Top 50 B2B Marketing Leaders
Annual list recognizing marketing executives driving measurable pipeline impact.
Elena Volkov
VP of Marketing
I turn technical products into category-defining brands. Fifteen years building marketing engines that compound — from first blog post to IPO roadshow.
About
Marketing leader who has built and scaled three B2B SaaS marketing organizations from the ground up. I specialize in the transition from founder-led sales to a marketing-driven growth engine — the moment when brand, content, demand gen, and product marketing all need to start working as a system instead of a collection of experiments. My teams have generated $280M in attributed pipeline across enterprise dev tools, cybersecurity, and data infrastructure. I've hired 60+ marketers, managed $25M in annual budget, and still write the occasional blog post myself.
Experience
2022
Present
VP of Marketing
Vanta · San Francisco, CA (remote from NYC)
Full marketing leadership for the compliance automation platform ($150M ARR, 5,000+ customers). Team of 35 across brand, content, demand gen, product marketing, and developer relations.
- Grew marketing-sourced pipeline from $38M to $112M annually while reducing CAC by 22%.
- Launched the 'Trust as a Product' brand platform; aided 40% increase in inbound demo requests within two quarters.
- Built the developer marketing function from scratch; Vanta's technical blog now drives 180K monthly uniques.
- Led the rebrand (agency: Pentagram) that accompanied the Series C announcement; 14K social mentions in 48 hours.
- Managed $18M annual marketing budget across paid, events, content, and partnerships.
2019
2022
Senior Director of Marketing
Snyk · Boston, MA
Marketing leadership for developer security during Snyk's hypergrowth phase (Series C through Series F, $100M to $500M+ ARR).
- Scaled the marketing team from 8 to 42 people across content, demand gen, field marketing, and analyst relations.
- Launched the annual 'State of Open Source Security' report — 200K downloads, cited in WSJ and TechCrunch.
- Built the ABM program targeting Fortune 500 security teams; contributed to 60% of enterprise pipeline.
- Led the category creation effort for 'Developer Security'; won Gartner recognition in two adjacent Magic Quadrants.
2015
2019
Director of Content Marketing
Datadog · New York, NY
Built and led the content marketing organization through IPO (September 2019, $648M market cap at listing).
- Grew the Datadog blog from 50K to 1.2M monthly uniques; became the primary organic acquisition channel.
- Created the 'Monitoring 101' content series — still Datadog's highest-performing content asset six years later.
- Hired and managed a team of 12 technical writers and content strategists.
- Contributed content strategy for the IPO roadshow materials.
2011
2015
Content Marketing Manager
HubSpot · Cambridge, MA
Early member of the content team during HubSpot's growth from startup to IPO (October 2014).
- Launched the inbound marketing certification program — 100K completions in the first year.
- Managed the editorial calendar for the marketing blog (2M monthly readers).
- Created the 'Marketing Grader' tool concept that became HubSpot's top lead-gen asset.
Competencies
Strategy
- Brand positioning
- Category creation
- Go-to-market
- Pricing strategy
- Competitive intelligence
Demand Gen
- ABM
- Paid media
- SEO/SEM
- Event marketing
- Partner marketing
Content
- Technical writing
- Editorial strategy
- Developer marketing
- Thought leadership
- Analyst relations
Operations
- Marketing attribution
- Budget management
- Team building
- Vendor management
- Board reporting
Tools
- HubSpot
- Salesforce
- Marketo
- 6sense
- Clearbit
- Figma
- Webflow
Recognition
Speaker, SaaStr Annual (keynote)
Talk: 'Brand is a growth lever, not a cost center.'
CMO50 Next-Gen Leaders
Webby Award — Best B2B Website
For the Vanta rebrand and website redesign.
Education
-
MSJ, Journalism (Digital Media)
Northwestern University — Medill School
2011 -
BA, English Literature and Russian Studies
University of Michigan
Phi Beta Kappa. Hopwood Award for Creative Writing.
2009
Languages
English (Native)Russian (Fluent)French (Professional working)
Community
- Board Member & Mentor Women in Revenue 2021–Present
- Writing Workshop Facilitator 826 National 2013–Present