Senior marketing leadership for growing companies.
I help founders and CEOs own their marketing strategy, manage their agencies and vendors, and turn marketing spend into a system that actually works.
Work with me as your ongoing Fractional Head of Marketing, or bring me in for a focused strategic engagement.
Ran Shaharabani, Founder, RSK Consulting
Former Account Director, Publicis Media · Former Agency Partnerships, TikTok
Most companies don't have a marketing problem. They have an ownership problem.
The budget goes out every month. Agencies execute. Campaigns run. Reports arrive.
But inside the company, no one senior is deciding what actually matters, holding vendors to a standard, or connecting any of it back to the business plan.
So it lands on the founder. Approving what looks reasonable. Trusting numbers no one can verify. Never quite knowing whether the money is working.
The issue is rarely the quality of the agency. It's that there's no marketing leadership on your side of the table.
That's the role I fill.
I spent more than a decade inside the agency and platform side of marketing before I started advising companies from the other side of the table.
At Publicis Media I was an Account Director leading a team of 11, running strategy and media budgets for national brands across telecom, automotive, healthcare and consumer electronics. I know how agencies plan, price, staff and justify their work, because I did it.
At TikTok I managed agency partnerships with the six global holding groups. Sitting between a platform and the agencies investing in it gives you an informed view of media performance, reporting and accountability, and a clear sense of what strong performance and accountable agency relationships actually look like.
That's the perspective I bring to your business. When I review an agency's scope, a media plan or a monthly report, I'm not guessing what should be there. I've been the person writing it.
I also hold an M.A. in Consulting and Organizational Development alongside a B.A. in Marketing and Political Communications. That shapes how I work: I'm less interested in producing another marketing plan and more interested in building the operating model that makes marketing decisions repeatable after I'm gone.
I founded RSK Consulting in 2025 after moving from Tel Aviv to Seattle.
RSK is a consulting practice, not an agency. When you hire RSK, you're hiring me, my judgment, my experience, and my time. Not an account team, and not a junior working under a senior's name.
Why work with me
Who I work with
I work with founders, CEOs, owners and senior operating executives — usually in companies where marketing has become too important to manage on the side, but not yet large enough to justify a full-time senior marketing hire.
This tends to be the right fit when:
• You're spending real money on marketing and can't confidently tell what's working, what isn't, and why
• You work with one or more agencies, freelancers or vendors, and no one internally is managing them properly
• Marketing decisions keep ending up on your desk, by default
• You're heading into something significant, a new market, a new product, an expansion, a raise, and you need the marketing thinking to be right the first time
• You have activity, but no strategy that connects it to the business
What I'm not: I don't run campaigns, build ads or manage day-to-day execution. I'm the person who decides what should be done, chooses and manages the people who do it, and answers for whether it worked.
Three ways to work with me
Different companies need marketing leadership at different depths. These are the three engagement models I offer.
Fractional Head of Marketing
Ongoing senior marketing leadership, embedded in your business.
I take ownership of marketing on your behalf. Strategy and annual planning, budget structure and oversight, selecting and managing your agencies and vendors, holding them to a standard, and reporting back to you in business terms rather than marketing ones.
You get a senior marketing leader in the room for the decisions that matter, and a single senior point of ownership for marketing decisions, priorities and accountability — without the cost, timeline and risk of a full-time hire.
Typical scope: annual marketing plan · budget structure and oversight · agency and vendor selection, management and accountability · campaign and initiative approval · KPI framework and reporting cadence · participation in leadership meetings · advisory to the founder or CEO.
Engagement: ongoing monthly retainer.
Strategic Growth & Go-to-Market
A focused engagement when a major marketing decision has to be right.
Sometimes you don't need ongoing leadership. You need clarity on one big question: which market to enter, who the real customer is, how to position against the competition, where growth should come from next, or what the marketing plan and budget behind a launch or expansion should actually be.
This is a defined, time-bound engagement built on research rather than opinion. I go deep on the market, the category, the competition and the customer, then translate that into a strategy and a plan your leadership team can act on and defend — internally, to a board, or to investors.
This is the right engagement when you're facing: a market or product launch · geographic or category expansion · a strategic reset after growth stalled · uncertainty about where growth should come from · a major marketing investment decision that needs evidence behind it.
Typical deliverables: market, category and competitive research · customer and audience research, segmentation and ICP · market opportunity assessment · positioning and messaging · go-to-market and channel strategy · twelve-month roadmap · bottom-up marketing budget · a single executive-level strategy document or presentation.
Engagement: defined project, with scope, timeline and terms agreed before work begins.
Marketing & Agency Diagnostic
An independent read on what's working, what isn't, and what should change.
A short, focused review for leadership teams who suspect something is off but don't have anyone internally who can tell them for certain. I look at your marketing strategy, spend, agencies and vendors, contracts and scopes, reporting, and how marketing decisions get made inside the company.
You get an honest assessment from someone who has sat on the agency side, and a clear recommendation: keep, fix, renegotiate or replace.
Typical deliverables: written findings and assessment · agency and vendor evaluation · review of scope, contracts and commercials · gaps and risks · a prioritized list of what to change, in what order.
Engagement: short fixed-scope project. Often the starting point for a longer engagement, but it stands entirely on its own.
How I work
1. Understand the business first
Before marketing, I need the commercial picture: how you make money, what your margins look like, where growth actually comes from today, and what leadership is trying to achieve this year.
2. Look at what's really happening
Agencies, vendors, contracts, spend, reporting, channels, internal ownership. Not what the decks say. What's actually running, what it costs, and who's accountable for it.
3. Research before recommending
Market, category, competitors, customers. Depending on the decision, this can be a short input or a full research program. I don't build strategy on assumptions, and I'll tell you when the evidence isn't there yet.
4. Decide what matters
A clear set of priorities, a budget that reflects them, and measures that leadership can actually read. Fewer things, better executed.
5. Own it through execution
Briefing and managing the agencies and vendors, reviewing the work, holding the standard, and reporting back to you in business terms.
One rule I don't bend: every number I put in front of you has a verifiable source. If something can't be verified, it goes in as unknown, not as an estimate dressed up as data. Marketing decisions made on invented numbers are the most expensive mistakes I see.
The work
A sample of the kind of engagements I take on. Client details are kept confidential.
Ongoing marketing leadership for a multi-location U.S. business
Acting as the company's senior marketing leadership: annual planning, media budget structure, selecting and contracting agencies and vendors, overseeing a CRM migration, and building the reporting the owners use to make decisions. Ongoing.
Go-to-market strategy for a company preparing to enter the market
A full strategic program: category and competitive research, customer and stakeholder research, segmentation and priority audience, positioning, pricing logic, channel model, a twelve-month roadmap and a bottom-up marketing budget — delivered as a single executive-level plan the leadership team could act on and defend.
Market and competitive research behind a major expansion decision
Independent analysis of a new geographic market — competitive landscape, pricing, positioning and demand signals — built to support a business decision, not to justify one that had already been made.
Agency evaluation, selection and replacement
Reviewing agency performance, scope and commercials on the client's behalf, running a structured selection process, negotiating terms, and moving accounts and assets back into the client's control.
Marketing leadership for a U.S. nonprofit
Positioning, audience and donor landscape work, and ongoing marketing leadership for an organization with a mission and a limited budget.
Let's Talk
If any of this sounds like your business, the next step is a straightforward conversation — you tell me what's going on, I tell you honestly whether I'm the right person for it and how I'd approach it.
No pitch, no deck, no obligation. If it's not a fit, I'll say so and point you in a better direction.
Tell me a little about your situation and I'll get back to you within one business day.
Ran@rskconsulting.info · +1 (206) 440-6056 · Seattle, WA