Bryon Scharenberg
GTM & Growth Leader · AI & Security · Seattle, WA

I listen well.
That turns out to be useful.

Most problems get clearer when you talk them through with the right person. And I'll be honest about what I don't know.

I'm Bryon. Eight years inside security and AI consulting, building GTM engines, leading client partnerships, and helping leaders navigate decisions they haven't made before. I've worked across banks, fintechs, Fortune 50 tech companies, and growth-stage startups.

Organizations I've worked with
Microsoft · Lululemon · Costco · REI · Nordstrom · Remitly · Gates Foundation · BECU
What people bring me
"I need someone who can own this from pitch to delivery." "This keeps falling between teams and nothing's moving." "We know AI matters but we don't know where to start."
What I actually do
Help them figure out what's actually worth doing, and get the right people on the same page. Sometimes that's strategy. Sometimes it's an honest conversation. Usually it's both.
8+
Years in AI & security consulting
$5M
Single account grown from $0
$300K
AI automation engagement converted from advisory

I took the long road.
On purpose.

01
From Venezuela to Seattle. Same skills, different room
For about four years across multiple stints, I lived and worked abroad. Two years in Venezuela with a campus ministry called Vida Estudiantil. Then time in India, including a full year there with my family, doing similar work in a very different cultural context. All told, nearly thirteen years of walking up to strangers, finding common ground, and listening for the thing underneath the thing. You get good at reading people fast when that's your whole job. Turns out people are people, whether you're on a university campus in Mérida or in a boardroom in Seattle.
02
Into security & AI by accident
I joined Kalles Group as a Recruiting Manager. Got promoted into a bigger role, and within 60 days doubled revenue-generating hires. Led a company rebrand. Started getting pulled into rooms with security and engineering leaders at the companies we were serving. Over several years of working across Fortune 50 clients in security, risk, and AI, I stopped being the recruiter in the room and started being the advisor.
03
Pattern recognition across clients
Most people see one company from the inside. I've spent years advising security, risk, and technology leaders across banks, fintechs, Fortune 50 tech companies, and growth-stage startups simultaneously. You start to see the patterns: what moves initiatives forward, what kills them quietly, what leaders say versus what's really happening. When AI started becoming a real enterprise conversation, I was already in those rooms.
04
The ethical layer
I'm a lay pastor and a dad, and both matter a lot to me. My kids are getting older. We've traded garage bike builds for snowboarding and skiing together, and I'm hoping for a lot more of that. I had a hip resurfacing a while back and I'm still working my way back to strength. I mention it because it's the same thing I'd tell anyone navigating a hard season: you figure out what you're actually made of when the path is slower than you'd like. That shapes how I give advice and why I'll tell you what I actually think rather than what you want to hear. Doing things right and doing things that work aren't in conflict.
"The long road turned out to be the whole point."
13
Person team built and led across sales, marketing, BD, and talent
150%
YoY revenue growth on hyper-growth FinTech account
400+
Interviews conducted in engineering, security, and AI roles
3
Continents lived and worked on, with a driver's license in each
What I do

Where I'm actually useful

GTM & Partnerships
Building the motion that turns domain expertise into revenue. I've built GTM engines from scratch in security and AI consulting, from positioning and ICP to pipeline, partnerships, and expansion. Including growing one account from $0 to $5M.
AI Strategy & Enablement
Helping organizations figure out which AI bets are actually worth making. I've run enterprise AI engagements across workflow redesign, human-in-the-loop operating models, and automation proofs of concept. The technology is rarely the hard part. Picking the right use case to start with is.
Executive Alignment
Getting leadership teams aligned on complex initiatives before they stall. I've facilitated enough of these conversations across security, AI, and organizational change to know what gets stuck and how to move it.
Smart Cookies

Conversations worth having in public

Smart Cookies is an executive event series and podcast I help lead and host at Kalles Group, covering AI, security, risk, and leadership. We bring in sharp practitioners: CISOs, founders, product leaders at Microsoft and beyond. The conversations are about what's actually happening, not what sounds good on a slide deck.

Bryon hosting Smart Cookies AI Leadership event
AI Leadership
From Tool to Teammate: Leading with AI
With Eli Coon (Microsoft Copilot Studio), Zach Koch (Ultravox), Mike Anderson (AILayer). What it takes to move AI from curiosity to operational reality.
Read recap ↗
Leadership
Leading Through Change
A panel of leaders from healthcare, tech, and legal on what it actually looks like to lead when things are uncertain, complex, or just plain messy.
Read recap ↗
Podcast
Niamh Muldoon on Trust and Cybersecurity
A conversation with a CISO who has spent two decades building trust as a business asset, not just a security function.
Listen ↗
Listen on Spotify ↗ Watch on YouTube ↗
Experience

The work

May 2022
Present
Director of Growth
Kalles Group · Seattle, WA
Grew one account from zero to $5M across six buying centers over three years. What I learned: enterprise buyers don't want a vendor, they want someone they can trust, who they like, and who will be honest with them when it matters.
Aug 2019
May 2022
Head of Marketing & Recruiting
Kalles Group · Seattle, WA
Hired Principal Engineers for AI-powered security products before AI was the thing everyone was hiring for. Spent a lot of time in rooms with technical leaders, helping them craft a narrative that would actually resonate with the people they wanted to hire.
Dec 2013
Jun 2017
Director, India Partnership
CRU & Global Leadership Forum · Karnataka, India
Partnered with Manipal University on a flagship leadership program, with a $500K program budget. Three and a half years of learning how to build trust across language, religion, class, and generation. The skill I still use the most.
Dec 2007
Dec 2013
Senior Staff
CRU · Seattle, WA
Mastered fund development as a missionary. Spent years initiating conversations about faith and meaning with strangers, which taught me how to talk to people about things that matter without making it weird. By the end I could tell within the first five minutes whether a conversation was going somewhere real. Most of my instincts about enterprise relationship-building were shaped here, long before I ever sat in a B2B sales meeting.
2005
2007
Team Leader / Outreach Coordinator
Vida Estudiantil · Mérida, Venezuela
First leadership role, first real job, done in a second language in a country I'd never been to. Led a multinational, bilingual team of 15. Built a local volunteer base of 25+ Venezuelans, many of whom are still leading the engagement today.
Client work

Organizations I've worked with

Microsoft Lululemon Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Costco REI Nordstrom Remitly BECU WaFd Bank Milliman University of Washington Manipal University Sellen Construction HealthE Pro
AI TOOLS

Tools I've built

These tools come from some recent challenges I've worked through and things I'm actively building. They're not meant to replace a real conversation; think of them as a window into how I think and where I can help.

Here's what's ready to share.

LIVE

Reality Check: Is It Worth Building?

Most AI projects stall before they start because the right questions never get asked. Who has the pain? Is a human in the loop where the risk lives? What would tell you in 30 days that you're wrong? This won't tell you whether to build it. It'll tell you whether you've thought about it clearly.

LIVE · PORTFOLIO PROJECT

Scout: AI Sales Assistant for B2B Services

Scout helps sellers at relationship-led firms prep for calls, handle objections, coach stalled deals, and shape proposals, all in the voice of the firm. Built on Claude. This uses a fictional consultancy called BTO Group so you can try it without confidentiality concerns. The architecture mirrors what I'm actively deploying at Kalles Group.

View on GitHub ↗ View architecture ↗
Try asking Scout:
"I have a first call tomorrow with a new CDO — 90 days in, previous initiative stalled..."
"The VP keeps coming back to price — they say we're more expensive than the Big 4..."
"We submitted a proposal 14 days ago. Champion has gone quiet..."
Built for fun
HT
Personal project · Live
HELLTRACK
UCI Downhill & Enduro

I follow UCI downhill racing but the content is everywhere: YouTube channels, Pinkbike, athlete feeds, race recaps. Built this to fix it for myself. Idea to live in 5 hours.

GitHub Actions Cloudflare Worker PWA 11 sources Content scoring engine Open source

More in the works, shaped by what people keep asking me. If you're working through something specific and want to talk, reach out.

Thinking

Things I keep talking about

Topics I get pulled into
Helping leaders decide what to elevate and what to deferStrategy
How services companies should think about GTMGTM
Career pivots into AI/security rolesCareer
Getting leadership buy-in on hard initiativesLeadership
Building trust in technical sales cyclesPartnerships
Doing tech work with an ethical backboneEthics
What I believe
Clarity over comfort. The most useful thing I can do is help someone see their situation clearly, even when that's uncomfortable.
Enthusiasm isn't a strategy. Most failed projects start with excitement and no clear owner of the problem they're supposed to solve. I'd rather slow down in week one than clean it up in month six.
Character and competence. The leaders I respect most are unusually good at their jobs and unusually serious about doing right by people. I don't think those are in tension.
Trust is the product. In services, in partnerships, in any relationship where you're asking people to take a risk on your judgment, you are always building or burning trust. There's no neutral ground.
Outside of work

The rest of the story

🚲
SeattleDad in the garage
Some of my favorite hours have been spent in the garage with my kids building bikes. I've documented mini-projects on YouTube and record MTB POV rides with our dog Maple, on Instagram. The kids are older now and we still ride and ski together. Hoping for many more good times together.
🏔
I geek out on bike racing
UCI World Cup downhill is incredible. I've watched enough Leogang and Mont Saint Anne runs to have opinions about line choice. My love for bikes goes back to RAD, a BMX cult classic from the 80s that holds a special place in my heart.
🎭
Musical theater, apparently
I'm doing Oliver! at Kitsap Forest Theater with my kids, playing Bill Sikes on an outdoor stage. First time doing anything like this. My kids talked me into it.
📷
Other things
40-for-40 gratitude challenge on Instagram. Macro photography with a Fujifilm XT-1. First dip in the Mediterranean. My grandfather's pen knife from West Germany sits on my counter next to a cast iron pan from my Italian-American grandmother. I cook. I fish. I try to be present while I dream of adventure.
"RAD is a BMX cult classic from the 80s that holds a special place in my heart and inspired my love for bikes."
On YouTube
@bscharenberg (SeattleDad) ↗
MTB builds, POV rides, garage sessions
On Instagram
@scharenbergs ↗
Bikes, snow, family, gratitude, fish
On Instagram
@maplesyrupkitkat (Maple) ↗
Trail Dog, 80's Music, Cuteness Overload
Bryon Scharenberg

If you're figuring something
out, let's talk.

A GTM question, something AI-related you're trying to get real, a career move you're weighing, or you just want to compare notes. I'm up for these conversations.