How Semrush’s ex-VP of Brand Builds a Founder Brand From Scratch w/ Olga Andrienko (CMO at Foxtery)

Olga Andrienko spent 12 years helping build Semrush from $5M in revenue to IPO. She led social, brand, global marketing, and eventually operations at scale. Now she’s joining a pre-seed startup as CMO to build everything from scratch:- A new product category (AI-driven corporate learning)- A founder brand- An employee advocacy system- A modern AI-powered marketing engineWe discuss:* Why Olga left Semrush after 12 years* Why enterprise marketers feel stuck right now and how AI restrictions slow innovation* What marketers should actually do in a scary job market to stay employable* The #1 skill marketers need in 2025: experimenting with AI + no-code on their own* The departments where AI creates the biggest leverage (hint: not marketing)* How Semrush cut reporting time from 10 hours down to hours using automation* The automated workflows Semrush shipped: SOV tracking, reporting, content QA* The dream content engine Olga couldn’t build and why AI quality still isn’t there* How AI will reshape marketing orgs and which roles will (and won’t) survive* Why social media managers now have more strategic leverage than ever* Why brand pages on LinkedIn are basically dead and how to fix it* How Semrush scaled employee advocacy to 10M+ impressions a year* Employee advocacy vs executive thought leadership: the real difference* The exact system Olga is using to build her founder’s brand at Foxtory* How she scrapes top founders, analyzes formats, and recreates winning post types* The outbound → founder-brand → content loop that drives traction* Why a founder brand is a multi-year compounding asset and not a 3-month projectPerfect For You If* You’re a founder building your personal brand from zero* You lead marketing inside a startup and need leverage fast* You work in enterprise and feel slowed down by approvals, rules & legacy systems* You want to build an employee advocacy program that actually scales* You want to understand how top marketers think about org design & team structure* You want a behind-the-scenes look at how a former Semrush exec builds in publicConnect with Olga:Olga’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olgandrienko/Foxtery: https://www.foxtery.com/Connect with me:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finnthormeier/Website: https://www.project33.io/Chapters00:00 — Why Olga left Semrush after 12 years02:00 — The gap in her career: building from zero03:30 — Solo vs team: why she chose a startup06:00 — How AI restrictions slow down enterprise marketers08:30 — What marketers should do when the job market feels unsafe10:50 — The biggest AI opportunities inside large organizations13:00 — Semrush’s 10h → 2h reporting automation14:30 — How they automated share-of-voice tracking16:45 — The content engine Olga couldn’t get approved20:15 — How AI changes team structure & role definitions22:00 — Why social media managers now have disproportionate leverage24:00 — Why most brand pages are a graveyard27:00 — How Sem rush scaled employee advocacy to 10M+ impressions30:30 — Advocacy vs executive thought leadership33:00 — Why Olga never touched executive accounts at Semrush36:00 — How she’s activating her new founder’s brand at Foxtery38:30 — Scraping top creators and rebuilding winning formats44:00 — Why she refuses AI-generated infographics47:30 — How she’s measuring success before product launch49:40 — Founder brand as a long-term compounding asset51:00 — What’s next for Foxtery#linkedin #founderledmarketing #linkedinads #linkedinagency #founderbranding #saas #b2bmarketing #demandgeneration #demandgen #content #b2b #revenue #contentmarketing #performancemarketing #videomarketing #personalbranding This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.executivebrand.org