About the RoleCogent is building a world-class marketing team, and we're looking for smart, fast, exceptional people who are committed to our mission and bring a spark of creativity that sets us apart from traditional B2B marketing. As the founding communications leader, you'll own how Cogent shows up beyond our own channels: in the press, on podcasts and stages, with the creators and newsletters practitioners follow, and in the moments that define a company's reputation. Cogent has unusual raw material for a company this size: original research, Fortune 500 customers, and an engineering team drawn from the frontier AI labs. Your job is to turn that substance into steady coverage, a founder the market recognizes, and a reputation that helps us sell and hire. The AI security news cycle moves in hours, so this is a hands-on seat: you'll set the angles, run the agency, prep executives, and move fast when a story breaks.
What You'll DoMedia & Narrative- Own Cogent's earned media strategy: the angles, the story calendar, and the coverage plan for launches, research, and company milestones.
- Run the PR agency: set its priorities, sharpen the pitches, and hold the bar on everything that goes out under Cogent's name.
- Translate Cogent's work for two audiences at once: security practitioners who will test every claim, and business and AI press who need the stakes in one sentence.
- Run rapid response. Watch the conversation across press, X, LinkedIn, and security communities, and when a breach, disclosure, or AI-security story breaks, get Cogent's take into the story while it's live. Content ships the POV piece; you get it cited.
Beyond the Press- Build Cogent's presence where security buyers and AI builders now pay attention: newsletters, podcasts, creators, and the handful of voices each community trusts.
- Run creator and influencer partnerships that put Cogent's research and point of view in front of audiences we don't own. Content runs our channels; you get us into everyone else's.
- Shape how the AI research community sees Cogent, so the engineers and researchers we want to hire already know the story. Partner with recruiting on the talent narrative.
Executive Visibility- Build the CEO's external presence: podcasts, conference stages, and press interviews that tie a founder to a category.
- Build a spokesperson bench beyond the CEO, starting with the CTO and Cogent Research, and media-train each of them.
- Book and prep every moment: secure the slot, write the briefing doc, and sharpen the message for the room.
Moments & Milestones- Own announcement strategy: funding, marquee customers, partnerships, research drops, and the awards worth winning. Sequence them so each builds on the last.
- Partner with Product Marketing on launches: they own the product story and positioning, you own the coverage plan.
- Write the playbook for hard moments before they arrive: a vulnerability in our own product, a customer breach, a competitor's attack. Security companies get tested on this, usually on short notice.
AI-Native Execution- Build the comms workflow on AI: media monitoring, briefing docs, first drafts, and coverage analysis, so a small function covers what used to take a team.
- Keep a living source of truth for approved claims, proof points, spokesperson briefs, and coverage history, so every announcement starts from what's already verified.
- Measure what the work moves: share of voice against the companies we compete with, coverage in the outlets buyers read, and executive audience growth.
What We're Looking ForMust-Have- 8-10+ years in communications or PR for B2B tech, with cybersecurity strongly preferred. In-house, or a mix of in-house and agency.
- Led communications for funding rounds, acquisitions, and major partnerships for a growth-stage startup.
- A record of coverage you drove: launches, funding, and research turned into stories in the security trades and the business press.
- You've built a comms program at a small company: wrote the materials yourself, ran the agency, and got real results without a big team or budget.
- Sharp news judgment. You know what's a story, what isn't, and how to make one out of real substance without overreaching.
- Trusted counsel to executives. You've prepped CEOs for hard interviews and talked them out of the wrong ones.
- Strong writing across the communications surface: pitches, briefing docs, talking points, announcements.
- Fluent with AI in the actual work. You can walk through how you use it for monitoring, research, and drafting, where it broke, and what you changed.
Nice-to-Have- Crisis or incident communications experience, ideally in security.
- Experience turning original research into earned coverage.
- Built creator, podcast, or influencer programs, or grew an executive's audience on X or LinkedIn.
- Familiarity with vulnerability management, exposure management, or AppSec/CloudSec adjacencies.
