Who is Verifone?
Verifone is a leading global payments technology provider trusted by the world's top brands. Verifone powers the boundless payments grid, enabling distinctive commerce experiences for merchants, fintech companies, and financial institutions wherever commerce happens. Each year, Verifone processes $8 trillion in transaction value across 165+ countries around the world.
Situation:
At Verifone, new marketing leadership had set out to create best-in-class approaches to every element of the function, with product marketing as a top priority. This coincided with the start of a new era of innovation in Verifone’s payments products and partnerships, which had separately created an acute need for go-to-market expertise.
With market-leading new products, strategic partnerships, and bold ideas on the table, Chief Marketing Officer Liz Urheim needed an immediate solution to build out a PMM team worthy of the Verifone brand. Pressing launch goals and strategic questions about long-term growth paths in the petroleum vertical further drove urgency. The time had come to develop talent, frameworks, and results in tandem.
“As an incoming leader with a passion for product marketing, I knew the benefits of getting PMM right, fast. Fluvio was able to jump in and demonstrate immediate impact.”
Solution:
Fluvio assembled a specialized team to address Verifone’s diverse needs. Over a nine-month engagement, Fluvio embedded:
Multiple consultants to establish a product marketing charter and frameworks, deliver on launch and enablement needs, and build foundational relationships with cross-functional teams,
A dedicated research team to conduct extensive Voice of Customer research in the key petroleum vertical, and
Fluvio executives to identify, recruit, and onboard a core set of FTEs on Verifone’s behalf, including a Vice President Product Marketing and three Directors of PMM.
Over the course of the work, the Fluvio team flexed up and down to align to Verifone’s evolving needs. At the engagement’s conclusion, Fluvio left an effective function in place to carry the function forward into the future.
Client Interview
We sat down with Liz Urheim, CMO, and Heather Hooks, VP of Product Marketing & Enablement, to get their thoughts on Fluvio’s work with Verifone.
Liz Urheim
Chief Marketing Officer, Verifone
Heather Hooks
VP of Product Marketing & Enablement, Verifone
What problems were you encountering that led you to believe a product marketing consulting team could help?
Liz Urheim:
When I joined Verifone, I inherited a fast-moving organization rich with new innovation…but without PMM structure. We were on the cusp of major hardware and software product launches, as well as game-changing partnerships.
It was a pivotal moment. If we didn't get the go-to-market strategy right, downstream demand generation tactics wouldn’t matter. We needed a team that could step in at once and bring clarity, speed, and confidence.
Fluvio was essential in helping me deliver on my mandate. From building standout positioning and messaging for the Verifone Victa product family to providing onsite support at NRF in New York, they weren’t just advisors; they were doers.
They worked hand-in-hand with our SMEs to bring new offerings to market and tell a coherent, compelling story to our buyers. And they did so by jumping in right as planning for our largest annual event was hitting its stride.
What we really needed stretched far beyond point-in-time efforts. We needed lasting frameworks that would set us up for long-term success. With every tactical execution, Fluvio kept a keen focus on building the right type of product marketing function to deliver impact across the buying journey. They worked tirelessly with our team to define, align, and refine the right way forward for the function.
Why was Fluvio the right fit for Verifone?
Liz Urheim:
Fluvio balanced two distinct roles for us: they were embedded PMMs when we needed executional support, and they were strategic advisors helping define our role definitions and org structure.
As new priorities emerged, I could always draw on Fluvio’s broader team to address them, without losing momentum. Their consultants earned the trust of our product, sales, and executive stakeholders, allowing us to move faster than I expected.
“They weren’t helping us ‘get through’ an interim period. They were reimagining what product marketing could be at Verifone.”
They adapted with us, scaling their involvement as our needs changed and our internal team grew. For example, our petroleum vertical team identified a spike need to better understand customers’ opinions of competitors, particularly with respect to how that differs between segments and company sizes. We worked with Fluvio leadership to quickly deploy an additional, dedicated team to deliver thorough and insightful Voice of Customer analysis back to our team.
Why choose Fluvio to help recruit your FTE team of product marketers?
Liz Urheim:
Hiring a senior product marketing team is challenging. It’s easy to find people who can execute. It’s much more difficult to find people who deeply understand product marketing in a complex tech environment, and who can help build something new from the ground up.
Fluvio brought both speed and rigor to the process. Their team generated a deep applicant pool, from which they curated experienced, diverse cohorts of candidates with the exact mix of skills and vertical know-how we needed.
Every finalist had been pre-vetted through the lens of their knowledge from working with so many PMM departments. It never felt like traditional recruiting. It felt like a joint investment in building something great.
This made the decision process faster and more confident, and they didn’t stop with signed offer letters. Fluvio’s consultants designed onboarding plans for our new joiners, and were true partners to me and my leadership team through the whole ramp-up phase.
Heather Hooks:
As a new VP stepping into a high-expectation role, I needed rock-solid help to assemble the team alongside me. Fluvio was proactive, insightful, and aligned with my vision. Their consultants anticipated beyond our basic needs, with a constant eye toward setting my team up for success as they were hired.
What are some of the benefits you’ve realized from your partnership with Fluvio?
Liz Urheim:
The biggest benefit is the speed and stability they brought during a critical transition period. They helped us stand up a PMM function that could operate immediately and scale sustainably. We were able to launch key products, support global events, and strengthen internal alignment, all while laying a scalable groundwork for a high-performing team.
Heather Hooks:
Cross-functional credibility was a major win. Because Fluvio showed up with strong best practices and delivered results, it helped us quickly establish PMM as a strategic partner across Verifone. We gained trust and redefined expectations with sales, product, and our executive stakeholders much faster than we could have alone.
“Fluvio became a trusted extension of our Product Marketing team, helping us build credibility and scale. They truly accelerated my onboarding and my team’s effectiveness from day zero.”
What does Fluvio offer that is unique?
Liz Urheim:
The breadth and flexibility of their model. It’s not just one consultant or a cookie-cutter framework. They have a full-stack team that can flex based on stage, goals, or blind spots. Whenever we needed strategic input, launch horsepower, deep research, or hiring expertise, they brought the right people at the right time.
They also opened up conversations among us as a leadership team, especially around how our broader product development lifecycle fit together. They have experience working with product management teams upstream and aligning with product development and adapting as scenarios change. As a result, we are working more efficiently as a cross-functional leadership team that’s focused on strategies that drive value across key market moments.
Highlighted accomplishments:
Defined Verifone’s first product marketing charter and foundational frameworks to guide team structure, priorities, and cross-functional alignment
Successfully launched Verifone’s new flagship Victa product suite, along with a range of additional capabilities and complementary offerings
Delivered multiple high-impact partnership announcements and established a repeatable go-to-market approach for strategic alliances
Developed and rolled out product messaging and positioning frameworks across core solutions and verticals
Recruited and onboarded four key product marketing leaders, including a VP and three directors, through a tailored, PMM-expertise-centric hiring process
Trained the incoming product marketing VP and directors on the business, the organization, and products in flight, significantly improving the team’s speed to productivity
Led and socialized in-depth Voice of Customer research in the petroleum vertical, informing GTM strategies
Enabled critical enterprise sales efforts with strategic narratives, outcome-focused meeting plans, and hands-on support for high-impact decks
Created and launched a comprehensive sales collateral bill of materials to support global teams