LinkedIn Engagement Intelligence

Jay Gaines

Founder & Principal, Gaines & Company · Former CMO, SiriusDecisions & Forrester

Who engaged with
Jay Gaines’s launch

253 reactions from CMOs, GTM executives, and sustainability-tech leaders — a concentrated C-suite audience that showed up for Jay’s announcement post and booked time to talk. Nearly half of his engagers are founders, C-suite, or VP-level, with his former Worldly leadership team and a Forrester/SiriusDecisions alumni cluster leading the response.

Explore the Post → View Stats ↓

250 engagers profiled · 1 post · Data collected August 13, 2026

Reactions

253

Comments

Praise Rate

19%

REACTION MIX

45 Minute Meeting With Jay

253 likes

Launch + Calendly CTA

56 comments

Worldly & Forrester clusters

48% C-suite

Content Analysis

One post. One clear offer. A wall of execs showed up.

Jay Gaines’s “45 Minute Meeting With Jay” post — the launch of his new firm, Gaines & Company — drew 253 reactions and 56 comments in its first week. The post is a masterclass in the launch-plus-CTA format: a personal announcement, a direct Calendly booking link, and zero friction between signal and meeting.

45 Minute Meeting With Jay — Gaines & Company launch announcement

Announcement Direct Calendly CTA Career Launch

Published August 2026 · Booking link: calendly.com/jay-gaines/45min · Engagers: 250 profiled

253

reactions · 56 comments

🚀

Launch with a literal call to action

The “next chapter” announcement pairs directly with a 45-minute Calendly booking link — no gated content, no “DM me.” Commenters signaled real intent: “I’ll DM you, looking forward to your next stage.”

🤝

Trust transfers from two decades of CMO roles

SiriusDecisions and Forrester alumni plus Worldly teammates reacted en masse. Comment threads reference shared history — “We met when you were at Sirius… I remain a fan.” That trust shows up as a 19% praise rate.

🎯

A precisely aimed audience

The 250 engagers skew C-suite (48%) and marketing/GTM (~59% combined) — exactly the B2B CMOs, CEOs, and PE operators Gaines & Company advises. The post didn’t just perform; it performed in front of the right buyers.

Network Intelligence

The people who showed up for Jay

Jay spent his career as a CMO inside the analyst and sustainability-tech worlds — SiriusDecisions, Forrester, and Worldly. This post’s engagement is a live map of that network: Worldly’s leadership bench, a 14-person Forrester/SiriusDecisions alumni cluster, and a dense crowd of sitting and fractional CMOs.

🏢

Worldly’s leadership bench reacted as a team

CEO Scott Raskin, CRO Adele Stafford, CTO John Armstrong, and VP Marketing Jen Brown all engaged — a 10-person Worldly cluster in total. A former employer’s senior team publicly blessing the founder’s next act is the strongest endorsement a launch post can get.

📊

Forrester & SiriusDecisions alumni came out

14 engagers from the analyst world — sitting analysts and account directors (Kathleen Pierce, Jessie Johnson, Barry Vasudevan, Jon Plant) plus alumni now running their own advisory firms (Alan Gonsenhauser, Phil Harrell, Joe Ort, Mike Pregler).

👔

A crowd of sitting and fractional CMOs

25+ CMOs, CMO coaches, and fractional CMOs in the reaction list — from sitting CMOs (Jonathan Tam at EMARKETER, Michael Ciancio at Expert Institute) to operators like Norman Guadagno, Jessica Vogol, and Brandon Redlinger. His peer group validated the launch.

❤️

A 19% praise rate — a genuine send-off

47 of 250 captured reactions are PRAISE — peers and former colleagues celebrating the move. LinkedIn B2B posts typically see low single-digit praise; 19% signals real warmth, not passive scrolling.

Audience Intelligence

Who is Jay’s audience — and do they fit your ICP?

Jay Gaines advises B2B CMOs, CEOs, and PE operators on GTM strategy, marketing organization design, and operating models. If that is your buyer too — or you sell to marketing leadership, GTM tooling, or sustainability-tech — this audience is a near-perfect match.

90%

ICP Match

~90% of engagers sit inside Jay’s ICP

Half the audience is C-suite, founder, VP, or director level; 59% work in marketing or GTM; and the density of sitting CMOs, fractional CMOs, and PE-adjacent operators is exceptional. The post also pulled his former Worldly team and a Forrester/SiriusDecisions alumni cluster — high-trust, high-intent engagers who convert disproportionately well to meetings.

B2B CMOs & VPs Marketing GTM & Revenue Execs Fractional CMO Advisors Founders & PE Operators Sustainability-Tech Leaders Analyst-World Alumni

🎖️

Seniority (250 profiled)

C-Suite/Founder

34%

VP/Head

Director

Manager/Lead

IC/Specialist

13%

Undisclosed

29%

🏭

Function / Role Focus

Marketing

44%

Sales/GTM

15%

Product/Tech

12%

Sustainability

Exec/Founder

Other (HR/CX/Fin)

17%

👥

Network Clusters (counts)

CMOs & Advisors

Forrester/Sirius

Worldly Team

Founders/CEOs

GTM/RevOps

Other/Undisclosed

148

Engagement Breakdown

How Jay’s audience reacted

PRAISE at 19% is the tell: this is a send-off post. Former colleagues, analysts, and peers didn’t just like it — they celebrated it. The captured set also includes 1 INTEREST reaction (0.4%) and zero negative reactions.

👍

70% of captured reactions

👏

Praise

19% — unusually high

❤️

Empathy

7% of captured reactions

🎉

Appreciation

3% of captured reactions

What This Data Tells You

Three signals worth acting on

📞

The Calendly link IS the strategy

The entire post funnels to a 45-minute booking link. In its first week it drew 253 reactions and 56 comments from exactly the buyers Gaines & Company targets. For anyone selling to marketing or GTM leadership, these 250 engagers are a live, pre-warmed prospect list — the kind of list SignalScout exists to rank and score.

🏢

Former employers are his distribution engine

Worldly’s CEO, CRO, CTO, and VP Marketing all engaged within days of the post; the Forrester/SiriusDecisions alumni network added 14 more. Two decades of CMO roles compound into organic reach no agency can buy — and it’s a repeatable template for any executive launching a firm.

🤝

The comment thread is warmer than the likes

Captured comments carry direct intent: “I’ll DM you, looking forward to your next stage” and “learned so much working with you at Worldly — excited to follow along.” Commenters like these are first-week warm leads; the window to follow up is now, while the launch momentum is fresh.

Answers

The questions this report answers

Direct answers from the data in this report — the ones people search before they ask for an engagement analysis.

Who engaged with Jay Gaines' launch post?

253 reactions and 56 comments from 250 profiled people, on a single announcement post in August 2026. Nearly half the engagers are founders, C-suite or VP-level, and the response concentrated in two clusters: Jay's former Worldly leadership team and a Forrester and SiriusDecisions alumni group. For a founder relaunch, that is close to an ideal shape — the audience is senior, it already knows the person, and a 19% praise rate says the message landed rather than merely circulated.

What does a 19% praise rate mean?

It means roughly one in five reactions was an explicit endorsement rather than a like, which is unusually high for a launch post. Praise of that density tends to travel: people commenting with public approval are also the people most likely to forward the post into their own networks.

What can this report not tell you?

It is a single post, so it describes one moment rather than a pattern — a launch spike is not a content engine. It cannot tell you intent, budget or timing, and the 250 names are the profiled set, not everyone who saw the post. Use it as a map of who already trusts Jay, not as a demand signal.

Who engaged withJay Gaines’s launch