Product marketing | Content leadership | Program building
Complex products. Clear stories. Programs that ship.
I am Andrew Rostad, a senior product marketer and content leader who turns audience insight into positioning, launches, customer education, partner programs, and durable content systems.
20+ years across marketing, research, production, and editorial work, including direct cybersecurity product marketing for Microsoft Intune.
Selected case studies
Strategy made visible through shipped work.
Each effort began with an audience or business problem and became a launch, program, or operating system.
01Product launch and technical storytelling
Launching Windows Autopatch for enterprise IT
Naming and branding | Launch workstreams | Writing | Creative direction | Production
Explain a new managed update service to technical and business audiences without flattening the product's complexity.
Helped name and brand Windows Autopatch and led specific launch and go-to-market workstreams spanning narrative, training, events, presentations, and external content.
Wrote the launch blog and scripts for Microsoft's official six-video playlist. Owned concept, creative direction, vendor management, and selected editing and graphics for award-recognized explainers.
Windows Autopatch reached 100 million activated devices within two years. This is product-scale context, not a claim that my work alone caused adoption.
02Audience strategy and program development
Building an education and community motion for MSPs
Research | Strategy | Partner program | Education | Community | Editorial
MSP IT professionals are broad generalists, while enterprise product education often assumes deep specialization. The audience needed a clearer path to practical Intune skills.
Reworked proposed surveys, analyzed findings, defined the strategy, led a cross-organizational task force across three products, and enrolled and managed five ISV partners.
A Microsoft Learn pathway, interactive guides, customizable video toolkit, influencer content, animated explainers, recurring technical blog, and monthly live webinar.
The first five webinar episodes generated more than 30,000 collective views. Partner-managed tenants grew Intune MAU 17.9% versus 15.7% for the unmanaged base, a correlated program result rather than sole attribution.
03Content leadership and operational transformation
Building the content function at Acceptance Insurance
Content strategy | Brand voice | People management | Workflow design | Production
A regulated insurance brand needed a clearer content system, faster reviews, and useful creative work without relying on agency budgets.
Built the content strategy and execution plan, owned the editorial calendar, defined brand voice, and directly managed two graphic designers.
Replaced email attachments and ad hoc reviews with a department-wide SharePoint and project-management workflow that improved legal review and leadership visibility.
Approval time typically moved from about three days to one. Recut ads and original animated assets avoided more than $50,000 in agency spend.
More selected work
Different formats, one discipline.
Find the audience truth, define the narrative, and choose the format that helps people act.
Thought leadership and guidance
Cloud-native endpoint management
Written, not publicly creditedGhostwrote the Microsoft 365 Blog article and drove the accompanying implementation guidance and documentation-hub redesign.
Read the article
Security narrative
Microsoft Intune Makes It Possible
Script and production, not publicly creditedTranslated cloud endpoint management into a concise security story for executive audiences.
Watch video
Audience campaign
Comprehensive macOS management
Writing and production, not publicly creditedOwned campaign video creation and promotion plus blog writing. Intune-managed macOS devices grew 40% year over year during the campaign, without independently measured attribution.
Watch videoHow I lead
Clear direction. Useful systems. Work people can ship.
I lead by clarifying the audience, defining the narrative, establishing ownership, and building a workable operating rhythm. I stay close enough to execution to help the team make good decisions.
Managed two designers at Acceptance Insurance and recruited, hired, trained, scheduled, and evaluated a seven-person production team at Media Beyond.
Coordinate Product, Engineering, Marketing, executives, and external partners across three Microsoft products and five ISVs without relying on formal authority.
Administered roughly $350,600 in partner funding, drafted agreements, tracked outcomes, and reported to leadership while working with founders, CTOs, and CMOs.
Twenty-plus years across national broadcast quality control, B2B content marketing, research, technical product marketing, and multi-format production.
Start a conversation
Need someone who can define the story, organize the program, and help the team deliver it?
I am based in Chicago and open to senior product marketing, content leadership, customer education, partner marketing, and integrated program roles.