Luminara Growth Partners
Fractional CMO leadership for MedTech and Life Sciences
Your technology is ready. Your commercial engine is not. I build the strategy, systems, and team structure to close that gap, in the executive seat, without the full-time hire.
Built for companies at a commercial
inflection point
You are Series B or beyond. You have a product, early traction, and a market to win. What you do not have is a marketing leader on the executive team.
I work with MedTech, medical device, digital health, diagnostics, health tech SaaS, and animal health companies. Founders, CEOs, and executive teams. Usually technical or clinical by background, and honest about
needing help with commercialization.
If you are seed or pre-Series A and still pre-market, I may not be the right fit.
Start a Conversation
No cost. No pitch. Tell me where you are and where you need help.
The gap between a working product and a working market
Your technology works. Your market does not understand why yours is different.
Marketing runs as a service desk. Sales asks, marketing produces. No one owns growth.
You need a marketing leader on the executive team. A full-time CMO costs more than your stage supports.
Your team runs tactics with nothing underneath them. Results do not repeat.
None of these are marketing problems. They are commercial architecture problems. I have fixed all four from the inside.
Three ways to work together
Growth Assessment
Start here when you know something is off and want a clear read on what. I review your market position, marketing function, commercial readiness, and pipeline. You get a written plan with priorities, gaps, and a recommended path forward. Defined scope, defined end. Some clients stop here and run the plan themselves. That is a fine outcome.
Strategic Consulting
Start here when you know the problem and need someone to solve it. Focused project work with a defined start and finish. Launch planning. Positioning and messaging. KOL and market education strategy. Sales enablement build. Positioning for FDA clearance or an investor round.
Fractional CMO
Start here when you need someone in the seat. Ongoing executive marketing leadership. I own the plan, build the infrastructure, lead or hire the team, direct execution, and report to your executive team and board. Retainer structure, scoped to your situation.
When execution support is needed, I bring in vetted specialists and manage them directly. You work with me, not a rotating account team.
Fortune 20 to stealth mode. Same discipline, different scale.
Marketing leadership at seven MedTech and life sciences companies, including CMO and VP Marketing seats. Global marketing leadership across business units from $100M to $250M, and the Americas region of a $400M+ radiation oncology business.
Two decades at GE Healthcare, focused on bringing innovative products and services to market, creating new markets, and increasing global share across the United States, Europe, and Asia Pacific.
I have also built commercial strategy from nothing. At Vave Health I completed the market analysis, segmentation, customer advisory board, and go-to-market plan while the company was still in stealth mode, before there was a product to sell.
What the work produces
Growth function and audit-ready governance
At Cadwell, a privately held neurodiagnostics manufacturer, I shifted marketing from a support function into a growth function accountable for revenue contribution. A partnership-based, KOL-led education strategy and stronger conference presence produced 2,000 qualified top-of-funnel leads, and I launched the CadCare services brand. I also built governance underneath the function before anyone required it: partnering with legal and regulatory on promotional materials review, bringing the website into GDPR compliance, standardizing the donations process, and building documentation ready for audit.
60% revenue growth, 130% EBITDA growth
At Hallmarq Veterinary Imaging, a fifty-person private equity held global veterinary MRI and CT business, I served as Chief Marketing Officer on the executive team. I built a high-performing team, ran a full digital transformation of the function, and launched two products and a new services brand. Website visitors rose 88%. The Q-Care services brand earned a Best in Business Award.
FDA clearance and funding secured
At Vave Health, a point-of-care ultrasound startup, I supported 510(k) submission preparation for a device that received FDA clearance, built a 200-user KOL program, and created investor and board presentations behind a funding round.
400 qualified leads across 40 global conferences
At Voximetry, a radiopharmaceutical dosimetry software (SaaS) startup, I ran the marketing programs, managed the budget, and established the company in theranostics.
Three steps, no surprises
Conversation
No cost. Tell me where you are and what is stuck. If I’m the right fit, we’ll map out what an engagement would include. If not, I’ll point you somewhere better.
Scope
A written plan with priorities, deliverables, and structure. Project or retainer, sized to your situation. You approve before anything starts.
Build and oversee
I build the systems, direct the execution, and stay accountable to the result. No strategy deck handoff. No disappearing act. I stay in the work until the work holds up on its own.
Why CEOs and founders bring me in.
I am an industrial engineer who became a marketer. That combination matters: analytical enough to model the market, creative enough to move it, and customer-focused enough to spend my time in the field. I partner closely with Sales and let customer insight drive the strategy.
I start by listening to your customer advisory board, customer feedback program, and R&D and clinical teams. Then I turn the science into clear, credible language that moves your market.
I understand why MedTech marketing is different. It is B2B, heavily regulated, and built on complex science that has to be communicated with precision. I have prepared for 510(k)s and managed legal and regulatory reviews, repeatedly.
I am not an agency. I spent three decades inside MedTech companies, sitting on executive teams and carrying a revenue number at every one of them. I know what breaks at scale because I have been the one who had to fix it.
- BS Industrial Engineering, Marquette University
- MBA, Marquette University
- CMO Executive Leadership Program, Kellogg at Northwestern University
- Six Sigma Green Belt
Lynn Russell, Founder, Luminara Growth Partners
Connect on LinkedInFrom the people who worked with me
Lynn did a great job for Hallmarq sorting out our product branding, rationalising, linking R&D to marketing and building our presence in the marketplace. Great person to work with.
Lynn is exceptionally strategic in her approach to marketing initiatives, always considering the long-term commercial objectives. She has excellent commercial acumen, drives collaboration between all business units, and is very good at team-building.
Lynn is an extremely knowledgeable healthcare executive. She was an amazing coach who continually asked her direct reports to not only perform at a high level, but also to continually aim to learn more.
Questions founders ask before the first call
Greenville, South Carolina. Working globally.
I work remotely by default and have for most of my career, including leading global teams across the United States, Europe, and Asia Pacific, with work in China, India, Indonesia, and Japan. I am based in Greenville, so Upstate clients get in-person time when it helps, and I travel to clients anywhere when the work calls for it.
Member of the Greenville Chamber of Commerce, SCBio, and Fractionals United. Mentor to founders through NextGEN, the Upstate entrepreneur network, and leader of the Greenville chapter of the Marquette University Alumni Association.
Start a Conversation.
No cost, no pitch. Tell me where you are and what is stuck. If I’m the right fit, we’ll map out what an engagement would include. If not, I’ll point you somewhere better.
Or reach out directly: lynn@luminaragrowth.com(262) 751-8762