ROWAN TONKIN · CMO · AI OPERATOR last engine run: 33 agents · 8 routes · 2 killed · 1 call

Everyone's prompting. Almost no one is operating.

I run marketing as a self-improving system. I built a positioning engine that explores every route a business could take, tries to kill each one, and shows the work. Then I make the call. This page is where you can hire that.

RECEIPTS Planful Anaplan HEAVY.AI Diginomica
01

Your category is being renamed while you watch.

AI moved the ground under every B2B category. Incumbents are bolting agents onto old platforms, startups are claiming your words, and the free layer keeps making your baseline claim sound like table stakes. A top consultant is a twelve-week waitlist. An agency rebrand is a six-figure art project with no proof discipline.

Most companies make this decision once, by intuition, in a conference room, and never write down what they rejected or why.

80%
of B2B scores generic-to-invisible
Grenier, 2026
53%
bought AI, got nothing
field, 2026
$50k
12-week consultant floor
Dunford band
02

An engine runs the search. I make the call.

01
interrogate
02
arbitrate
03
generate 8 routes
04
try to kill each
05
score, then the call

The engine reads your business the way a diligence team would, generates six to eight distinct routes, then adversarially tries to kill each one. Survivors get scored on six weighted criteria with risk held separate. Then the part you are actually paying for: I make the call, cited to the evidence, with the conditions it holds under and the tripwires that say it's wrong. The matrix stays neutral. The judgment is mine, and it is signed.

03 / SHOW THE WORK

Nobody else shows you the bets they rejected.

A recommendation means nothing until you know what it beat.

ROUTEDISTINCTBELIEV.DEMANDDEFENS.OWNABLECLARITYSCORE
▸ the operating layer4.64.4 4.24.74.54.34.48
the proof engine4.14.53.84.03.94.24.10
category creation4.83.23.13.64.43.03.58
the AI-native pivot2.92.12.42.02.62.22.36
verifier raised strike = killed in verification weights: believability × 1.4
the AI-native pivot
Killed. The proof to back "AI-native" does not exist yet, and the claim is already saturated.
the enterprise-grade play
Killed. Indistinguishable from the incumbent 30× your size on its own front.
Read a real working paper
04

I have made this bet with my own name on it.

2019—2022
Host Analytics → Planful

Repositioned and renamed the company as CMO. Branded search up 50% in eighteen months off a zero base. Unaided recall up 30 points. New logos tripled.

And the honest part: the brand went backwards for eighteen months before it went forwards.

2015—2016
MapD → OmniSci

Repositioned an open-source database company upmarket into an enterprise motion, from eight reps and no ICP to named Fortune 500 accounts.

2012—2014
Anaplan

Moved the argument from territory planning to incentive compensation, where the buyer's pain was sharpest. That wedge produced the company's first Magic Quadrant leadership position.

Diginomica byline/50 CMOs to Watch/podcast host

Twenty years of positioning work. One engine that makes it inspectable. That combination is the offer.

05 / THE OFFER

The Position Call.

$12,500
fixed · two per month

A fixed-scope positioning engagement. One hour with me to start. The options you are already weighing enter the analysis as bets in their own right, tested as hard as mine. If yours wins, you will see it win on the matrix. If it dies, you will see exactly why.

Ten business days later you get the bundle: the deck, the report, and the working papers. The call comes with its conditions named, its fallback stated, and the tripwires that would tell us it was wrong. Then ninety minutes together to pressure-test it, with the person you report to in the room.

First three clients pay $7,500 in exchange for a named case study.

Book the intake call Position Audit $2,500 · free strip-the-name test

If your executive team does not rate the bundle decision-grade, I rework it with a further session at no cost. If it still is not, half your money back. I do not guarantee market outcomes and you should distrust anyone who does.