In this episode of the Full Throttle Leaders podcast, host Michael Falato interviews Alan Rudolph, a seasoned technology solution provider who now operates as a fractional COO/CCO through Accelerant Growth Solutions. Alan walks through his career trajectory—from consulting and outsourcing to senior roles at Oracle and IBM—highlighting key lessons from his first acquisition at Oracle (a scripted, rapid‑post‑close communication plan) and the challenges of navigating large, complex enterprises at IBM. He defines his ideal customer profile as B2B enterprise SaaS and AI companies with $5‑250 M in ARR, often introduced via growth‑equity or private‑equity investors, and explains how he helps them realize AI ROI both internally (workflow automation) and externally (product re‑engineering). Alan describes his delivery model: a fractional, high‑touch approach serving 3‑6 clients at a time, leveraging a broad network of trusted partners, and emphasizing that clients are buying his expertise and personal brand. He also outlines a go‑to‑market transformation framework that rethinks lead generation, AI‑enabled initiatives, and value‑creation plans for 2026‑27. The conversation closes with Alan’s preferred contact channels (LinkedIn, personal website, multiple messaging platforms) and his commitment to rapid, courteous communication.
Chapters
Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, everybody. Michael Filato here from Full Throttle Leaders. That's our podcast show. Obviously, my company is GTM Full Throttle. I have Alan Rudolph here, who is a COO, CEO, like Kind of a fractional approach guy, right?
All sorts of stuff, like trying to make companies better.
So, tell me a little bit about your background, about— I think it's called Accelerant Growth Solutions, if I'm correct. That's your company that you call right now?
One of the companies I work with. You know, by way of background, Michael, I've spent— I'm trying to make sure I'm centered. I've spent my entire career as a, what I call, a technology solution provider. I've been in consulting, I've been in outsourcing, I've been in ASPs, application service providers, cloud service providers, and over the past 10 years, a variety of different enterprise-class B2B private equity-backed software companies.
Okay.
And really focused in on as a COO, as a CCO, Chief Customer Officer, Really focusing on the customer journey, making sure that we're driving all the requisite programs to make our customers wildly successful. That obviously drives renewal, that drives gross and net retention, and it just makes us a better company.
Yeah.
Now, there's many aspects of what we need to do to make sure that happens, but that broadly speaking is where I've spent And it looks like you worked at IBM and Oracle.
What's like 2 things, nuggets that you could say, you know what, I did something really good there and it taught me A, or did something that didn't work and it taught me B, but it was still a learning lesson?
You know, on the positive side, in my journey at Oracle, I did my first— I was part of an executive team that did an acquisition. It was the first acquisition I did. And I probably have done 20+ since then. But one of the key takeaways from that journey with Oracle doing an acquisition was the scripted approach from moment of signature, moment of close, literally every 30 minutes for the first 48 to 72 hours after close. And it's really focused on employees and customers. making sure they understand what we did, how we did it, is anything changing, et cetera. And so that was really one of my key takeaways during that journey. If I reflect on my time at IBM, and I gave this very constructive feedback, I remember when I was departing after about 4 years with IBM, and I got to IBM through an acquisition, it was trying to, you know, large complex organization, but trying to navigate the waters. Like who's who in the zoo? I always used to say. And it was just really challenging. And this was in the days, and this was like almost 20 years ago now, we were on conference calls, not on video calls. So, you'd get on a conference call and you'd have 20, 30, 40 people show up and only 5 people spoke. You're like, what are all these other people doing? Who are they? What is their interest level, et cetera? So, it just really is very broadly You know, the challenge of making sure you understand every person in the organization. Why do they join a call? What's their mission, their purpose, etc.? And again, I'm always focused on the impact we can make to the customers and making sure our teams are actively engaged.
Who's your ideal customer profile for you? And then maybe go into a little bit about what you're doing for, I think you have, is it 3 major clients that you work with now or?
Yeah, a couple different clients and there's a bunch more I don't even list when you look at my LinkedIn profile. My target customer profile is, again, enterprise SaaS, B2B SaaS and AI. And it's a company that, let's call it $5 million of revenue to maybe $250 million of revenue. And again, let's not confuse revenue and ARR because we know revenue always lags ARR as we continue to add more and more customers. But that's my ICP. And I may or may not get introduced through the investors, whether it's a growth equity firm or a private equity firm, or I'm even starting to do some work with some founders, right? That have built up a $5, $10, $20 million enterprise-class software company and try to figure out how do I get to the next level? Do I wanna consider a growth equity investor? Do I wanna consider bringing in some private equity money? And as part of that journey today, we focus heavily in on what am I getting as I'm starting to implement AI? What am I driving from an ROI perspective? 'Cause at the end of the day, I'm classically trained coming outta undergrad in finance and accounting. And so it's all about, you know, am I driving business outcomes? Am I getting returns for my investment? We all know the AI world is, you know, with the tokens and everything is changing dramatically. So I'm heavily focused on thinking through the appropriate initiatives that will enhance the value of, implementing AI, and I do that in 2 ways. Both internally, how do I leverage AI internally within the organization in terms of workflows, in terms of all the different ways I can implement AI? But then more importantly, as a software company externally, what am I doing to my product to make my product that much better? And it's not just a matter of saying, oh, throw AI at the product.
No, no, no.
It's really looking at a ground-up re-engineering or reintroduction of my product in an agentic way.
What is your capacity with working with clients? I mean, are you basically a 3 to 5 client approach with what your timing is, or do you have a team that you also farm out a partnership so you can handle 10 to 15 clients, or just give me a—
Great, great question. Um, I always like to say don't confuse selling with delivery because I can drive tremendous value, um, with the clients as well as I have a broad integrated network through, um, you know, folks that I've worked with throughout my career that want to come work for me and with me. Um, typically I'm working with a half to, you know, call it 3 to 6. clients at any point in time. Because I want to, you know, at the end of the day, a lot of this is, you know, who I am and what I do. They're buying Alan Rudolph.
Yeah.
They're buying who I am, the expertise I drive, and then I bring in a broader set of folks to help me drive that. And that's where Accelerant Growth Solutions really comes into play in terms of what the founder there, Mark Petrucci, and his team have built, broadly speaking, in terms of how do we, How do we drive, you know, but really looking across the organization again, I always think about the customer, but let's go upstream, right, to the whole go-to-market approach and how do we change the way companies think about generating against whether it's MQLs, SQLs, the whole marketing approach. How do I drive that, the appropriate initiatives leveraging AI, leveraging an agentic approach to really change the way we do business today. And as part of that journey, it's all about thinking through the transformation that the company needs to go through in this day and age as we go from, I hate to say it, '26 into '27 already, and then working on a value creation plan that will make the organization different tomorrow from the way they operate today.
And what's the best way to get a hold of you if they want to ask you a question, hire you? As a consultant.
I appreciate that, you know, Michael. It's, you know, hey, it's LinkedIn, you know, Alan David Rudolph. I have a personal website, Alan David Rudolph, or you can always, you know, DM me, hit me up on chat, etc. I pride myself in this day and age, and I probably sit on half a dozen different email networks, you know, Slack channels, Yes. Messaging on my phone, etc. I will never go to sleep any day without letting everybody know that I got their message and I will respond at an appropriate time. It might simply be that, right? I got your message. I'll respond tomorrow, next day, etc. But I think it's really important from a communication standpoint, as we are all so busy today, that we as executives stand up And acknowledge we're busy, but let folks know, hey, got it, I'll respond accordingly.
Well, thanks for being on the show today. As everybody knows here, you can always reach out to me for go-to-market strategies. Yep, it's, it's Michael at Full Throttle Falato Leads, and would love to help you and help your customers and clients and prospects and friends. And obviously, if you need some help with fractional help, Reach out to Alan. Um, we both have 25 years of, uh, experience, so plus. All right, thanks, Alan.
