Matt Gillespie, Marketing Expert in Chicago, IL, United States
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Matt Gillespie

Verified Expert  in Marketing

Marketing Expert

Chicago, IL, United States

Toptal member since September 9, 2024

Bio

Matt is a B2B technical marketing writer with 20+ years of freelance experience in the enterprise software, semiconductor, telecom, and industrial sectors. He specializes in creating top-tier business and marketing content that also gets the engineers in the room nodding their heads in agreement. From high-level message development to down-in-the-weeds white papers, Matt seeks out the big picture but revels in the details.

Project Highlights

Processor Launch Collateral
Championed new server processors across enterprise usages, including AI, cloud computing, telecom infrastructure, and network security, with 10-12 new public technical marketing documents for each launch on aggressive timelines.
Cybersecurity Journal
Wrote cover stories and feature articles for InfoSecurity Professional, the now-discontinued journal of the International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC2).
Lawful Intelligence Blog
Maintained a bi-weekly blog for a global software provider supporting communication service providers, law enforcement, and the intelligence community as they manage warrants and intercept communications while complying with privacy mandates.

Expertise

Work Experience

Enterprise Technology and B2B Technical Marketing Writer

2002 - PRESENT
Freelance
  • Engaged with world-class experts on topics from the cutting-edge to the widely understood, including silicon architecture, AI and machine learning, data centers, enterprise software, and cybersecurity.
  • Wrote technical B2B marketing materials to guide enterprise decision-makers toward preferred solutions and architectures based on combinations of hardware, proprietary and open-source software, and services.
  • Crafted narratives for top consulting firms around strategic technology vision, case studies, and success stories about implementation projects.
  • Produced high-profile cybersecurity journal articles based on interviews with practitioners about emerging threats, industry issues, tactics, and best practices.
  • Developed point-of-the-spear content such as blogs and event presentations to help establish and expand thought leadership, advance strategic points of view, and guide readers further into the sales funnel.
  • Prepared strategic sales-enablement collateral such as battle cards, client presentations, buying guides, and cheat sheets to inform and influence customers, overcome potential objections, and help close deals.

Technical Writer

2005 - 2006
Intel
  • Wrote product website content for Intel software development tools, including libraries, compilers, performance optimizers, APIs, and debuggers.
  • Created position papers, articles, and advertorials to help influence the software development community and encourage platform-specific performance optimizations.
  • Helped construct messages around open source contributions and standards for leadership to align with community influence.

Training Producer and Technical Writer

2001 - 2002
Intel
  • Identified technical topics, training scopes, instructional goals, and subject matter experts for training modules to support organizational strategic objectives.
  • Selected and managed development vendors to develop self-guided web-based training modules for solution architects and software developers.
  • Developed editorial and instructional standards to guide and standardize training development.

Business Systems Analyst, IT Project Manager, and Technical Writer

1996 - 2001
California Federal Bank
  • Managed and documented major infrastructure projects for data, video, and voice, including channel-attaching the new client-server network to the mainframe.
  • Performed financial, functional, and integration analyses for prospective moves, adds, and changes to the network.
  • Co-founded the team that deployed the first internet access to the company's user base and built its first intranet.

Research and Grant Writer

1994 - 1996
University of California Center for Neuroscience
  • Contributed to academic papers, books, and encyclopedia chapters on cognitive neuroscience.
  • Coordinated large research grants with multiple principal investigators to help fund the institute from public and private sources.
  • Wrote a public newsletter to publicize the center's research projects, faculty additions, and funding achievements.

Equity and Mutual Fund Analyst

1992 - 1994
Morningstar
  • Started the incubator-stage US equities division from initial conception and data gathering to hiring and directing its first team of editors and data analysts.
  • Co-edited the Morningstar Mutual Funds Sourcebook, an annual two-volume hardbound compendium of the mutual funds industry.
  • Interviewed mutual fund managers and used that information to profile them and their funds' investment strategies.

Processor Launch Collateral

Championed new server processors across enterprise usages, including AI, cloud computing, telecom infrastructure, and network security, with 10-12 new public technical marketing documents for each launch on aggressive timelines.

Collaborated with hardware and software engineers and marketers at a prominent CPU manufacturer to learn each new server processor generation's features, capabilities, performance gains, and usage models. Translated those advances into business and technology advantages and wrote technical marketing collateral to help secure the company's position in the marketplace.

This work involved tailoring messages across hardware makers, the software ecosystem, and end customers, helping make abstract silicon innovations relevant to their different business needs. The documents offered a foundation of technology insights tailored to the interests of C-suite and other business decision-makers regarding revenue growth, cost reduction, and risk mitigation. The typical brief was two to four pages long and revolved around implementation topics such as using the new platforms to improve generative AI, 5G network functions, network security, high-performance computing, edge computing, and media processing.

Cybersecurity Journal

Wrote cover stories and feature articles for InfoSecurity Professional, the now-discontinued journal of the International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC2).

Based on interviews with leading experts and industry voices on emerging security topics, I created a corpus of long-form articles that animated practical insights, techniques, and practices with lively conversation and pointed commentary. This content unpacked advice for practitioners about diverse issues, including AI-based cyber threats, cloud security, threat hunting, and dark data.

ISC2 grants the industry-leading Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification to security practitioners.

Lawful Intelligence Blog

Maintained a bi-weekly blog for a global software provider supporting communication service providers, law enforcement, and the intelligence community as they manage warrants and intercept communications while complying with privacy mandates.

Lawful Intelligence combines and analyzes lawfully intercepted communication metadata, open-source intelligence, and location data to advance investigations. Its mission to protect society from crime and terrorism aligns with rigorous privacy protection, regulatory compliance, and warrant management.

This blog examined emerging technical, operational, and regulatory requirements to cost-effectively satisfy investigative needs and regulatory mandates. Nearly every government worldwide requires these measures, which enable the modern equivalent of wiretapping.

AI Operations (AIOps) Sales Enablement

Reported on successful implementations of an AIOps software solution in enterprise environments to rescue overwhelmed IT operations analysts from alert floods, inefficient responses, and extended outages.

This project involved writing about successful software implementations to give sales teams data-driven proof of their solution's ability to ingest network alerts, enrich them with context, and provide root cause analysis of degradations and outages. These success stories showed potential enterprise customers how the solution handled incidents successfully while increasing staff efficiencies. They demonstrated metrics improvements, including incident response time and mean time to resolution (MTTR) in specific industry verticals and use cases, showing ways to save time and money. They also provided hope for organizations with technical teams that spend too much time on incident-resolution conference calls.
1988 - 1992

Bachelor of Arts Degree (High Distinction) in English

University of Illinois - Urbana, IL, USA

Core

Copywriting, Writing & Editing, Infographics, Lawful Interception (LI)

Platforms & Tools

Photoshop

Other

Technical Writing, Blogs, B2B Marketing, Copy Editing, Presentations, Technical Documentation, Healthcare App Design, Retail & Wholesale, Presentation Design, Sculpture, Microsoft Development, Visio, Adobe Acrobat Pro, Slack Development, Windows Development, Defense, Manufacturing, Finance, Filmmaking, Physics, Video Scripts, Sales Presentations, Case Studies, White Papers, Web Content, Compilers, Instructional Design, Web Development, Program Management, Content Management, Vendor Management, Training & Training Content Development, Telecommunications, Network Engineering, IT Project Management, Project Budget Management, Intranets, Documentation, Neuroscience, Management, Editorial Direction, Financial Writing, Analysis, Law Enforcement, Criminal Investigation, AIOps, DevOps, DevSecOps, Journalism, Cybersecurity, Security, System Security, Security Analysis, Cyber Threat Hunting, Data Privacy, Managed Services, Artificial Intelligence, Containers, Cloud Security, English, Research

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