Eric Franchi Joins Sharp Pen as Advisor
Eric Franchi is joining Sharp Pen as an advisor.
This is a meaningful moment for the business. Eric is one of the most respected operators and investors in adtech, deeply embedded in the companies and people shaping the industry. He is not an advisor to other companies, which makes his decision to formally join Sharp Pen and put his name behind what we’re building all the more significant.
Eric and I share a core belief about where media and communications are heading. Across politics, entertainment, and journalism, power has already shifted from institutions to individuals. The same shift is now happening in business. The people who define markets are no longer faceless brands or press releases, but founders and operators who show up directly—on social, in podcasts, in their own voice—and actively shape the narrative around their companies and categories. Communications, as a function, has to evolve to match that reality.
That belief is what underpins Sharp Pen. We call it executive evangelism: a model in which CEOs and leadership teams take ownership of their company’s story and use modern channels—social, email, audio—to build reputation, influence, and demand. Eric has been doing this for years through Marketecture, Open Market, and his broader presence in the industry, and we’ve built Sharp Pen on the same foundation. This formal partnership is about leaning into that alignment and accelerating it.
Over the past year, Sharp Pen has grown quickly. We now work with more than 20 adtech companies, including many of the most important founders and platforms in the space, and together we’re helping define what modern communications looks like in practice. The goal from here is to make executive evangelism the default approach to communications in adtech, and ultimately across B2B tech more broadly.
I couldn’t manufacture a partnership like this. Eric had to believe in the thesis, the work, and where this is going. I’m glad he does, and I’m excited for what we build together from here.
