Intellectual honesty.
We tell you what we see — not what’s easy to hear. Clear eyes on the market, the work, and the odds.
About
Eudai helps companies find their next growth engine — and build what it takes to capture it.
Marketing & Product Executive. Strategic Advisor. Board Director. Founder.
Paula Fontana works at the intersection of market opportunity, commercial strategy, and emerging technology. With more than a decade of leadership in security and resilience, she has helped companies define new categories, bring complex offerings to market, and build the strategies and capabilities required for growth.
The practice
Market intelligence, strategy, and execution, led by people who’ve built businesses and created categories.
Eudai (pronounced you-DAY) is about reaching your highest potential as an organization. We work where risk and innovation meet: with organizations and founders identifying and pursuing new opportunities, and with the executives whose experience and capabilities help bring those opportunities to life.
Paula’s leadership in marketing has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and recognized through industry awards including the Elite 18 CMO and Fearless 50 Marketing Leadership Awards. The companies we have worked with have earned recognition of their own along the way — Fusion named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant and a Leader in The Forrester Wave, iluminr named a Gartner Cool Vendor and cited in the Gartner Hype Cycle three years running, and Product10x named to TIME’s America’s Best Incubators & Accelerators 2026, among others.
Whether launching new categories, navigating rapid change, or transforming complex industries, we thrive on turning potential into progress. Beyond her professional work, Paula finds adventure and fulfillment in the outdoors, the arts, and philanthropic causes in education.
A Chicago native, she brings a values-driven approach and relentless pursuit of innovation to every challenge — constantly pushing boundaries to help people, teams, and organizations reach their fullest potential.
The story
How Eudai started.
Paula left her full-time CMO post in 2025 because she saw how AI was reshaping the future of work — and she wanted to be an early adopter, not a late observer. So she did something deliberate: she dove into the work first. A different kind of launch — proving the model inside real engagements before aligning on the company Eudai was becoming.
The market answered the question for her. Over that time, more than 90% of our work came from risk, security, and the investor community — and a bigger pattern came into focus: the convergence of security and innovation. One requires the other. You can’t innovate responsibly without securing it, and you can’t secure what you don’t innovate. Inside almost every organization, there are people who need help championing both.
That’s the work now. We’ve presented around the world — helping leaders traverse commercial disruption and adopt AI responsibly, with a lens for creating real value for every stakeholder. Paula also serves on the Private Directors Association’s Research & Standards Committee and its AI Governance Task Force — helping shape how boards govern AI itself.
Presented at
SnowflakeBaker McKenzieBDOGrant ThorntonHaynes Boone+ many more
What we believe
The values behind the work.
Reach the highest potential.
Eudai means flourishing. We exist to turn an organization’s potential into progress — for the team, the market, and the people it protects.
Built for disruption.
Perfect plans don’t survive contact with this market. We help companies adapt continuously instead of waiting for certainty.
Security and innovation are one.
You can’t innovate responsibly without securing it, and you can’t secure what you don’t innovate. We work at the convergence.
Responsible by default.
We help organizations adopt AI responsibly — with a lens for creating real value for every stakeholder.
Operators, not vendors.
Everyone on an engagement has shipped in the category. We sit beside you as peers, not as a supplier on a call.
Recognition
Awards, talks, and the work that earned them.
Fusion Risk Management · business continuity management program solutions · fourth consecutive time
Fusion Risk Management · business continuity management software · Q2 2021
Influitive · customer-led CMOs, judged by a panel of six B2B executives
Influitive · marketing leaders pushing the boundaries of customer marketing and advocacy
Featured in WSJ
The Wall Street Journal · venture marketing
iluminr · sourcing and procurement technology · 2023
Product10x · 2026 · Chief Storyteller
Speaker
Silicon Valley AI Hub, Private Directors Association
Board Director
iluminr
The network
Eudai is a studio of operators, not a generalist agency.
Paula leads every engagement, joined by a curated ecosystem of risk and security leaders, founders, designers, and writers who bring depth to the work. The right people, assembled around your brief — not a vendor stretching to cover a category they don't speak.
Building the next generation of CMOs for this market — see the Chief Uncharted Officer role →