At heart, Tom Mahoney is a storyteller.
In college, he studied literature as classic American novels captivated his mind and introduced him to the power of narrative. In business, he learned what it takes to bring together teams to build clarity around messaging that transforms market interactions.
Today, he’s vice president of marketing for Optiv + ClearShark where storytelling drives business outcomes. It’s a role similar to his early dreams of becoming an English teacher. But instead of leading students through literary analyses, he’s helping technology companies communicate who they are, what problems they solve and why stakeholders with missions of national impact should care.
“Marketing is one of the most dynamic functions in a business — you’re not just supporting strategy, you’re helping drive it,” he said. “And to think it all started from a summer job and a lot of curiosity still surprises me.”
A Customer Service Gig With a Career Twist
After Mahoney earned his degree, the first career doors to open led to a field that was decidedly not English literature. His first role after graduation was in customer service and account management. But he worked closely with a marketing team, asked questions incessantly and began to understand how messaging drove business.
“That curiosity led to an opportunity to move into marketing, and what started as a temporary role turned into a career that I never anticipated but have found incredibly rewarding,” Mahoney said.
His career began in financial services but quickly pivoted to government and the broader public sector —areas that, by nature, require the ability to solve problems and think strategically. He enjoyed the work, and the experience stuck. Mahoney never went back to complete his teaching degree.
“That said, the influence of studying literature — how to understand people, craft narratives and communicate ideas — has stayed with me and continues to shape how I approach my work today,” Mahoney said.
‘Clarity Drives Everything’
Mahoney has directed government marketing and analysis at Sallie Mae, managed business development operations at Navient, and rose through the marketing ranks at DLT Solutions to become vice president of marketing. He joined Optiv + ClearShark in May 2023.
Throughout Mahoney’s time in marketing, he’s consistently gravitated toward building something new inside established organizations. He’s often taken on “startup” roles where he helped define initial strategies, stand up processes and operations, and recruited and developed teams to carry forward brand and demand generation efforts.
“Those opportunities to create, build and scale are what have made my career especially rewarding,” he said.
But the most pivotal moment in his career was an opportunity to build a marketing operations function for an IT distributor. It set him on a path of growing and expanding into leadership roles at the intersection of GovCon and technology.
Over time, his leadership approach has increasingly centered on the insight that “clarity drives everything.” Once, he led a companywide initiative to define and internalize the company’s value proposition. It was an exercise in building clarity across the organization.
“The goal wasn’t just to refine messaging,” he said. “It was to ensure that every employee — regardless of role — could clearly articulate who we are, what we do and why it matters.”
Each employee participated in the workshop. Mahoney said the impact was significant. It replaced fragmentation with alignment, strengthened culture, and gave the organization a shared sense of purpose.
Most importantly, employees across verticals engaged the market with more clarity and precision, he said. The result? Faster growth.
Riding the Highs and Lows
Mahoney’s career has had its low points, too. Twice, he has been caught in downsizing that left him job hunting. But those moments weren’t just setbacks, he said. They were opportunities to reflect and reorient with more intention.
“What I learned is that moments like these, while disruptive, can also be incredibly constructive,” he said.
Those interested in moving into marketing leadership would benefit from fully exploring the marketing function and spending time across each area, he added. Marketing isn’t just one discipline, he said, but a collection of interconnected capabilities — from content and brand to operations, analytics and product marketing.
He also advises getting as close to sales as possible. Following the money, learning how demand is generated, and understanding what drives decisions is valuable for marketing strategy.
“When you understand that, you become incredibly valuable to the business,” he said.
Navigating the Impact of AI
While teams continue to need capabilities like brand management, content creation, PR, social media and marketing operations, these operations are increasingly supported or executed by AI agents. It’s a truth that impacts everyone in Mahoney’s field.
“At the same time, the strategic value of marketing has never been higher,” he added. “As AI plays a growing role in how buyers research and make decisions, the content and signals that marketing produces become the inputs that shape those outcomes. In many ways, AI is becoming the new SEO.”
The result is a premium on fundamentals. Teams must work more intentionally than ever to maintain clear positioning, communicate strong value propositions and share credible customer stories, he said. Today, Mahoney helps teams adapt by elevating the clarity and quality of messaging, evolving content strategies and treating AI as a force multiplier rather than a competitor.
“AI isn’t a trend,” he said. “It’s an ecosystem-level shift in how business gets done across every sector. The game has already changed. The question now is how quickly and effectively you can adapt.”
For Mahoney, harnessing AI as a source of differentiation and leverage while ensuring what they create still feels human, solves real customer problems and preserves connection is key.
‘Advise, Deploy and Operate’
This year, Optiv + ClearShark is evolving its “advise, deploy and operate” model into long-term managed services that help customers address complex cybersecurity challenges over time, he said.
What makes the company unique is its commitment to staying with the customer for the full lifecycle. There are engineering teams, solutions marketers and customer advocates to back that approach. The structure allows strong partnerships to form, he said, helping agencies implement, deploy and manage solutions long-term.
“From a marketing and business development standpoint, my role is to ensure that story is clear and compelling — highlighting how we deliver scalable expertise and a flexible model that allows our customers to stay focused on their mission,” he said.
It’s an approach that goes all the way back to when he studied Ernest Hemingway as a literature student. Hemingway’s stripped-down prose transformed the standard of writing.
“There’s no excess — every word carries weight,” Mahoney said. “That discipline is something I think great communicators in any field can learn from, whether you’re writing fiction or shaping a message in business.”
