I don’t hand off the playbook. I run it.
Player-coach marketing leader. Twenty-six years in marketing, brand, and communications — the last six spent inside the operation: building the platform, running the campaigns, and coaching the team that shipped them.
Most marketing leadership is supervision — people managing people who manage tools. Mine is different. I set the strategy, build the system, write the test, read the funnel, and make the call, then I teach the team to do the same. That is how a 30-person operation out-produces companies three times its size.
- One platform replaced four SaaS tools — bookings, payments, customer records, and marketing, measured end to end.
- Subscription businesses, both kinds: 6,450+ B2B clients at Webdiner; repeat purchase above 28% at HydraMed.
- Psychological marketing: offers built on how people actually decide, proven in the market — not defended in meetings.
- AI agents in production: booking, dispatch, search, and reporting automated under HIPAA guardrails.
Bear Harper — Boulder, Colorado. Marketing leadership for subscription businesses; AI systems for the teams that run them.
Three things I bring that rarely sit in one seat
Leadership from inside the work
I lead a 30-person operations and marketing team the way I run everything: in the queue. I write the test, read the funnel, sit in the creative review — and coach the team to do the same. Strategy and execution in the same pair of hands means nothing waits on a hand-off, and nobody hides behind a layer.
Built on how people decide
Every buyer decides under doubt — about price, about risk, about whether this works for someone like them. I map that decision first: the fear, the proof needed, the voice they already trust. Then the offer, the creative, and the funnel are built on the map, and tested in the market until the numbers settle it. Cold email through trusted intermediaries answered at 35% where direct outreach earned 5–10% — same offer, different psychology.
Automation that compounds
AI in production, not in pilots: chat and text booking with human review, automated dispatch, retrieval search, AI-assisted reporting — run under HIPAA guardrails. Agent workflows carry research, drafting, verification, and follow-through as one system. Each system keeps its tests, data, and playbooks, so the next one starts cheaper. That is what compounding productivity actually looks like.
The record
Two businesses, both subscription, both measured on whether customers stayed.
Healthcare growth, run end to end
Vice President, Marketing & Growth. A consumer healthcare company with a 15-state mobile operation and a nationwide telehealth line. I led a 30-person team, owned a $2.25M annual budget, and built the platform that ran bookings, payments, customer records, and marketing in one place — every ad and tracked call tied to the appointment it produced. Repeat purchase ran above 28%. AI shipped inside HIPAA guardrails: role-based access, audit trails, redaction.
A B2B SaaS business, marketed as a service
Vice President, Marketing & Product. A platform 6,450+ restaurants and franchises subscribed to and used daily. I owned go-to-market, product marketing, onboarding, and client success — and built the referral channel through the accountants those businesses already trusted. Subscription economics, churn, and expansion revenue were the scoreboard.
The short version of how I work
Decisions, not dashboards. Kill rules written before a test spends a dollar. Pace promises only for work I control. And a simple standard for everything that ships: if it cannot be seen, measured, and defended with a number, it does not go out.
Start a conversation
A role, a consulting problem, or a system you need built — if it involves customers deciding and teams producing, I am interested. Use the form — it lands in my inbox, and I read every message myself — or reach me through LinkedIn.