Krithika Shankarraman

Marketing executive. Engineer-turned-marketer. Former VP of Marketing and first marketing hire at OpenAI; first marketing hire at Stripe (sole marketer for ~3 years); early marketing leader at Retool and Dropbox; marketing for Android at Google. Currently Executive in Residence at Thrive Capital.

Appearances

• Krithika Shankarraman on Marketing Without a Playbook — Lenny’s Podcast (~2025)

Key positions

• The right marketing strategy cannot be copied from another company’s playbook; it must be diagnosed from first principles using the DATE framework (Diagnose, Analyse, Take a different path, Experiment).
• Marketing metrics should be tied to pipeline and revenue, not vanity metrics (clicks, impressions, views).
• Brand is a whole-company motion — product experience, support, recruiting, and marketing artefacts are all constituent parts.
• Modern CMOs need a comb-shape (multiple deep competencies) rather than a T-shape (one deep specialism).