About
    Lara Shackelford, CEO of Hawksmoor.ai

    Lara Shackelford

    CEO · Hawksmoor.ai

    Twenty-five years architecting revenue engines at the intersection of AI and go-to-market. She launched Hawksmoor after watching companies layer AI on broken systems and wonder why the results never came.

    The Path Here

    From Oracle to Oxford to AI-native GTM.

    Lara started at Oracle launching Oracle Grid Database and the early generation of cloud applications. At SPSS, she helped shape the Predictive Analytics category before IBM's acquisition. She led go-to-market at DataStax and Looker through their growth to acquisition by IBM and Google. At Microsoft Americas, she developed the Marketing Engagement Index (MEI), the proprietary measurement framework that replaced MQLs across the company's largest commercial region with real-time buying-committee signal.

    Her experience has been global from the start. She spent three years (1999–2002) at Oracle UK in London, running Alliances and Channels for the Communications and Media business through one of the industry's deepest downturns. The team exceeded revenue targets every quarter by operating as one unit. Years later she presented Oracle's Global ROI work at Oracle OpenWorld Asia Pacific in Singapore with live interpretation into Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean. As CMO of Altify, she spent a week each month in Dublin. She has hosted global team gatherings from London to Dubai. The frame she brings to every engagement is global by default.

    Financial services has been a thread through her career. At BearingPoint she launched Risk, Compliance, and Security Solutions for the post-Sarbanes-Oxley era. At Guidewire she led product marketing for Tier 1 insurers. At Oracle Financial Services she led deep-dive ROI engagements with Mastercard, JP Morgan, VeriSign, and Westpac that became one of Oracle's largest campaigns.

    In 2016 she debuted an AI-native sales platform at Dreamforce. That same discipline now drives the Signal Integrity Framework she uses to architect enterprise revenue systems.

    She completed her postgraduate AI Strategy diploma at Oxford in July 2025. She identified the Generative AI shift in 2022, before most executives had a login. Today she leads every Hawksmoor engagement directly, backed by a growing team of GTM operators and a vetted network of specialists and data architects.

    Track Record

    Six acquisitions. One IPO. Three categories shaped.

    6
    Acquisitions
    1
    IPO
    3
    Categories shaped

    Acquisitions

    • SPSS→IBM
    • DataStax→IBM
    • Looker→Google
    • Marketo→Adobe
    • Altify→Upland Software
    • Platfora→Workday
    • Qlik→IPO

    Categories Shaped

    • Predictive Analytics
      SPSS · Gartner MQ
    • Data Discovery
      Qlik · Gartner MQ
    • Big Data NoSQL
      DataStax · Forrester Wave
    Leadership & Credentials

    The companies. The credentials.

    Leadership Roles

    • Oracle
    • Microsoft Americas
    • Intel
    • Looker (Google)
    • Qlik
    • Marketo (Adobe)
    • SPSS (IBM)
    • DataStax (IBM)

    Accreditations & Recognition

    • AI Strategy Postgraduate Diploma
      University of Oxford, July 2025
    • Scaling AI & AI for Marketing Certifications
      SmarterX
    • AI Mastery Member
      SmarterX
    • 4X LinkedIn Top Voice in AI
    • Top 100 CMOs
      DiversityFirst
    • Top 35 Leaders in B2B Marketing
      DataCaptive

    Updated April 2026

    Why Hawksmoor Exists

    Every enterprise has the AI tools. Few have the architecture.

    Hawksmoor architects AI-native GTM strategy built on Signal Integrity. The methodology preserves what signals mean and when they matter as information flows across marketing, sales, and customer success.

    The methodology rests on three architectural commitments. Semantic Consistency keeps what a signal means stable as it moves between teams. Temporal Coherence preserves when a signal matters, so a Tuesday shift doesn't surface to the AE the following Monday after it has cooled. Lineage Transparency means every AI-driven action carries its origin, so the human in the loop can trace what the system saw and why it acted.

    The firm works with CEOs, CROs, CMOs, CCOs, and COOs across Revenue at Scale and Strategic Account Orchestration models. The work spans signal architecture, agent orchestration, MCP server integration, and the operating model that runs them. Featured engagements include Xerox, University of Guam, and Docgility.

    See how the framework is implemented in engagements →

    Where We're Going

    We develop the strategy. We deliver the build.

    Hawksmoor is an AI-native services firm. Today, we develop the GTM strategy and deliver the architecture that turns AI tools into revenue. Both. From the same team. We design the system, build it, run it through deployment, and stay long enough for it to compound.

    Tomorrow, the delivery model sharpens. The firm evolves toward services-as-software: outcomes delivered through Hawksmoor-architected systems your team operates. The methodology stays the same. The technology matures around it.

    Why We're Built This Way

    Why Hawksmoor.

    01

    The Hawk's Vision

    Strategy from altitude. Execution at ground level. We see your entire GTM before we act, then dive with precision to the signal that matters most.

    02

    The Oxford Architect

    Nicholas Hawksmoor designed two of Oxford's most iconic structures. His work fused bold vision with meticulous craft. We carry the same spirit: architectures that endure, built with precision and purpose.

    The Mission

    We've always believed in the underdog.

    AI should multiply human capability. Hawksmoor exists so it does, for every revenue team and the people running them.

    Six audiences. One reason we exist for each.

    For CMOs

    Marketing has spent a decade defending its value with metrics that don't hold up. That era is ending. Signal Integrity gives marketing the measurement framework to prove what it drives, in revenue terms a CFO will accept.

    For CROs

    Sales deserves a marketing engine that compounds pipeline. Not a service desk arguing about MQLs. When sales and marketing share the same Signal Integrity standard, the handoff disappears. So does the lost quarter that follows every leadership transition.

    For CEOs

    Boards want growth from generative tools. The systems underneath were never designed to produce it. Hawksmoor builds the architecture that turns AI tooling into compounding revenue. The kind a CEO can defend on a Tuesday morning earnings call.

    For CCOs

    Customers deserve to feel seen across every interaction. They shouldn't get passed between teams who've never shared a note, then sent outreach that contradicts yesterday's message. Signal Integrity is what holds the customer experience together.

    For the people doing the work

    AI isn't replacing people. People who understand AI will replace people who don't. We build the training and frameworks for teams to operate what leadership envisions, with the confidence to push back when the model is wrong.

    For women and girls

    Women and girls should lead this shift, not follow it. Every engagement and every keynote is shaped by the belief that the people closest to the problem are the ones who should architect the solution.

    Strategic. Persistent. Resilient. That's how we've built every company, every category, every comeback.

    Strategy without execution is theater.

    Signal Integrity changes that.

    Start with clarity. Take the GTM Assessment.

    Take the GTM AssessmentOr explore How We Work →