Table of contents
Want to learn from the world’s best growth marketing experts? Below is our list of the most influential growth marketing professionals to follow in 2026, to stay on top of new growth tactics and trends.
Each summary includes a bio, plus links to Twitter/X, LinkedIn, personal blog, published books, well-known articles, famous quotes, newsletters and podcasts.
Further down, we also cover how following an expert compares to hiring a growth marketing consultant or agency, plus answers to common questions about finding growth marketing expertise.
Growth Marketing Experts
Sean Ellis
Sean is often referred to as “the father of the growth marketing movement” and one of the first growth marketing experts. He coined the term “growth hacking” and was the first marketer at Dropbox. He applied the principles of growth hacking in the early days at Dropbox, Eventbrite, LogMeIn, and Lookout (all worth billions today).
Along with Morgan Brown (below), Sean is a co-author of the acclaimed growth marketing book Hacking Growth. Sean is the founder of GrowthHackers.com and his website is at https://www.seanellis.me/. He blogs on Medium at https://medium.com/@SeanEllis and regularly posts on Twitter @SeanEllis. Sean recently started The Breakout Growth Podcast.
Morgan Brown
Morgan is currently the Product Lead at Facebook, he is a marketing veteran and co-founder of the popular growthhackers.com website (with Sean Ellis, above).
His book Hacking Growth (co-authored with Sean above) explains one of the hottest business methodologies in Silicon Valley and beyond. The methodology drove the rapid growth of start-ups like Uber, Facebook, Airbnb, Dropbox, Yelp, LinkedIn, Pinterest and more.
Morgan’s website and blog are at http://morganbrown.co/, though he is more active on Twitter at @morganb.
Andrew Chen
One of the world’s best known growth marketing experts, Andrew Chen famously led the “Rider Growth” team at Uber (https://get.uber.com/rider-growth/) at a time when Uber was spending around $1billion on its growth efforts annually. He now advises companies like Dropbox, AngelList, Front and Gusto in his role as a partner at the world-famous venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Andrew blogs at https://andrewchen.co/ where he has famously written over 650 essays on growth including the infamous piece Growth Hacker is the new VP of Marketing.
Brian Balfour
Brian Balfour is perhaps most famous for his role as Vice President of Growth at HubSpot. He now runs arguably one of the most well-respected growth training programs at https://www.reforge.com/, training many future growth marketing experts.
Brian’s personal website at https://brianbalfour.com/essays contains all of his essays on customer acquisition and growth as well as his course on Building A Growth Machine.
One of Brian’s most popular talks is from 2014 at 500 Startups: The Scientific Method: How to Design & Track Viral Growth Experiments.
Casey Winters
Casey Winters was the first growth marketer at Grubhub and helped grow the company from 3 cities to over 1000. He went on to build the growth product team at Pinterest, growing active users from 40 million to over 200 million.
Casey is particularly well-known for his knowledge of scalable SEO strategies. He is currently the Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite. Casey blogs on his personal website at https://caseyaccidental.com/.
Mayur Gupta
Mayur Gupta is currently the CMO at Freshly and was previously the VP Growth for Spotify.
His superb blog can be found at http://inspiremartech.com/blog and his Twitter account is @inspiremartech. His keynote from Accelerate 2019 on Building an always-on marketing growth engine is below.
Growth marketing expert vs consultant vs agency
Following an expert is one way to access growth marketing thinking, but it isn’t the only one. Depending on how hands-on you need the help to be, a growth marketing consultant or a growth marketing agency may be a better fit than absorbing lessons from public content alone.
| Follow an Expert | Hire a Consultant | Hire an Agency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you get | Public frameworks, essays and case studies, free | Hands-on strategy and testing, embedded in your team | Defined scope of execution (e.g. paid, content) |
| Cost | Free | Project or retainer-based | Retainer, often the highest total cost |
| Speed to impact | Slow — depends on your own execution | Fast — brings proven playbooks | Moderate — depends on onboarding and scope |
| Best for | Building instincts and staying current | Validating a growth motion or filling a skills gap | Outsourcing a channel entirely |
If you decide you need hands-on help rather than more reading, our guide to growth hacking agencies covers what to look for and how they differ from following an expert or working with a solo consultant.
About Growth Method
Following the growth marketing experts above is a great way to build your instincts, but reading essays and playbooks is not the same as running your own tests. Growth Method is the agentic marketing platform for B2B teams: agents help turn what you learn from experts like Sean Ellis, Andrew Chen and Morgan Brown into your own backlog of hypotheses, launched campaigns and analysed results — so their frameworks become your team’s evidence, not just inspiration.
Book a call to see how Growth Method turns growth marketing theory into a working experimentation system, or apply for early access to start building your own campaign backlog today.
Frequently asked questions
Who are the top growth marketing experts to follow?
Some of the most influential growth marketing experts include Sean Ellis (co-author of Hacking Growth and founder of GrowthHackers), Morgan Brown (Hacking Growth co-author), Andrew Chen (partner at Andreessen Horowitz, former Uber Rider Growth lead), Brian Balfour (founder of Reforge, former VP Growth at HubSpot), Casey Winters (former Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite) and Mayur Gupta (CMO at Freshly, former VP Growth at Spotify).
Where can I find growth marketing experts online?
Most growth marketing experts are most active on Twitter/X and LinkedIn, alongside personal blogs and newsletters where they publish essays and frameworks. Many also host or appear on podcasts, such as Sean Ellis’s Breakout Growth Podcast.
What’s the difference between a growth marketing expert, a consultant and an agency?
Following a growth marketing expert gives you access to public frameworks and thinking for free, but no hands-on execution. A growth marketing consultant works directly with your team on strategy and testing. A growth marketing agency takes on execution of a defined scope of work, such as paid media or content, with less day-to-day involvement in your process.
How do I keep up with new growth marketing tactics and trends?
Follow a small number of practitioners rather than trying to track everyone — their blogs, newsletters, and Twitter/X accounts are the fastest way to see new tactics as they emerge. Pairing that with your own team’s experimentation backlog turns what you read into tested results specific to your business.