Tom Mudd

Background

About Tom Mudd

I’ve spent my career in sales—but really, I’m a storyteller.So let me tell you a story.I grew up in a house of drummers. Rhythm was everywhere. In college, my band went viral on MySpace (remember MySpace?) and we ended up touring the country. I thought I wanted to be an audio engineer. I never switched majors (my parents wisely talked me off that ledge), but I devoured every book I could find on recording and mixing. I ultimately graduated with a degree in accounting. I can’t tell you much about GAAP principles.but I can tell you the exact frequency to cut to remove muddiness from a kick drum.300Hz.That obsession with clarity has stuck with me. Whether it’s sound, story, or strategy—I love stripping away noise and finding what resonates.I started in finance, then jumped into sales ops, then raised my hand to try inside sales. My dad liked to joke I had a good face for it (that was before Zoom). I ended up loving it: building relationships, solving problems, and turning conversations into partnerships. That led to field sales at Equifax, where I worked with Fortune 500 companies to recover millions in overpaid taxes. Complex work, high stakes—but I still felt something was missing.I wanted to build. I wanted purpose.That’s when I joined Brightside, a fintech startup on a mission to improve the financial health of working families. I was a founding sales team member, closed some of our first major enterprise deals, and eventually became VP of Sales. I led our go-to-market strategy, scaled sales development, helped define our brand narrative, and played a key role in growing ARR from $2M to $40M+. I also ran B2B marketing before we had a team, oversaw conference and channel strategy, managed strategic partnerships, and helped create a new category from scratch.Somewhere along the way I even earned the nickname “Mr. Brightside”.Here’s what I’ve learned about myself:I love to build things.Systems. Teams. Stories. Strategies. Brands. Culture.I love the intersection of sales, marketing, and operations—where big ideas become executable action.I love mission-driven companies where the work actually makes a difference.And I love telling stories that resonate deeply—and scaling the systems that make them stick.Whether it’s a brand new startup or a public company trying to break into a new market—I bring founder energy without the founder ego. I’m a builder, a servant leader, a connector, and a strategist who helps teams go from zero to one, and one to scale.Sales may have been my path—but storytelling has always been my calling.