Robert Tomkinson

CMO - Fractional or Full-time

at Self

I’m Robert Tomkinson, a senior operating executive with 20+ years of experience building, scaling, and integrating consumer and marketplace businesses across venture-backed, PE-backed, and public-company environments. My background includes leadership roles at companies such as eBay, EA, Yelp, TouchTunes, Ingenio, Puls, and CoPilot. I’ve served in CMO and VP-level roles, partnering closely with founders and CEOs, and helping teams navigate key inflection points including brand and product launches, go-to-market resets, monetization expansion, fundraising, and M&A integration. A significant part of my career has been hands-on operating work at moments of complexity: diagnosing and aligning product, marketing, data, and finance around growth priorities; clarifying positioning and customer value propositions; and turning strategy into execution. I bring a strong analytical foundation from earlier consulting and VC investing experience, combined with practical leadership experience building, reorganizing, and leveling up teams, partners, and vendors; operating at scale; navigating exogenous shocks; and presenting to Boards and investors. I enjoy working directly with founders as a sounding board and thought partner, particularly around marketing and adjacent disciplines when the path forward isn’t obvious. My style is pragmatic and operator-first: helping teams focus on what actually moves the business, avoid over-engineering solutions, and make confident decisions under uncertainty to drive results.
California
AI & Data Science, Consumer FinTech, DTC (Direct-to-Consumer), Media & Entertainment, Social Media & Community Platforms
#Board#Leadership#Mergers/Acquisitions#TransformationA/B TestingASOAttribution and AnalyticsB2BB2CBrand partnerships and monetizationBrand Positioningbusiness developmentCRMCROCustomer AcquisitionCustomer RetentionExecutive LeadershipFinancial modeling and strategyGo-To-Market (GTM) StrategyMarketing StrategyPerformance MarketingPRProduct MarketingSEMSEOSMB marketingSocial Media Advertising

Articles by Robert Tomkinson

Compensation benchmarks and equity insights for early-stage startups

Compensation Benchmarks for Early Stage Startups with Peter Walker

In this Mucker Growth Session, Peter Walker from Carta reviews insights and compensation benchmarks for early stage startups gathered from Carta’s extensive dataset of nearly 50,000 startups. In the evolving...

Legal 101 For Startups with Amanda Busch

In this Mucker Growth Session, Amanda Busch, General Counsel at Mucker, discusses the legal basics founders should consider when building their startup. Link to Slide Content: Mucker Growth Series –...

Buyer Journey Framework – The Secret To B2B Go-To-Market Success

Buyer Journey Framework – The Secret To B2B Go-To-Market Success with Tony Yang

In this Mucker Growth Session, Tony Yang, Head of Growth at Mucker, walks through using a buyer’s journey framework to improve your customer’s experience and your conversion rates. Common Buyer...

Annual Financial Planning Best Practices for Startups with Debbie Rosler

In this Mucker Growth Session, Debbie Rosler from Burkland reviews best practices for building a startup annual financial plan. Objectives of Financial Planning for Startups There are 6 key objectives...

Creative GenAI Applications to Fuel Early Stage Startup Growth with Rosemary Brisco and Bob Mitton

In this Mucker Growth Session, Rosemary Brisco and Bob Mitton, renowned consultants in the AI field, focus on how startups can utilize AI to enhance growth and efficiency across various...

How To Identify Key Product Metrics To Unlock Value For Product-Led Startups with David Jesse

In this Mucker Growth Session, David Jesse, Senior Product Advisor & Coach at Prodify with prior product leadership experience at DoorDash, Groupon, and eBay, focuses on aligning your product metrics...

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