Product Marketing Manager EdTech · AI Health · HRTech · B2B Events Portfolio
Maria Gordienko — Product Marketing Manager

I turn what you know into how you grow.

I help companies find the gap between what their customers say, what they actually need — and what they're willing to pay for. Then I build the positioning, GTM strategy, and systems to close that gap — and turn it into revenue growth.

$10M LMS pre-orders $2M event revenue $1M enterprise saved 250 community · <2% churn 5% website conversion 40 qualified leads / 30 days 90% student success +3% sales conversion 60+ speakers, zero budget

About.

I started my career in PR. And one of the first things I was told was that a PR specialist shouldn't touch the product — your job is to sell what exists, full stop.

That never sat right with me. I kept finding myself in conversations with customers who were telling me exactly what was missing, exactly what would make them stay, exactly what they'd pay for — and feeling like I had nowhere to take that information. So over time I moved toward product marketing, because that's where the two things I care about actually connect: understanding what the market genuinely needs, and building something that delivers it.

That combination — research, positioning, and measurable growth — is what I've been doing for 8+ years across EdTech, AI healthcare, HRTech, and B2B events.

One thing I've noticed about myself: I need to see the result. When I talk to customers, map their pain points, shape a product or a message around what I've heard — and then watch conversion rates climb, churn drop, or leads come in qualified rather than cold — that feedback loop is what drives me. It's also what keeps the work honest. Metrics don't lie about whether the positioning actually landed.

I use data and I use AI — to find patterns in customer interviews faster, to track what competitors are doing while I'm focused on something else, to stress-test hypotheses before I spend budget on them.

But I keep coming back to one thing that no model replaces: a real conversation with a real person. In an era where AI is generating more and more content and strategy, the companies that stay close to their people — customers and teams alike — will build things that feel human. And human things are what people keep paying for.

Five principles
I operate by.

01

The customer is the research.

Before I write a strategy, I talk to people. The customer who already bought, the one who almost bought, the salesperson who hears objections every day. Their words go directly into positioning. Their unmet needs go directly into the product brief.

02

Metrics as a compass.

I track what moves the business — CAC, LTV, churn, conversion rate, pipeline contribution. These tell me whether what I built is actually working, and they give me a shared language with every stakeholder in the room.

03

Systems over one-offs.

Whether it's a partner acquisition framework, an automated qualification flow, or a community retention mechanic — I build for repeatability. A result that happened once is interesting. A result that keeps happening is a system.

04

Test fast, cut faster.

I set kill criteria before a test starts. If a hypothesis isn't generating signal after a defined number of iterations, I move on. The goal is to find what works — which means actively discarding what doesn't, early.

05

Constraints sharpen the thinking.

Zero budget, no existing network, two weeks to conference day. These conditions have produced some of my best work, because they force prioritization down to what actually matters.

A working philosophy in one line.

"Research is how I stop guessing. Metrics are how I know I stopped."

In short Close to the customer. Close to the product. Fast, but honest.

I work best in environments where I can get close to the customer and close to the product at the same time. I ask a lot of questions early — of customers, of salespeople, of the team — because that's where the real brief usually lives.

I move quickly and I like seeing results fast. I'm comfortable making decisions under uncertainty when the research gives me enough signal. And I'm good at aligning cross-functional teams around a shared direction — not through authority, but through clarity about what we're trying to achieve and why.

I'm also honest about what I don't know, and I'll tell you when a hypothesis needs more validation before we spend money on it.

Words from the room.

Maria did a good job managing timelines and attracting new clients. She is very keen on what she is doing. She cares about tutors and students — she knows their pain, their problems.

Product Designer · TripleTen

Maria did what everyone in the market was afraid to do — she built the Externship program, and it took an unknown new product and made it a visible player in the market. It created a completely new USP.

VP of Product · Practicum by Yandex

AI is wired in —
not bolted on.

Not as an occasional tool, but as infrastructure.

On the research side, it's changed what's possible. I can process interview transcripts and find patterns across dozens of conversations in the time it used to take to go through five. I can track competitor moves and market trends in parallel with everything else. Hypothesis testing is faster. Analysis that used to take days now takes hours.

On the operational side, I capture everything — notes, voice memos, stray thoughts — and use AI to surface what actually needs action. Nothing waits, nothing gets lost.

The one thing I'm careful about: AI is good at finding patterns in what people have said. It's less good at understanding why they said it, or what they meant underneath the words. That's still a human job. So my research always starts with AI and ends with a conversation.

Results at
a glance.

I find what the data doesn't say — and build strategy around it.
01
$10M
LMS pre-orders secured in 16 days
02
$2M
Event revenue through strategic speaker acquisition
03
$1M
Enterprise client revenue saved from churn
04
250
Community members, sub-2% churn, zero paid acquisition
05
5%
Website conversion through new USP
06
40
Qualified leads in 30 days, new AI healthcare product
07
90%
Students reached career goals through first-of-its-kind externship
08
3%
Sales conversion increase through automated qualification
09
60+
Speakers secured at 8/month, zero budget, zero existing network

Case studies.

Constraints are just the brief. Results are the deliverable.

Eight projects across EdTech, AI, events, and community. Each one started the same way — with a question I didn't yet have the answer to. Here's what happened next.

Case № 01 · She's New To America Pro
Positioning from Zero
How to build a community product that retains, converts, and grows — without a budget.
  • 250 members, sub-2% churn
  • Break-even, zero paid acquisition
CustDevProduct PositioningCommunity-Led Growth
Read case study
Case № 02 · She's New To America Pro
Partner GTM Channel
How to turn partnerships into a scalable acquisition and retention channel — without a marketing budget.
  • 60+ speakers, 8 per month
  • Revenue share model activated
GTM StrategyPartner ChannelGrowth Hacking
Read case study
Case № 03 · Practicum by Yandex
Externship USP
How to use existing customers to discover a product gap, create a new USP — and grow conversion without additional budget.
  • 5% website conversion
  • 90% student success rate
CustDevUSP DevelopmentMVP
Read case study
Case № 04 · TripleTen
Sales Automation
How to increase sales conversion and free up your team for high-value work — by building a system that does the heavy lifting first.
  • +3% sales conversion
  • 9% sales resources freed
Funnel OptimizationAutomationLead Scoring
Read case study
Case № 05 · Universarium
$10M in Pre-Orders
How to validate market demand before the full product is built — by shipping an MVP that shows exactly what buyers need to see.
  • $10M in pre-orders
  • Demo built in 16 days
MVPGTM StrategySprint Planning
Read case study
Case № 06 · Universarium
$1M Client Save
How to retain a departing enterprise client — by turning a product complaint into a strategic roadmap.
  • $1M revenue saved
  • 1-year contract extension
Stakeholder ManagementAgileCustDev
Read case study
Case № 07 · CherryLabs
40 Leads in 30 Days
How to build a validated acquisition campaign for a new AI product in a high-trust market — starting from zero customer knowledge.
  • 40 qualified leads in 30 days
  • 15 concepts validated
Market ResearchCustDevAI Healthcare
Read case study
Case № 08 · Redenex
$2M Event Revenue
How to turn speaker acquisition into a revenue engine — by making the right people want to be in the room.
  • $2M event revenue
  • 110 speakers, 95% satisfaction
GTM StrategyPipeline ManagementRisk Management
Read case study

Let's talk.

I turn what your customers already know into what your market needs to hear.

If you're working on positioning, GTM strategy, or community-led growth — or if you're not sure which of those is actually your problem — let's talk.

Tweaks

Accent color