly fishing.

You see, for fly anglers, there are many steps you need to execute well to succeed. Knowing what you're fishing for and where to find them (targeting), understanding what those fish are eating (insight), and executing the right cast (marketing) are all essential ingredients to a banner day, but simply picking a fly and landing it on the water isn't enough. Once your fly (value proposition) is on the water, you need to manage how it's presenting (being received) to the fish in light of the surrounding conditions. In fly fishing, it's the step of properly mending your line - manipulating it in response to constantly changing water conditions (competitors, trends, customer preferences, etc.) – that helps ensure that your fly presents in the most natural and natural and appealing way possible. Mending at the right time, and in the right way, also often makes the difference between a successful day on the river (growth) and getting skunked.

It's been my observation that many organizations, regardless of where they are in their development, get too caught up in simply getting their fly on the water, never get around to mending their line, and then wonder why they aren't catching any fish. So it's in that spirit that I built Mend.

If you aren't currently experiencing the growth you were hoping for, or are getting ready to launch something new and want to do it in the right way, I'd love to find time to chat about whether or not Mend can help you reach your goals.

Cheers,