B2B Information · Marketing · Technology

The operator
who has been
in your seat.

Uphoff Advisory works with founders, CEOs, and investors in B2B information, marketing services, and technology, as a thinking partner who has run businesses like yours at scale.
5×
B2B CEO roles
35+
Years operating experience
3×
Successful exits led
Start a Conversation

Trusted by leaders who make strategic decisions CEOs • Founders • Investors • Executive Teams

Practice Areas

Two ways to work together

Engagements are selective by design. The work requires genuine attention.

Strategic Advisory

A consistent thinking partner who understands the structural economics of your market, has navigated comparable decisions at scale, and can move at the speed the business requires.
  • Business transformation and market repositioning
  • Go-to-market strategy in B2B information, marketing, and technology
  • Operational scale and agentic AI adoption
  • Investor relations and capital event preparation
Explore this engagement

Value Creation & Exit Planning

Building a good business and building a valuable business are related. But not the same. The Uphoff Value Index™ closes that gap before the deal is on the table.
  • UVI diagnostic across six operational drivers
  • Comparable exits database: EBITDA, revenue multiples, Rule of 40
  • Prioritized value creation roadmap
  • Quarterly re-scoring and active gap work
Learn about the UVI

The businesses that run business.

Uphoff Value Index™

Valuation is a lagging indicator.

The UVI measures what comes before. It identifies the operational conditions that drive valuation, scores them against market benchmarks, and surfaces the specific gaps that separate a good business from a valuable one.
Revenue QualityPredictability, recurring mix, concentration risk
Market PositionCategory ownership, moat, brand visibility
Operational LeverageProcess documentation, financial hygiene, scalability
Leadership DepthFounder dependency, organizational resilience
Exit ReadinessBuyer mapping, value narrative, relationship cultivation
Custom DriverFactors specific to your market or model
Uphoff Value Index diagnostic report preview
Uphoff Value Index™

Tools & Frameworks

Twenty-five percent of the software. All of the judgment.

Most HR and client software is built to be demoed completely and used partially. Independent research puts real usage even lower than that: a median feature adoption rate of just 6.4 percent by Pendo's count, and barely half of purchased licenses ever opened according to Zylo's 2026 index. Uphoff Advisory's tools are built to be the part that actually gets used: single-purpose apps that structure one real decision, built directly by a practitioner with 35 years of operating experience and stress-tested by the Uphoff Practitioner Panel, not assembled from a platform's feature list.

Helps leaders make day-to-day decisions that map to their broader value creation and exit goals. Grounded in real M&A and public market comparables across six B2B categories, not generic industry multiples.

Helps leaders managing sales, or closely connected to it, hire, coach, and manage sales reps against a clear standard. Comes with a structured interview guide and a way to compare scores across a hiring team.

Helps leaders managing marketing, or closely connected to it, hire, coach, and manage marketers against a clear standard. Comes with a structured interview guide and a way to compare scores across a hiring team.
6.4%
Median feature adoption rate across SaaS products (Pendo)
54%
Average SaaS license utilization (Zylo, 2026)

Independent third-party research, not Uphoff Advisory's own figures.

Reviewed and recalibrated quarterly by the Uphoff Practitioner Panel: CMOs, CROs, recruiters, VPs of HR, and investors who use these tools against real decisions.

Not sold by the seat. Delivered as part of the engagement.

These tools structure the thinking. The decision is still yours.

About

Tony Uphoff

Tony Uphoff
McCalister FellowNorthwestern University, Medill School of Journalism
Five CEO roles. Three decades. Every major disruption in B2B information, marketing, and technology, experienced from the operating seat, not the analyst chair. The career started at the peak of print at Ziff-Davis and CMP Media, and tracked every transition since: digital, platform, and now the machine age. The pattern across all of it: walking into businesses built for the last era and transforming them for the next one. Including leading the transformation of ThomasNet.com into the platform Xometry acquired for $300M. The frameworks used with clients today were built under those conditions. Not imported from a consulting textbook.

Operating Philosophy

I believe every business exists to provide value for its customers. To best deliver that value, businesses need to evolve and transform, particularly during times of technology disruption. I've led businesses through three of those shifts myself: print to digital, digital to platform, platform to machine. I made good calls and bad ones, and learned from both. In every cycle, the leaders who got hurt were the ones who focused on the environment they knew and lost sight of the customer they served. That's where my philosophy starts: the customer is the fixed point. Know exactly what you do for them. Everything else, people, technology, process, performance, follows. A myopic focus on the customer, and what I call the 4 P's (People, Product, Process, and Performance), form the foundation of my operating philosophy. From there, 35 years of leading businesses, through multiple transformations and several exits, have helped me build a series of tools, systems, frameworks, and beliefs for building, running, and growing businesses, regardless of the era or market conditions. I believe in the power of technology to better serve customers. Not tech for tech's sake. I believe my first job as a leader is to recruit, retain, and develop the best people I can find. I believe culture eats strategy for breakfast. I believe value creation lives in the day-to-day decisions you make. Not in a report before you sell. I believe in the power of B2B Information, Marketing, and Technology. The businesses that power business.

Northwestern University — Medill School of Journalism

Named a 2020 McAllister Top Management Fellow

One of the most respected recognitions in media and business leadership, awarded for distinction in executive management.

Ziff-Davis / CMP Media / InformationWeek

Publisher — at the peak of print

At the height of the print era in B2B media — before the disruption that would define everything that followed.

UBM TechWeb

CEO — digital transformation through the 2008 financial crisis

Simultaneous disruptions: print collapse, platform shift, global recession. Led the business through all three.

ThomasNet.com

President & CEO — full platform transformation, acquired by Xometry for $300M

Repositioned a legacy industrial directory as a modern digital marketplace. Anchored in 300+ Jobs-to-Be-Done interviews. Led to an unsolicited acquisition from Xometry.

Pipeline360

CEO — carve-out, rebrand, digital demand generation platform

Built a modern Demand-as-a-Service business from a carved-out unit. Improved EBITDA margins materially, grew international revenue.

Uphoff on Media

Latest thinking

An operator's perspective on B2B information, marketing, and technology businesses navigating the machine age. For executives who want to move ahead, not catch up.
Read on Substack
Subscribe to Uphoff on Media on Substack Listen on Apple Podcasts

Work Together

Let's talk
about your business.

Uphoff Advisory works with a focused number of clients at any given time. Engagements are selective by design. The questions below are designed to start a real conversation, so the first call is substantive, not introductory.
  • You're a founder, CEO, or investor in B2B information, marketing, or technology
  • You're facing a real strategic decision, not looking for a vendor
  • You want a thinking partner who has been in your seat
This replaces the usual “message” field. It helps Tony come to the first conversation prepared, not asking the questions you have already answered on a form.