Manwendra Mishra
Marketing & GTM Executive

I build go-to-market systems that turn complex technology into enterprise revenue.

I'm Manwendra. In high-assurance, enterprise markets, such as banking, insurance, the public sector and defence, where a wrong decision carries regulatory, financial or public consequences, technology only sells once it's trusted. Trust is earned with evidence, not claims, and I build the go-to-market that earns it. Over 11+ years, I've been brought in four times to do this, at Mozn, Radware, Cardstack and Merkle Science, always alongside teams I'm proud of.

Portrait of Manwendra Mishra
4× brought in to build the go-to-market engine from the ground up
2.5× ARR growth in a single year at Mozn
25 analyst recognitions in 2026 so far, led by my team
5 regions: GCC, US, UK, Europe and APAC
Analyst recognition earned by my teams
Chartis AML & KYC LeaderChartis Enterprise Fraud LeaderForrester Notable VendorIDC Innovator 2026FCC50 #16, up 30 placesForrester Wave Leader (Radware Bot Manager)
In others' words
“Entrepreneurial, an innovative thinker, and has a strong bias to action… I would highly recommend Manwendra for a leadership role in marketing.”
Mriganka Pattnaik, Co-founder & CEO, Merkle Science
“Instrumental in building a high-performing team, cultivating a strong culture, and instilling a commendable work ethic.”
Omar Hassib, VP of Product, Mozn
“His adeptness at leading a geographically dispersed team delivered measurable results for Cardstack.”
Chris Tse, CEO, Cardstack
Leadership approach

Calm in the room. Ambitious about the outcome.

People do their best work when they feel safe, are trusted with something that matters, and know someone has their back.

Ambition and calm go together. I'm clear about what we're aiming for and why it matters. My job is to carry the pressure that comes with it, keep the room steady, and make sure my team's work is recognised and rewarded.

Leading in the age of AI

Agents do more of the work. People still own the outcome.

AI has made output cheap: a draft, a deck or an analysis now takes seconds. Knowing whether it's right still takes judgement, and in high-assurance markets like banking and the public sector, that judgement is the job. So on my teams, everyone is responsible for what they deliver, however it was produced.

For example, most recently at Mozn, we built AI agents into the team's daily workflows. They helped us move faster, while each person remained accountable for the quality and accuracy of their own work. That only works when people feel safe saying an output isn't good enough, which is where my first principle comes in.

Four principles

01

Create safety

People should be able to tell me they're stretched before it becomes a problem. When findings are hard to hear, about a market, a product or a plan, I deliver them myself, so the team can stay focused on the work.

02

Hire well, then trust

In regulated technology, experience is a strategy. I hire people who are ambitious, get things done and let the work speak, then give them direction and trust their judgement. For example, most recently at Mozn, I brought experienced senior marketers from across the industry into hands-on roles, and their market knowledge shaped our brand.

03

Grow people, and back them

I give people with potential ownership of something that matters, work alongside them at first, then step back, and I make sure their work is seen and rewarded. For example, most recently at Mozn, two senior product marketers on my team have since been promoted to lead roles.

04

Decide on evidence, not ego

When I disagree with a CEO, CMO or sales leader, I first make sure I understand their view, then come back with structured reasoning. If I don't have the answer yet, I say so. For example, when a proposed restructuring would have stretched specialists across very different regulatory domains, a structured case led to a middle ground that worked for everyone.

I judge my leadership by one test: whether people outgrow the roles I hired them for. Hiring experienced people taught me the rest. Leading well means setting direction, giving cover and trusting people to deliver, not owning everything myself.

GTM approach

Diagnose before you sell.

Regulated buyers trust peers and evidence more than vendor claims. So I earn trust first and turn it into revenue second.

Why this matters more now

AI has made claims cheap and trust scarce.

94% of business buyers used AI in their buying process, and AI is now the source they rate most meaningful, ahead of vendor websites, product experts and sales Forrester, The State of Business Buying, 2026
40%+ of agentic AI projects expected to be cancelled by the end of 2027, over costs, unclear value or inadequate risk controls Gartner, 2025

Buyers now meet vendors through AI before they meet them in person. At the same time, every vendor claims AI: Gartner estimates only about 130 of the thousands selling "agentic AI" are genuine. For a bank or a government, that means more claims and less certainty. The vendors who win are the ones whose evidence holds up when the buyer, or the buyer's AI, checks.

Four stages, from insight to revenue

01

Earn the right to be heard

Lead with something useful: original research, a peer forum, a readiness assessment. It reveals the buyer's real problem and creates the evidence that buyers and their AI tools will find.

For example, at Radware, bot-threat research cited by BBC and TechRadar made the company a go-to voice on bot fraud. At Merkle Science, RegWatch regulatory intelligence became the primary growth engine.

Try it: a free EU AI Act readiness check I built

02

Turn insight into the offer

Shape positioning, packaging and pricing around what buyers reveal, so the product reads as the answer to their problem, not another AI claim.

For example, most recently at Mozn, a readiness assessment for new counter-fraud rules became a new revenue line.

03

Let the market say it for you

Independent validation is what separates real capability from agent-washing, so analyst relations and peer advocacy are core to go-to-market.

For example, at Radware, Forrester made intent-based behaviour analysis a requirement in its Wave and named Bot Manager a Leader. Most recently at Mozn, the team earned Chartis AML & KYC Leader status and 25 analyst recognitions in 2026 so far.

04

Build the engine that scales it

Run one operating model across sales, marketing, product and pre-sales, back it with strong enablement, and use AI to make the team faster without lowering the bar on accuracy.

For example, most recently at Mozn, that engine supported 2.5× ARR growth in a single year.

The playbook has worked in cybersecurity, crypto compliance, financial crime and enterprise AI. Technology keeps changing. The buyer's need for evidence doesn't, and AI has only raised the bar.

The research behind stage 01

Research is where the diagnosis starts

2020 · Radware threat research

Human-like Bots and Online Fraud: Understanding How Human-like Bots Perform Online Fraud

How sophisticated bots mimic human behaviour to evade detection and commit online fraud, and what that means for detection strategy.

Read on Radware →
2011 · ISDMISC, Advanced Materials Research

A Communication Network Design for Robotics Through a Queen Bees Algorithm

Engineering research proposing a bio-inspired queen bee algorithm for designing communication networks between robots.

Read the paper →
Case studies

How the approach plays out.

Four stories from my career, with company names left out. Each shows the situation, what we did, what happened, and what I took from it.

Case study 01 · Enterprise AI · Banking

A regulatory assessment that became a revenue line

This is one of my favourite stories from my career. Banks had one worried question, and answering it properly turned into a business of its own.

The situation

I was leading product marketing at an enterprise AI company with a strong fraud-prevention product, but it wasn't getting traction with banks. Then the regulator introduced new counter-fraud rules, and suddenly every bank had the same worry: are we ready?

What we did

Instead of leading with our product, we built a regulatory readiness assessment. It showed each bank how its current controls measured up against the new rules, and where the gaps were.

  • We offered it as a service in its own right, so the first conversation was about the bank's risk, not our features.
  • Every assessment taught us something about what banks really needed, and we fed that straight back into our positioning, packaging and pricing.
  • We trained the sales team to open with the assessment rather than a demo.
What happened

Within the first three quarters, six enterprise clients signed on, building a new revenue line worth low single-digit millions in ARR.

What I took away

In regulated markets, buyers trust the people who help them understand their own problem. Solve that first, and your product becomes the natural next step.

Case study 02 · Enterprise AI and financial crime · Banking and public sector

Integrated GTM for industrialized scale, not heroic wins

Many growing companies win deals through heroics: a brilliant salesperson, a founder stepping in, a deck rebuilt the night before. It works, until you need to do it a hundred times. We set out to make winning repeatable.

The situation

The company sold two very different product lines, enterprise AI and financial crime prevention, to banks and the public sector. Sales, marketing, product and pre-sales each had their own plan, and leaders had different instincts about where to focus. Big wins happened, but they depended on a few people going above and beyond, and every deal started from scratch.

What we did

  • We sized each market from the bottom up, so priorities rested on data rather than opinion.
  • We built one go-to-market operating model that brought all four teams together, with a regular review for each product.
  • We took the findings to leadership, including the hard ones about which markets and products to prioritise.
  • We rebuilt pricing and packaging around customer scale, so sales no longer had to invent a price for every deal.
What happened

Win rates rose by around 20% as internal processes became simpler and teams stopped working at cross purposes. Over the same year, ARR grew 2.5×.

What I took away

Heroic wins make good stories, but they don't scale. A shared system does: when every team pulls in the same direction, good results stop depending on a few people having a great week.

Case study 03 · Cybersecurity · Enterprise

Why thought leadership is key to building trust with regulated buyers

Regulated buyers are cautious by design. Before they trust a product, they want to trust the people behind it. Original research gave them a reason to.

The situation

A public cybersecurity company had launched a bot-management product into a category most buyers didn't yet understand. They couldn't tell basic bot blocking from the more advanced approach we offered, so they compared us on price.

What we did

  • We published original research on how bots exploit businesses, from human-like bots committing fraud to bots spreading misinformation during COVID-19.
  • We built the category story around intent-based behaviour analysis: understanding what a bot is trying to do, not just whether it's a bot.
  • We took that point of view to industry analysts and the press.
  • We created a glossary of security terms, so buyers searching for answers found us first.
What happened
  • The research was cited by BBC, Forbes, TechRadar and an industry guide from CSDE and USTelecom.
  • Forrester made intent-based analysis a requirement in its Bot Management Wave and named the product a Leader.
  • Revenue across the bot and API security products grew 55% year on year.
  • The company still publishes its annual report using the same framework.
What I took away

Advertising tells buyers what to think. Thought leadership helps them think for themselves, and for regulated buyers, that is where trust begins.

Case study 04 · Cybersecurity, digital asset AML and financial crime

SEO and GEO can be your main lead driver, if you plan them right

Search is often treated as a side project. Planned properly, it became the main source of leads at three companies.

The situation

In cybersecurity, digital asset AML compliance and financial crime, buyers research technical questions long before they want to speak to a vendor. A well-planned glossary meets them there: it shows your expertise and brings you up in their searches.

Over time, you become the place they go to learn, they quietly start to trust you, and when they need a product, yours is the first name they think of.

What we did

  • We built a glossary explaining each field's key terms in plain language, starting with the questions buyers actually searched for.
  • Every entry linked to deeper content and product pages, so readers moved naturally from learning to exploring.
  • We kept it current as regulations and threats changed.
  • At each new company, I refined the approach based on what had worked before.
What happened
  • At the financial crime company, inbound grew to around 80% of all leads.
  • At the digital asset AML compliance company, a glossary of 150+ terms became the main source of leads.
  • At the cybersecurity company, the glossary became the main lead source too.
What I took away

Planning it right means three things: start from the buyer's real questions, connect every answer to a next step, and keep it current. Today it also means planning for GEO (generative engine optimisation), because buyers increasingly ask AI assistants before they search, and those assistants cite clear, trusted answers.

AI agents

Agents that do the groundwork.

I build AI agents for the parts of product marketing that matter but rarely get enough time: keeping up with regulation, watching competitors, and turning research into something sales can use. Each one follows the same rule as my teams. The agent does the groundwork. A person owns the outcome.

Grounded in evidence

Every output cites or quotes its source, so anyone can check it.

People approve

Nothing reaches a buyer or a seller until a person has reviewed it.

Built for regulated buyers

Plain language, a clear record of every change, and no surprises.

Lead generation · Regulation

EU AI Act readiness check

A free five-minute self-assessment for organisations that build or use AI. Visitors get a readiness score, their gaps with the article behind each one, and the deadlines that apply to them. Behind it, a regulatory radar agent checks official EU sources every week and drafts updates to the questions for me to approve.

Why it works: in regulated markets, a useful diagnostic earns more trust than a sales pitch. For example, most recently at Mozn, a readiness assessment for new counter-fraud rules became a new revenue line.

  • Questions based on the AI Act as amended in 2026
  • Weekly radar of EUR-Lex and the European Commission
  • Every change approved by a person, versioned and logged
Competitive intelligence · Sales enablement

Competitive intelligence agent

Watches competitors' public pages every week, explains what each change means, and drafts battlecard updates. Sales get a short weekly digest, and battlecards stay current without anyone losing a day to research.

Why it works: sellers stop trusting a battlecard the moment one turns out to be out of date. Keeping them current is a weekly habit that rarely survives a busy quarter. An agent keeps the habit alive.

  • Every signal tied to a word-for-word quote from the page
  • Battlecards with version history
  • Weekly digest by email or Slack
Experience

Hired four times to build the go-to-market engine from scratch.

Radware, Merkle Science, Cardstack and Mozn each brought me in when their technology was ahead of its market. Each time, the job was the same: earn the market's trust, then build the engine that turns it into revenue. Here is what that involved, across strategy, marketing, sales and the teams behind them.

Mozn

Head of Product Marketing · 2024–present Enterprise AI & financial crime · Riyadh, remote from Brno

An enterprise AI company backed by HUMAIN (PIF), serving 150+ banks, fintechs and public-sector institutions across two lines: enterprise AI (mozn.ai) and financial crime prevention (FOCAL). I joined as the first Head of Product Marketing. I work as a strategic partner to the commercial and executive leadership.

Personal award · 2026 Most Valuable Player Mozn's company-wide award
Personal award · 2025 Mozn Hero Top performer award

Analyst recognition earned by the team

Chartis AML & KYC Leader, one of 10 vendors globallyChartis Enterprise Fraud Leader, the only one from the Middle EastForrester Notable Vendor, Q1 2026IDC Innovator 2026#16 on the FCC50, up 30 places

What I owned

GTM strategyPositioning & messagingPricing & packagingProduct launchesAnalyst relationsSales enablementCompetitive intelligenceCustomer advocacyExecutive eventsTeam leadership

Key work

  • Built a GTM operating model that brought sales, marketing, product and pre-sales together
  • Led a redesign of pricing and packaging
  • Created a regulatory-readiness assessment for Saudi Arabia's new counter-fraud rules, giving banks something useful before any sales conversation
  • Launched executive forums for banks, fintechs and financial institutions, built on peer conversations rather than vendor pitches
  • Repositioned the enterprise AI business into six solutions for high-assurance domains, verticalized for public sector, defense, banking, insurance and fintech
  • Built sales enablement for the AI line from scratch, and helped shape its go-to-market around forward-deployed engineering
  • Ran the analyst relations program across Chartis, Forrester, IDC and others
  • Built a global product marketing team, hired experienced senior talent, and embedded AI agents into daily marketing workflows

Results

  • 2.5× ARR growth in a single year
  • The readiness assessment became a new revenue line
  • 25 analyst recognitions in 2026 so far, up from 21 in 2025

Panther Protocol

Head of Product Marketing · 2023–2024 Blockchain infrastructure · Dubai

A blockchain infrastructure company that needed to move from a community-led audience to institutional buyers in the US, then hold its ground through a regulatory event.

What I owned

Positioning & ICPPartnershipsCommunicationsCommunityCrisis communicationsBoard reporting

Key work

  • Repositioned the narrative, ideal customer profile and partnership architecture for institutional buyers
  • Brought product marketing, communications and community under one GTM system, ending channel fragmentation
  • Led regulatory and crisis communications, keeping institutional partners informed and confident
  • Presented GTM strategy to the board and executive team throughout the pivot

Results

  • A full market pivot within 90 days of joining
  • No material contract loss through the regulatory event

Cardstack

Head of Product Marketing · 2022–2023 Composable software (boxel.ai) · New York / Zug / Dubai

A new developer platform for the US market, built by a team spread across the US, Southeast Asia and Europe, with no product marketing function in place.

What I owned

Product marketingDeveloper marketingContentCommunityDemand generationDistributed team leadership

Key work

  • Defined the scope of the product marketing function and led a distributed team across product marketing, content and community
  • Launched the Boxel Framework with a developer-led GTM strategy
  • Ran engagement and ecosystem programs to grow the developer community
  • Designed demand generation that linked community growth to commercial pipeline

Results

  • A developer community of 3,000+
  • Open-source interest turned into enterprise conversations

Merkle Science

Product Marketing Manager · 2020–2022 Crypto AML compliance · Singapore

A crypto compliance platform selling to exchanges and financial institutions, in a market regulators were still defining. I was the first GTM hire.

What I owned

Positioning & messagingContentDemand generationInternational expansionCustomer marketingThought leadership

Key work

  • Built positioning, messaging, content and demand generation from zero
  • Created RegWatch, a regulatory-intelligence platform that compliance teams relied on and that convened the crypto and fintech compliance community
  • Led market expansion across the US, UK, Canada and Europe
  • Closed the loop between customer success and the product roadmap

Results

  • RegWatch became the company's primary growth engine
  • 70% year-on-year revenue growth
  • Customer churn held below 5%

Radware

Senior Product Marketer · 2017–2020 Cybersecurity (NASDAQ: RDWR) · Bangalore

A public cybersecurity company with a new Bot Manager business and no dedicated product marketing behind it, in a category buyers barely understood. I also led GTM for API Security.

What I owned

Category strategyResearch & thought leadershipAnalyst relationsContent strategyMarket expansion

Key work

  • Built the category and messaging architecture for bot security
  • Created The Big Bad Bot Problem research series
  • Positioned Radware as a pioneer of intent-based behaviour analysis with analysts and buyers
  • Drove US and EU market expansion and managed global content strategy

Results

  • 55% year-on-year revenue growth across Bot Manager and API Security
  • Research cited by BBC, Forbes, TechRadar, Security Boulevard and the CSDE/USTelecom Botnet Guide 2021
  • Forrester added intent-based analysis to its Bot Management Wave and named Bot Manager a Leader
  • Radware still publishes the annual Bot Threat Report on the same framework

Earlier: Content Marketer at Moxo (B2B SaaS for financial services) and Assistant Editor at CIO Review, writing for technology leaders in the US and Canada.

Education & certifications

An engineer by training, still learning

I trained as an electronics and communication engineer, and my first job was as an editor, writing about technology for CIOs. Go-to-market turned out to be where both halves meet: taking something deeply technical and making it the answer to someone's real problem.

Education
2026 – 2027 · Part-time

Executive MBA

ESSEC Business School, Paris

Delivered jointly with HKUST Business School in Hong Kong, including Doing Business in China, and the University of Cape Town.

Undergraduate

B.Tech, Electronics & Communication Engineering

Punjab Technical University, India

Preceded by a three-year diploma in the same field. Published research on communication networks for robotics.

Certifications
2026

Management & Cooperation in Complex Situations (RS6682)

SCYFCO, Paris

A French state-registered programme, built on the experience of former military officers, on decision-making and coordination under pressure.

2022

Digital Marketing: Disruptive Strategy Programme

University of Oxford, Saïd Business School
2021

Product Marketing Certified: Leadership

Product Marketing Alliance
Beyond work

Slow travel, fast slopes.

The best way to see a town, I think, is on foot or by bike. Going slowly gives you time to notice things, and that's where the memories come from. Skiing is the opposite: the exhilarating part of an otherwise slow winter. My favourite so far is the mountains around Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Home today is Brno, in the Czech Republic.

Manwendra exploring a town
Skiing in Almaty, Kazakhstan
Skiing, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Cycling at Al Qudra Cycle Track, Dubai
Al Qudra Cycle Track, Dubai
On the trail at SCYFCO Training Center, Paris
SCYFCO Training Center, Paris
Contact

Always happy to compare notes.

Go-to-market for regulated buyers, building marketing teams, analyst relations, or a good ski run: any of these is a good reason to get in touch.

What excites me
Enterprise AIAgentic AIFinancial crimeCompliance

Problems where trust decides the outcome, at companies where we can build and scale something together.

Email me LinkedIn

manwendra.mishra01@gmail.com · Brno, Czech Republic (CET)