Nicholas Tangborn is a fractional marketing and operations executive who helps companies build the systems they need to grow — usually by stepping into ambiguous, fast-moving environments and creating structure, momentum, and results.
Specifically, he is an operator and strategist hired by companies to build marketing engines, scale content operations, and launch products across digital media, entertainment, streaming, CPG, and AI. He brings more than 25 years of experience turning early-stage ideas into functioning businesses.
Currently, Nicholas serves as Head of Marketing at Hall Donovan, a risk assessment consultancy staffed by former CIA, White House, and military intelligence professionals. He also directs content operations for Rockbot, a B2B entertainment platform serving 44,000+ locations, and advises clients through his consultancy, Tangborn Digital Media.
Prior to his consulting work, Nicholas co-founded and served as CEO of Otter Network, a live-streaming technology company with a patented multi-camera platform, where he raised capital, secured grants from Google and Amazon, and signed global brands including Lamborghini and Austin City Limits Live. Earlier, as COO of Batter Blaster, he scaled an organic CPG product to 11,000+ retail locations including Walmart, Whole Foods, and HEB, earning both the GMA Award for Innovation and Creativity and a Guinness World Record.
Nicholas's career in digital media includes leadership roles at BitTorrent, CNET, and Napster/Rhapsody, where he managed teams of up to 45, launched award-winning products, and helped pioneer legal music streaming as the first employee at Listen.com. He holds a patent for real-time multimedia switching (US 10904590).
He is also the founder of Ghost Guide (ghostguide.co), a curated streaming discovery platform featuring 13,000+ horror and sci-fi titles, built from scratch using AI-assisted development tools — a proof of concept for what a single operator with the right technology can ship. He writes about genre cinema and technology at his Substack, Ghosts in the Machine.
Nicholas lives in Austin, Texas. To discuss fractional engagements or other opportunities, reach him at nick@graylinegroup.com.