I’m going write out how to work with me. That means how I think, how I lead, what I need, and what you can count on from me.
I’m human, I will no doubt contradict myself here and there.
If something here surprises you, well…yeah.
Worldview
Work is a job. Nobody lies on their deathbed wishing they’d worked more. Most overwork isn’t a sign of commitment — it’s a symptom of bad planning, an inability to say no, or a HIPPO (highest-paid person in the room) who decided something was urgent. There are very few things in marketing that are so time sensitive you need to miss your kids’ soccer game.
Employees quit because of their managers. Managing is hard because it’s not deterministic. It requires empathy. No OKR framework, no performance review cycle, no all-hands culture deck is going to manufacture empathy in someone who isn’t exercising it.
The person you hired six months ago is not the same person sitting across from you today. Their priorities have shifted. Kids, parents, changed ambitions, work dynamic that has worn them down. Good management adapts to that. People aren’t static.
Good work has two axes: the outcomes it produces and the experience of doing it. You can make a lot of money selling sub-prime mortgages. That doesn’t make it good work. You can also produce genuinely excellent work that gets killed by a committee of people who can’t tell you what the 4 Ps are. Both failures are real. Each person has to decide which quadrant they can or want to live in.
Failure is data, not identity. Marketing is not a deterministic field no matter how much data you have. Be honest when things don’t work. That’s the only way to actually learn from them.
Finally, because it matters for reading everything that follows: everyone is winging it. Including me. Managers and executives project confidence. Internally, most of them have imposter syndrome like you do. I am doing the same thing in this document.
The Arc
I’ve had three careers: software engineer, running agencies, marketing leader.
I left engineering when the hard problems were solved. I’d been part of taking a monolithic SaaS enterprise platform to a distributed architecture. I enjoyed the work. Then we got bought by a much bigger company. There was a lot of corporate politics and waiting around for internal approval to build things that obviously needed to be built. I was too immature at that point and thought I wasn’t built for that.
I loved agency life. Working with startups to Fortune 500, every sector, every kind of problem. It was exhausting and educational in roughly equal measure. After that, I wanted to go deep in high-velocity technology: first blockchain, then AI. Turns out they have the same fundamental problems as every other business. Just faster, and with more hype.
The throughline across all of it: it’s never a technology problem. It’s always a people problem.
What my engineering background gives me that a pure marketing background doesn’t: I’ve built products and services, from architecting them to writing all the nitty gritty code. When I’m marketing something, I actually know what the product / service does, what it can’t do, and what problem it really solves. I don’t need product or engineering to translate it for me. I can connect what the product is to what the customer actually needs.
Technical people usually understand what their product does but can’t figure out how to communicate it. Saying its the Uber of whatever isn’t enough. Marketing people can communicate but often don’t understand the product deeply enough. I sit at that intersection. And this doesn’t just apply to tech — marketing an accounting firm or a healthcare platform requires the same kind of depth.
7%: Google — the biggest advertising company in history, with more data on human behavior than any organization that has ever existed, averages a CTR of 7% on ads. In almost no other profession does succeeding 7% of the time make you average. Marketing is harder than it looks from the outside.
What I Do (and Don’t Do)
In a nutshell:
- Gather information
- Share information
- Make decisions
- Influence decisions
- Lead execution
- Plan
A great week looks like this: I’ve cleared the roadblocks that are holding up my team, whether it’s some other department isn’t responding, unsure what to do with vague stakeholder feedback, get the approval that’s sitting in someone’s inbox. A great week means calling out great work publicly. A great works means connecting marketing results to revenue in a way the rest of the company can see. And at least one person on my team took on something they couldn’t have done three months ago.
That’s the job.
I am not an individual contributor. If you’re hiring someone to be deep writing ads or monitoring daily ad performance, I’m not it. At this point in my my career, my strengths are strategy, team building, and leading execution.
I am a strong editor because I’ve developed taste (at least some people say so, and no, not just my mom). I can tell you if something works or doesn’t and what should change. But editing is not the same as writing. When I provide feedback, I explain the reasoning so it can executed better next time.
80% of my time is at 50,000 feet. This is work usually across the company. For instance market positioning, making sure we are aligned with other departments, like sales and product/engineering, identifying which mountain we’re taking on. 20% is quality control: reading final copy, reviewing a UX flow, sitting in on a sales call. I am not in the weeds all the time. That’s intentional.
You always need to hire the right person for the right phase of the company.
How I Lead
Building the team
Start a team with two anchors: analytical and creative, who must be able to work together.
I think in terms of roles: idea generators, idea checkers (can we actually execute the ideas?), coordinators (keep everything on schedule), implementers (step-by-step builders), pushers (driven, take it across the finish line), perfectionists (QA). These are roles, not people. Most people can take on two or three of the roles. But all roles need to be filled, or things break down.
I want π-shaped (pi) people, meaning contributors who have broad knowledge across marketing, deep in two areas. If someone is T-shaped, they must be willing to learn more.
I need people who can admit mistakes. That allows for accountability, which leads to ownership.
Developing people
I work wth team members to map their strengths and weaknesses. Then they need to decide which direction to go: ether double down on strengths or invest in making weaknesses less of a liability. Either is valid, it’s their call. We also work on where they want their career to go and we build a plan for it. That’s not an annual review conversation it’s an ongoing one.
Handoffs
When I give the team a mission, including the what, why, definition of success, budget, timeline, the team has 48-72 hours to come back with a plan. After that, the team owns it. I’m not micromanaging the how.
A bad handoff is vague, no budget, no priority adjustment against your existing work, no clarity on what completion looks like. If I’ve handed you something and you’re not sure what success looks like, ask before the planning time is up.
Protecting the team
Everyone in a company thinks they understand marketing. They don’t, but they will feel free to provide their opinions, or worse, direct the work. My job is to stop that from happening and make sure none of that takes up any resources.
Sometimes I will get peer requests that compete with current priorities: I ask them which existing project they’d like us to pause. Drive-by requests? No. Fill out a brief, defining the target audience, goal, required metrics, deadline. Executive requests? I put the existing agreed-upon goals and trade-offs in front of them. “Redesign the website? That’s a month of marketing and engineering time. We won’t hit our current targets. Still want to proceed?”
How I Work
Remote preferred, hybrid if necessary. I’m an introvert, meaning being around people constantly is draining, not energizing. I need time to recharge. I’m ok with sync for decisions and 1:1s. Async for everything else.
(Being around people means virtual meetings or in the office.)
How I make decisions:
Here are questions I ask: Does this align with our revenue goals? Does it elevate the brand? Does it support what we’re already working on? What’s the cost of doing nothing? What’s the opportunity cost? What happens if we fail? Who are the stakeholders influencing the decision?
I try to balance short, medium, and long-term. If you all you are thinking about is short term KPIs, I’m not your guy.
I don’t fix symptoms until I’ve identified what’s actually causing them. Basically, I do root cause analysis, asking why until we hit the real issue. Then I look at data and the context. Numbers alone miss nuance. I look at quantitative and qualitative feedback from teams and customers to fully diagnose the problem.
One thing that matters more than any framework: I need commitment, not compliance. People who agree in the room and then quietly work around the decision are a bigger problem than people who push back loudly even if for no good reason.
What gives me energy? Whiteboarding a strategy from scratch. Watching someone on the team have an aha moment. Hitting a number we aimed at.
What depletes me? Back-to-back meetings with no buffer. Meetings that could have been an email. People bringing me problems without having thought through a solution. Committees providing feedback on creative work without domain expertise.
Working With Me
How to reach me
If urgent, call. Do not send a text or Slack message. C-A-L-L.
If non-urgent, email. Follow the Bottom Line Up Front rule. Don’t send me a “Hi, do you have a sec?” Send me a “Need your approval on X. Context is Y. Recommending Z. Okay to proceed?” Give me something I can answer with a yes or a thumbs-up emoji between meetings.
If complex, book 30 minutes. Never send a blank calendar invite. Include a clear objective in the description and a document stating the problem and possible solutions. I want to spend our meeting discussing the solutions, not looking at slide deck.
1:1s
Tell me where are you stuck? Whose buy-in do you need that you can’t seem to get?
If you have a thorny problem, bring your proposed solution. Even if it’s wrong, it shows me how you think.
I’ll always try to provide the following, first, macro context. I connect your day-to-day work to what’s happening at the executive level. You should never be operating in the dark about why the business is doing what it’s doing. Second, I provide air cover. I’ll tell you where I’m absorbing pressure from the rest of the executive team so you can stay focused on the work. Finally, career direction. We regularly zoom out from the daily grind. What skills do you need to take next step in your career goals?
Feedback I give
I try to praise in public. I will always critique in private. My feedback will be direct and specific. Any negative feedback is verbal first. If it’s a pattern that needs to be addressed, I follow up with an email and agreed-upon next steps.
Feedback I want
Give it to me straight and be specific. Vague feedback is unactionable. Give me a specific instance so I can quickly identify the issue and determine what to do about it.
From peers in other departments: raw, swift, focused on business outcomes. Tell me over coffee before it becomes a slide in a board deck.
Here is a list of what not to do. First, no passive aggressive behavior or back-channeling. If you have a problem with me, come to me. Don’t let me hear it through the HR grapevine or from another executive. Second, don’t hold on to grievances. If I did something that frustrated you in January and you bring it up in May, it’s useless to both of us. Third, don’t assume malice. Assume positive intent, we are all trying to do our best. If we start from “that was an honest mistake,” not an intentional personal attack, we can solve almost anything in 15 minutes.
What I Need From You
Ownership means owning the outcome, not the activity. If someone is responisble for managing digital ads and the ad platform crashes, show me how resources were moved to a different channel and made progress toward our goals anyway. Ownership is what you do when the plan breaks, not how well you follow the plan when everything works.
Do not surprise me. Get ahead of bad news. Let me know early so we can diagnose and find solutions together. If you bring me a problem I should have known about two weeks ago, I’ll tell you not to wait so long. The second time, it becomes a conversation about fit.
Don’t add to my cognitive load. Your job is to distill, synthesize, formulate a recommendation, and present me with a choice. My job is not to sift through raw information and interpret it.
What Doesn’t Work
Don’t kiss my ass. Don’t throw people under the bus. Don’t lie about results, timelines, or what happened. Failure is part of marketing. Like I’ve mentioned before, marketing is not a deterministic field no matter how much data you have. Be honest when things don’t work.
In meetings, don’t talk a lot to appear engaged. Don’t ask generic questions that could apply to any situation. Don’t take us down tactical rabbit holes that pull a strategic conversation into the weeds.
Lots of people mix up what strategy is. “Increase pipeline by 30%” is an outcome, not a strategy. I want the what, when, where, how. What are the painful trade-offs? Which exising priorities need to be shuffled? Don’t jump to channels and tactics before answering why. “We should start a podcast.” Why? What unique market position are we claiming? Who is the audience? What lever are we pulling? Channels are answers to those questions, not substitutes for them.
Here are some culture red flags I screen for. First, ommittee decision-making. Second, HIPPO culture, where the highest-paid person in the room decides, regardless of domain expertise. Third, lots of performative hustle, valuing activity over outcomes, visibility over results.
I will ask about these during a conversation about any gig.
What You Can Count On
You will always know what is expected of you.
You will have the materials and equipment to do your work right.
You will have the opportunity to do your best work every day.
Your opinions will be heard and considered. You will have the psychological safety to state your opinions and thoughts, ask for help, give feedback, talk about the good and bad.
I will always support your development, to learn and grow, take the next step in your career.
I will always distribute credit. If your idea worked, the company will know it was yours.
I’ll fight for your budget and compensation. That’s not your problem to solve upward — it’s mine.
I always will tell you the why behind your work. You’ll always know how what you’re doing connects to what the business is trying to achieve.
I will never track what hours you’re working or if you are coming into the office enough. You’re a damn adult.
What do people who’ve worked with me tend to say about me? I provide honest feedback. I am genuinely invested in your growth. I clear the path so you can do your best work.
Unfortunately, they might also say I move too fast. I may push team members to take on more responsibility before they feel ready. If you want a manager who waits until you’re 100% comfortable before giving you more responsibility, that’s not me. I will push. Underneath that push is that I believe you can do it before you do.
The Bottom Line: Built for the Build
If you’ve read this far, you already have all the pieces. Let me put it all together.
I left engineering when the hard problems were solved. I loved agency life because the problems never stopped changing. I spend 80% of my time at 50,000 feet, I hand off missions for planning and execution, and I deliberately hire pushers and perfectionists…people who are better at finishing than I am. Whiteboarding a strategy from scratch, determining what hill to conquer, gives me energy. Babysitting a solved problem drains it.
These are not quirks. Those are my stregths. I’m a builder, taking marketing from zero to one, broken to working. And broken doesn’t always look broken. Sometimes it’s marketing that still hits the target numbers while the market is moving on or changing directors… status quo on a treadmill that’s speeding up or moving on. If your marketing’s biggest achievement lately is staying exactly where it is or just a smidge more, that’s not stability. That’s an early sign of decline.
Right person, right phase.
What you get from me isn’t a leader who starts things and wanders off. It’s the opposite. Everything about how I lead exists so marketing runs without me. The handoff is the deliverable: a team that owns the machine, a playbook they don’t need me to read to them, operators bringing it home. If it still needs me deep in the minutiae two years in, I have built it wrong.
Starting something new, fixing something broken, or running hard just to stay in place? That’s my phase. Let’s talk.