Killed a name, built a brand, launched a company in four months.

5thColumn was a Chicago cybersecurity company with an inventive asset discovery tool and a mid-market price point for enterprise-grade protection. The technology was ready. Funding was on the way. And the name was a problem waiting to happen. A fifth column is the threat from within, which works as a cybersecurity metaphor right up until you remember what else the term means. It carried political risk the brand didn't need, and it would have come back to haunt us. Leadership decided to change it before the funding news went out. Good call.

John Morris and I had worked together at Cleversafe and IBM. He brought me in to build marketing, which didn't exist, and to lead the rename. The founder gave us the name, UncommonX. Everything else had to be built, and built fast: messaging and brand platform, look and feel, logo, domain, website, collateral. The team was me, two people, and an agency, with more than 100 cross-business workstreams to keep in order. I aligned the executive team on the brand, presented the plan and the progress to the board, and we launched in about four months, timed with the funding announcement. A company changed its name and its entire story in one move.

Then we had to make the new name mean something. PR brought the launch to life with a sustained campaign that put UncommonX and its leaders in front of the right readers as thought leaders in mid-market security, with feature coverage in 26 publications, including Forbes, VentureBeat, and Crain's Chicago Business. With product management, I wrote 45 pieces of technical messaging and sales content, so the sales team had something to say about every part of the platform. We implemented HubSpot with full website tracking so the brand could be measured from day one.

UncommonX went from unknown to an award-winning mid-tier cybersecurity brand, added 3,100 new leads and 600 MQLs to the pipeline, and had a name it could grow into. Rebrand and go.