"And the winner is...Artie Beavis!"

This story dates back to the summer of 2012. At that time, I had worked at NXP (both in the Netherlands and in Silicon Valley) for 12.5 years. My role was Global VP of Marketing and Communications, and I had decided it was time to spread my wings in Silicon Valley.

In the period before, I had been building out NXP's social media footprint with the team and I had noticed we were getting our ass kicked by a small secure ID company here in the US.

It 'irritated' me, and for obvious reasons, I was wondering what was going on. I did my research and saw that one individual was responsible for building a huge audience from scratch. A guy named Artie Beavis. I read his posts. It was genius. I looked at his LinkedIn: Not only was he a genius, he also looked irritatingly young…

That same summer, I signed a contract with a major semiconductor player, Atmel. They had approached me and offered me a position on their executive management team, reporting to the CEO, Steve Laub. I’d be responsible for all their global marketing.

As I got in my car on my last day at NXP, I called him. I had never spoken to him, nor exchanged emails. We had only connected briefly online. So I just decided to reach out. As luck would have it, Artie was no longer in his role. 

This is how I recall the conversation:

Artie: “Hello?!”

Me: “Hey, this is Sander Arts at NXP. I am actually about to leave the company, but I had to give you a call. I wanted to tell you that I hate it when people kick my @ss. But it also means you must be really good.”

Artie: Laughing [now I know he is always laughing]. “Appreciate that, man. But you know what? I am now a free man and looking to take on something else.”

Me: “Really? Well, I am starting at Atmel in two weeks, and I would love for you to come join me. I am not sure yet what I will run into, but I am sure we need talented people.”

Artie: “Let’s do it!”

What can I say? We hit it off. I liked him in the first second we connected.

The rest is history. Artie and I joined Atmel, where we repositioned the brand from a ‘touch solutions’ provider to an IoT company. We celebrated the use of our technology by the users, tapped into the long tail of customers and were able to convert those leads into business. We leveraged the massive Maker Movement, including Arduino. It just so happened that the vast majority of IoT solutions were being developed by startups, and almost all those were prototyping with Arduino — then going to production with Atmel. It was the secret sauce: To be successful, we shifted our efforts to the long tail, which enabled us to implement more new age tactics and appeal to those looking for both chips and visibility. 

We turned the marketing department into a profit center, all while building the largest social media presence and content engine in the industry. (Fun fact: Our blog received as many shares as all of the other 39 semiconductor companies combined.) You can read about it in our Cut the Bullsh*t Marketing book and in the Stanford GSB case dedicated to this journey.

After our Atmel adventure, Artie followed his own path throughout the hardware industry. Most recently, he serves as the CMO at Hackster.io, where has helped grow the Hackster community into one of the largest amongst engineers and developers.

Here in Orlando, Florida, we had the opportunity to speak at OnCon 2020 together, and shared our experiences to date, most notably the Atmel story. It resonated well and people were truly engaged -- we had fun!

Then, last night, we attended the annual OnCon Icon Awards dinner. The OnCon Icon Awards recognize the top professionals and vendors in the entire world in the areas of marketing, human resources, and legal. Finalists are voted on by peers to determine the winners. To no surprise, Artie was named a Top 50 Marketer, joining CMOs from Mastercard, DHL, SAP, NBA, IBM, NBCUniversal, and other Fortune 100s.

Congrats, man. Well deserved! We will all watch you do even bigger things and I am proud to be your friend.