In the latest episode of our Marketing Professionals series, Jackie Rutter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Microsystems, joins Mike to explore what it really takes to build and market a category-defining innovation.
From starting her career as an engineer to leading marketing at a fast-scaling deep tech company, Jackie shares why technical credibility, clarity, and customer-focused storytelling are essential, especially when your audience is made up of engineers and your product challenges decades of established thinking.
You’ll hear how Menlo Micro is redefining switch technology with its “Ideal Switch” platform, and why success in this space isn’t about hype but education, proof, and trust.
The conversation also dives into the differences between large corporations and startup environments, highlighting the importance of focus and fast decision-making in driving rapid growth. Jackie shares insights on marketing to engineers, balancing brand building with commercial results, and how the role of sales is evolving in modern B2B.
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About Menlo Microsystems
Menlo Micro sets a new standard for switches with the Ideal Switch, a chip-scale platform that overcomes performance, efficiency, and scalability bottlenecks of electromechanical relays (EMRs) and semiconductor-based switches.
It’s the first disruptive switching technology in over 30 years and the only platform scalable across both power and frequency domains. The Ideal Switch enables smaller, lighter, faster, more reliable, and energy-efficient systems. From AI and quantum compute to aerospace, defense and power electronics, the Ideal Switch eliminates bottlenecks and reduces the total cost of ownership across today’s most demanding applications.
Menlo Micro unlocks new possibilities. For more information, visit www.menlomicro.com or follow the company on LinkedIn.
About Jackie Rutter
Jackie Rutter is a seasoned marketing and business leader with over 25 years of experience driving growth across global technology markets. As Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Micro, she leads the company’s worldwide marketing and communications strategy, delivering measurable impact including doubling revenue in the past year and expanding Menlo Micro’s presence in critical applications including GPU/CPU & HPC T&M, Quantum Compute, AI Data Centers and Industrial Automation.
Previously at Analog Devices, Jackie was instrumental in scaling the business from $3.5 billion to over $12 billion in revenue, leading high-profile acquisitions, global marketing programs, and demand-generation initiatives that strengthened ADI’s position in energy, mobility, and industrial markets.
Jackie has a proven track record of building high-performing teams, developing scalable marketing strategies, and driving market share growth. She is an active advocate for women in engineering and technology, contributing to IEEE and the GSA Women Leadership Initiative, and regularly shares her leadership insights at industry events.
Time Stamps
00:00:00 – Introduction to Jackie Rutter and Her Career Journey
00:04:00 – Understanding Menlo Microsystems and Its Technology
00:06:50 – Marketing Challenges in Redefining a New Category
00:09:10 – Building Credibility in Marketing to Engineers
00:10:40 – Learning from Early Marketing Missteps
00:12:10 – Balancing Brand Building with Lead Generation
00:15:40 – Creating Effective Thought Leadership Content
00:18:30 – The Role of Sales in Modern B2B Marketing
00:24:30 – Closing Remarks and Contact Information
Quotes
“Even the most powerful innovations, the most powerful technologies fail if people don’t understand why it matters. What’s the impact to the end application? What’s the impact to the end user?” Jackie Rutter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Micro.
“You need clarity, you need focus, you need passion, you need very, very fast decision-making. So that environment is what’s enabled us to double revenue in under a year, which is something that’s pretty impressive.” Jackie Rutter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Micro.
“What MEMS switches is a totally disruptive platform. So it eliminates trade-offs in engineering, mainly on size, on weight, on power consumption and the amount of power density that it drives.” Jackie Rutter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Micro.
“Category creation means education first, right? You can’t start selling something that people don’t even know they’ve got a problem with. So it’s about education.” Jackie Rutter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Micro.
“Engineers want clarity, they want data, they want transparency, honesty.” Jackie Rutter, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Menlo Micro.
Follow Jackie:
Jackie Rutter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackie-rutter/
Menlo Micro website: www.menlomicro.com
Menlo Micro on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/menlo-micro
Follow Mike:
Mike Maynard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemaynard/
Napier website: https://www.napierb2b.com/
Napier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/napier-partnership-limited/
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Want more? Check out Napier’s other podcast – The Marketing Automation Moment: https://podcasts.apple.com/ua/podcast/the-marketing-automation-moment-podcast/id1659211547
Transcript: Interview with Jackie Rutter at Menlo Microsystems
Speakers: Mike Maynard, Jackie Rutter
Mike: Thanks for listening to Marketing B2B Tech, the podcast from Napier, where you can find out what really works in B2B marketing today. Welcome to Marketing B2B Technology, the podcast from Napier. Today, I’m joined by Jackie Rutter, who’s the CMO of Menlo Microsystems. Welcome to the podcast, Jackie.
Jackie: Hi, thank you, Mike, and thank you for having me.
Mike: It’s great to have you on. We like to have guests just give us a brief intro about themselves. Can you tell us a little bit about your career? What pulled you into marketing? And then why you’ve chosen Menlo as your current company?
Jackie: Yes, so I actually began my career as an engineer, as you know, Mike. So I’ve always been close to technology. And what pulled me into marketing was realizing that even the most powerful innovations, the most powerful technologies fail if people don’t understand why it matters. What’s the impact to the end application? What’s the impact to the end user? And how it changes people’s decisions and decision-making. And that’s why Menlo was so compelling for me. I wanted to join a company where I could drive truly impactful outcomes across the company. So one that nurtured and encouraged my entrepreneurial spirit and my creative skills and where I can contribute beyond marketing. So Menlo’s technology, so the ideal switch platform is a switch, and it’s one of the most fundamental hardware components in many different products. And it’s not just incremental, the benefits it does, it’s actually challenging decades, in fact, centuries of traditional switch technology. So the opportunity to define a new category, but also support not just corporate marketing, but the significant revenue. growth, business strategy, product development across the company was sort of the kind of challenge I was looking for. So I couldn’t really resist Menlo. Yeah.
Mike: And before we go any further, we should probably confess something because we’ve known each other for a very long time, haven’t we?
Jackie: We have, Mike. You hired me my first ever proper job after university at IDC on a young age of 22, I think. Yes.
Mike: Three or four years ago.
Jackie: Absolutely only. Yes.
Mike: Yeah. So anyway, I mean, you’ve had a really great career since, um, you know, work with me at IDT. You worked for analog devices, one of the largest semiconductor companies in the world. And now you’ve moved to Menlo, which is really a startup scale up, uh, kind of business. So what’s it like moving from a very large corporate to a much smaller, much more fast growing company?
Jackie: Oh, so large companies like Analog Devices, it taught me discipline. It taught me to align at scale. And at ADI, for example, I worked on the Linear Tech acquisition, on the Maxim acquisition afterwards, where success really depends on building trust across thousands of people and maintaining that customer confidence globally. Now at a scale up, Like Menlo, pace is different. You need clarity, you need focus, you need passion, you need very, very fast decision-making. So that environment is what’s enabled us to double revenue in under a year, which is something that’s, you know, pretty impressive and where you need to really align across engineering, sales, marketing, leadership, you name it. And I particularly like that fast pace. I find it really energizing.
Mike: That’s great. I mean, we should talk a little bit about what Menlo does. And I think, you know, one thing to say is we’re both engineers or we’re engineers. So we need to kind of keep this, you know, pretty straightforward because a lot of people listening to this are marketers who are not technical. So you mentioned something called MEMS. Talk a little bit about what Menlo does and what the technology is they use.
Jackie: So Menlo is setting a new standard in switch technology, in switches, which is with their ideal switch platform. And it’s a chip scale switch platform that delivers real step function improvements in performance, reliability, efficiency, and lowering that total cost of ownership. So unlike legacy switches, which sort of force trade-offs between performance and size and weight and reliability etc. What MEMS switches is a totally disruptive platform so it eliminates trade-offs in engineering mainly on size, on weight, on power consumption and the amount of power density that it drives. So if you think of our customer base, which are OEMs, OEMs of high-performance electronic systems, they’re either constrained by very chunky and slow electromechanical relay, so basically an on-off switch, mechanical switch, and also bulky heat sinks of semiconductor switches or solid-state switches, which they need a bulky heat sink next to them because they dissipate so much heat. So now OEMs, our customers, are breaking free, to say, from design limitations so they’re able to build smaller and faster and lighter and more reliable, more efficient products. And this is why Menlo is exciting to work for because it’s really positioning the company as a category defining leader in modern switch technologies. And what I would say too is what makes it more interesting is what it enables. So at CES, for example, we validated the first MEMS and MEMS is basically micro, it’s a tiny electromechanical switch. And what we did was we validated a half a megawatt hot switch panel, which for the engineers listening is very, very sexy. And we did that with microchip state-of-the-art powered test facility for an end customer, which is the US Navy. And this is a massive milestone where in the men’s field, you know, nobody thought it could be achievable. And that single demonstration, which we did at the end of last year and we sort of announced at CES, that really changed conversations across AI data centers and how you’re protecting assets like your GPUs and your CPUs in the racks in data centers from protecting your robots in industrial factories and even the energy infrastructure market. And that conversation changed overnight. That’s what we do. That’s why it’s exciting to be at Menlo.
Mike: And that sounds really cool and really impressive. But from a marketing point of view, I think there’s a big challenge there. You mentioned that you’re defining a new category. You’re basically telling engineers everything you’ve learned, everything you’ve done in the past, you need to change and do something different. So how do you go about marketing a product that’s trying to really redefine how people design their systems to do something completely new?
Jackie: Yeah, so it’s all about category creation. So it’s about education. So MEMS had a credibility problem, like I mentioned before, and actually more than 30 plus companies failed to commercialize it. So we had to solve the perception challenge before we could sell anything first. So, we positioned the ideal switch as more as a scalable, commercially proven switch technology, backed by real deployment, backed by real customer adoption. So, that’s why Marketing with partners, such as Microchip, with customers like Nvidia, Rosenberger, MiniCircus, GE, U.S. Navy, da, da, da, da, right? That reinforces and reframes all that reframing moved customers and investors, because they’re not privately owned company, investors are very important too, from the skepticism to conviction to actually customer adoption.
Mike: I mean, that’s interesting, you know, I mean, obviously, this partnering and then building the proof points is a classic way to to bring in a new category. But you’re bringing a new category to a market that really is very technical engineers. So what do you think is sometimes, you know, underestimated or misunderstood about marketing to engineers?
Jackie: engineers, we don’t resist marketing. In fact, some of us actually go into marketing, but what we do resist is ambiguity. So an engineering audience, they want clarity, they want data, they want transparency, honesty. So that’s why the partnerships that I mentioned earlier with NVIDIA and Microchip and others is so powerful because Each of those partnerships are rooted into very real technical validation, and it’s not positioning language. And I think that’s where we get that credibility when we’re talking to an engineering audience.
Mike: And I mean, also from the same side, you know, Menlo is a very engineering driven company as well. And so, you know, you’ve also got to fight for credibility for marketing. You mentioned engineers don’t necessarily hate marketing, despite the reputation. But how do you build credibility for marketing in a company like Menlo?
Jackie: Marketing at Menlo is really an extension of engineering and that could well be because of my background too and how we drive the marketing team. But at Menlo, the marketing team works really directly with the design teams, with the apps engineering teams, with standard bodies like NIST and customers to ensure that every claim that we’re putting out there is defendable. And that’s how we can secure credibility and If engineering apps, if the design team of the CTO office doesn’t believe it, then it doesn’t go out, right?
Mike: So I mean, that sounds like, you know, kind of a smooth process. You establish the facts, you then communicate them. Everybody loves the product. But I’ve got to ask the tougher question. And I know this happens a lot in companies, particularly when they’re growing very quickly, is things go wrong. So I’m interested to know, you know, what hasn’t worked as expected or maybe what surprised you from the change from large companies to small company? And what did you learn from it? How did you develop?
Jackie: I think early on in Menlo, we tried to build awareness probably too broadly, you know, we were going for everything. And I think we learned very quickly and with your guidance, Mike, that we had to focus and focus matters probably more than reach. So once we concentrated on specific high value problems, such as how do you protect your most, most expensive, most critical assets in a data center, which is your GPU, your CPU, and these racks. How do you reduce the testing side in quantum computing on the cryogenic side of temperatures? How do you make the energy grid more reliable? How do you protect your most valuable asset in a factory like your robots, etc? Once you concentrate in those very focused problems, challenges, then your engagement, then your adoption starts to accelerate significantly. So I think that was the biggest learning, at least once I’ve been at Menlo, is we tried to build awareness too broadly. I think where we started to see the outcomes and actually increase that escalation of outcomes was focusing.
Mike: And that’s really interesting. I mean, you’ve you’ve talked about, you know, strategies which are really quite a lot around building the brand and building credibility. So, you know, quite long term strategies. I mean, companies that are growing fast have a reputation of focusing on the bottom of the funnel and just, you know, lead generation. So how do you balance that need for building the brand and the long term marketing versus short term, you know, lead generation?
Jackie: Right, so you’re right. The marketing strategy for Menlo, as Menlo is entering the scale-up phase, it’s all about strengthening Menlo’s market position by establishing the ideal switch as an industry standard. So that was about generating awareness of our growth, about scaling test and measurement or validating GPUs, CPUs, high-performance devices. about scaling aerospace and defense on the RF communication side, whilst also entering high-TAM power electronics market. So it’s about positioning the ideal switch as a new standard, outperforming traditional switching technologies, and then building that credibility like you mentioned. So three pillars really, category education, technical proof, customer and partner validation. And it’s all about really answering one question of how does this technology fundamentally move the needle for our customers, for our customers’ customers. And so tactics that we use, not so much from lead generation because we have a very focused customer target list, but it’s what marketing tactics work best for that.
Mike: That’s interesting. I mean, that sounds really mature and much more like a bigger company. Do you think your experience at much larger companies has actually helped Menlo really behave and act like a company that may be slightly bigger than it is at the moment?
Jackie: I think having a wide marketing experience of marketing products and solutions in different company sizes absolutely is valuable. I think I’ve got a tool kit, a marketing tool kit that I’ve obviously gained throughout the experiences. So I do bring that those marketing tactics that best work for Menlo. have it in mind that they are in a scale-up mode and we need to be accelerating customer adoption. So technical content, yes, is great. Application-driven storytelling is even better. And without a doubt, customer testimonials, customer joint product announcements, customer strategy partnerships that provide that credibility, absolutely for the stage where Menlo is, is that advantage. And for example, having gone public with NVIDIA about our collaboration. That really established credibility in markets like test and measurement, which traditionally are conservative markets, but with the adoption of AI, with the need of protecting your most valuable assets in AI data centers, we’ve seen this astronomical increase in valuation from companies like Advantis. I think they’re like $115 billion valuation company, Teradyne, Formfactor. So yes, obviously experience of marketing solutions, positioning, those types of solutions at different size companies obviously is of advantage.
Mike: And one of the things you talked about there that I found really interesting was content because, you know, a lot of marketers, particularly in B2B, they, you know, just trip off all thought leadership. It’s the important thing. And it’s sometimes actually not really leading thought at all. Whereas what you’re doing is you’re actually having to generate something that really is ahead of your customers. You’re telling your customers where they should go. I mean, how do you create that sort of thought leadership content and make it effective?
Jackie: Yeah, so thought leadership for Menlo at that stage of being in the growth mode is absolutely critical. I know everybody’s saying thought leadership is critical, but it has to be earned. So a great example was when we secured a third party validation through Tony Fadell and he’s like the iPod inventor, right? He’s the guru. He’s the business person. Everybody, you know, listens from Apple, from Google, et cetera. And he featured Menlo on Newcomer podcast and that credibility reaching out to lots of investors, technologists, industry leaders. That’s something that I’ve got to say no traditional marketing campaign could achieve in that short period of time. So I know thought leadership absolutely critical, but it has to be earned.
Mike: That’s interesting. You talk about Tony Fadell, and he obviously comes from a B2C background rather than B2B. I mean, a lot of people are talking about this convergence of B2B and B2C, yet we’ve also had this discussion about how engineers are very special and how they need very different marketing. So what’s your view? Do you think B2B and B2C are fundamentally the same thing, or do you think they’re different?
Jackie: Oh, I think there is some convergence. I think particularly on clarity and the customer experience, I think the substance is still technical. But audiences now expect that intuitive digital journeys, that clear narrative that I was mentioning earlier, the human storytelling, but that could be through an application. So even in deep tech B2B environments, I think you’re still seeing a lot of that B2C marketing. So yes, I think there is convergence.
Mike: And that’s interesting. I mean, you talk about the journey and that leads really into another question. I was thinking about, you know, there’s been a lot of research showing that in B2B people are spending much less time talking to a salesperson. Traditionally, when you bought stuff with B2B, you spent a lot of time talking to salespeople and now they’re doing the research themselves. So they’re relying on marketing content. Is that something you’re seeing at Menlo and how are you changing your marketing to adapt to it?
Jackie: Yeah, so I think customers, you’re absolutely right, they’re arriving far more informed. I think marketing now shapes decision earlier. And it’s about helping the customer apply the technology to their specific systems, to their specific constraints. whether that’s size, weight, power consumption, driving power density. However, in some of the markets that Mendo operates, and that’s the ones with the very long design cycles, aerospace and defense, healthcare, I think that’s where sales, sales account management is critical for the success. So, yes, Some customers are spending less time in sales, but it depends on the market and the design cycle. I think sales is still going to be around for a bit.
Mike: And I don’t think we’re going to see sales people disappear. That’s not the case. You know, I’m interested because you’re asking people to somewhat take a big leap of faith and jump to a new way of doing things. Do you think actually having that human involvement from sales maybe is more important to make people more confident to make the change?
Jackie: Yes, absolutely. At least in Menlo, you’re not talking about transactional relationships. You’re talking about relationships at every single level of an organization and whether we like it or not. And I’m a firm believer of AI and one that uses it a lot. But when you’re talking about multi-million dollar contracts, you would expect that human element at every single level of the organization.
Mike: That’s great. I mean, you mentioned something. We’ve gone quite a long way into the podcast without mentioning AI. I guess we will have to talk about it. You said you’re a big fan of AI and a big user. So I’m sure people will be interested to know where you and your team are actually seeing practical value from AI.
Jackie: Yeah, I mean AI is reshaping marketing and it’s reshaping marketing very fast. I think you need to embrace it or you’ll lose. I think where I am and where Menlo and the marketing team at Menlo is using it is excellent for accelerating research, drafting, synthesis. I think where it falls short and where you need, you know, human brains, I think is on the judgment side. I think in complex technical markets, I think experience, context, credibility, it still matters far more than the automation side. So yes, obviously, we use AI, but we use it basically on the research, drafting, synthesis side of things.
Mike: It’s been quite a positive podcast, because apparently we’re still going to have salespeople and marketing jobs in the future. So that’s good news.
Jackie: Yes, but it’ll be different. It’ll be different. Yeah, it’ll be different, but it’ll be more productive. Yeah.
Mike: This has been really interesting. You know, I could go on asking you questions forever, but there are kind of three questions that we like to ask people that are a bit more fun. So, you know, if you don’t mind, I’d like to start off by saying, what’s the most innovative campaign you’ve seen recently?
Jackie: Oh, okay. For me, the most innovative campaigns are the flashy ones. They’re the useful ones, right? So anything that genuinely helps customers, engineers design better systems that stand out far more than sort of a clever, sexy slogan, then that’s what I find more innovative. So, and I’ll give you an example, and it’s only happened this week. We’ve got NVIDIA GTC going on and ABB, and NVIDIA have partnered in this, I thought, pretty smart campaign to bring in AI-powered robotics to factories. So what they’ve done is they’ve used this huge graphic power that NVIDIA has with their GPUs, and they’ve used it to visually train and shape robotic factory automation with ADB’s, obviously, know-how in robotics. So I thought that was That was interesting for me and flashy because it was useful, right? I learned something. So there you go. And that was only this week.
Mike: And that’s great. And obviously, I love it because it’s one of our clients. So thank you.
Jackie: I didn’t know that. But yes, even better.
Mike: OK, the next question we like to ask is, what’s the best marketing advice that’s ever been given to you?
Jackie: Okay, it’s gonna sound like I’m sucking up to my boss, but I’m not. But through the Menlo interview process, our CEO, Russ Garcia, he said to me, he said, clarity builds trust. And I think that’s so important, particularly in Menlo and particularly when you need to build that credibility. So that clarity builds trust. It’s something that I’ve been guided through now with everything that I’m doing in marketing for the last 16 months or so that I’ve been at Menlo.
Mike: That’s awesome. OK, and then the last of these three questions is if you’re talking to a young person who is just starting in a marketing career and obviously looking at things like AI and seeing things change so rapidly, what advice would you give them?
Jackie: Gosh, first of all, don’t be scared. Change, you need to embrace it, because the only thing that’s not going to change is change, right? But I would say… What’s helped me? So it’s learn the technology. So I obviously an engineer, I’ve got passion for technology. I’d say learn the technology, learn the business, stay curious, stay super curious, ask questions. And I think the best marketeers that I’ve encountered through my own career understands how things work, and how people make decisions. Think of the different marketing personas or your customers’ personas. A CEO, a CTO is definitely going to think differently than your test engineer, for example. So I would say to a younger marketeer, don’t just learn how to promote, learn the technology, learn the business, stay curious. It’s also a lot more fun.
Mike: That’s fantastic advice to end on. Jackie, this has been amazing. It’s been really interesting. If people have questions and want to reach out to you afterwards, what’s the best way for them to do that?
Jackie: You can reach out to me on LinkedIn. I’m very active on LinkedIn, or you can just reach out to me through Mendo Micro’s website if you’re keen on the technology, on partnerships, or even if you’ve just got mentoring needs. Yeah, LinkedIn or the Mendo Micro website.
Mike: That’s amazing. Jackie, thanks so much for being a guest on Marketing B2B Technology.
Jackie: Thank you so much. It’s been fun.
Mike: Thanks so much for listening to Marketing B2B Tech. We hope you enjoyed the episode. And if you did, please make sure you subscribe on iTunes or on your favorite podcast application. If you’d like to know more, please visit our website at napierb2b.com or contact me directly on LinkedIn.
