Eric-Jan (EJ) Schmidt is a fractional CMO and GTM operator who steps into PE and VC-backed B2B SaaS companies when the commercial picture looks stronger in the board deck than it does in the pipeline
Typically, those companies have scaled through acquisition, expanded into multi-product portfolios, or reached the point where the commercial systems supporting growth must mature alongside the business. EJ helps leadership teams translate pipeline into more predictable revenue by improving sales efficiency, strengthening forecasting confidence, and lowering acquisition costs.
Over more than two decades, he has rebuilt product marketing, revenue operations, pipeline quality, and GTM execution inside software, industrial technology, aerospace, infrastructure, and Deep Tech businesses ranging from growth-stage SaaS companies to multi-billion-dollar global enterprises. He works as an operator, not a consultant, stepping into companies where leadership needs sharper commercial execution, stronger forecasting discipline, and better operational alignment across the revenue engine.
EJ has held senior global marketing leadership roles at Stratus Technologies, Inventory Locator Service (ILS/CAMP Systems), Hitachi Data Systems, Intralinks, and EMC. Across those organizations, he has led teams of more than 100 people, managed global GTM operations across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC, and helped companies navigate everything from product pivots and category repositioning to post-acquisition integration and revenue model evolution.
A few representative outcomes:
- At Stratus Technologies, a PE-backed industrial automation company, EJ helped reposition the business from legacy infrastructure into an industrial Edge and IIoT player, tripling revenue in the company’s Edge segment while reducing average deal cycle time by more than 30%.
- At ILS, the aerospace aftermarket platform carved out of Boeing and owned by CAMP Systems, he doubled lead volume and pipeline quality, drove 25% ARR growth alongside 110% net revenue retention, and led product marketing for seven product launches across a multi-product portfolio.
- Earlier in his career at Hitachi Data Systems, he led global digital marketing and demand generation during a growth phase from roughly $3 billion to more than $5 billion in revenue, including a Marketo deployment across 55 countries.
Today, EJ focuses primarily on PE and VC-backed software and tech-enabled services companies between roughly $25 million and $250 million ARR, particularly businesses navigating what he describes as the “post-acquisition stall,” when commercial complexity begins outpacing growth.
His work typically centers on three areas: sharpening product marketing and positioning across multi-product portfolios, rebuilding revenue architecture and forecasting discipline, and installing practical AI-enabled workflows inside revenue and marketing operations. He partners with PE-backed SaaS firms, Deep Tech ventures, and AI startups to drive commercial readiness, refine market positioning, and execute go-to-market strategies. He also serves as a board advisor to AIOps company Meibel.ai.
EJ’s global operating experience spans North America, Europe, and Asia, shaped in part by his Dutch and American background and early academic work in organizational management at the University of Amsterdam. He later completed Harvard Business School’s Program for Management Development and today works with growth-stage and PE-backed organizations across North America, Europe, and Asia in English, Dutch, French, and German.