The Conversation CEOs Should Be Having About Growth Leadership

By: Ani Matson, Lisa Bratkovich, & Jennifer Welch, The CMO Syndicate

You didn’t set out to rethink your leadership model. You set out to solve a growth problem.

But at some point, you started to notice the pattern:

• Investment increased
• Activity increased
• Complexity increased

But clarity didn’t. So the question changes.

Not: “Do we need more marketing?”

But: “Do we have the right thinking on how to lead growth?”

The Conversation You Should Be Having

What problem are you actually trying to solve? It’s probably not effort.

You likely have:

• Strong teams
• Real investment
• Access to data, tools, and AI

And still, growth feels harder than it should. That’s your signal. The issue isn’t activity. It’s how growth is structured, owned, and led. When that’s unclear, everything else starts to fragment.

Is your leadership model keeping up with how growth actually works?

Most leadership structures we see were built for a different environment.

One where:

• Strategy was set annually (does that resonate?)
• Teams operated independently
• Execution followed a predictable path

That’s not the environment you’re operating in anymore. Today, growth is dynamic.

By that we mean, it cuts across:

• Marketing
• Sales
• Product
• Data
• AI

If your leadership model isn’t designed to integrate those, friction isn’t a surprise. It’s inevitable. We’ve always been told silos aren’t helpful, but yet, we continue to build teams like this.

Are you solving for capability or structure?

We get calls because this is where most CEOs get stuck.

You ask:

• Do we have the right people?
• The right tools?
• The right partners?

But the better question is: “Is our model designed for how growth actually happens today?”

Because if it’s not, every new investment adds complexity faster than it adds clarity.

What signals are you seeing but not naming?

You’ve probably felt it:

• Strategy lives in presentations, not in decisions
• Teams move quickly, but not in the same direction
• Priorities shift, but nothing fully resolves
• AI and data are advancing faster than your ability to act on them

From the outside, things look active. Internally, they feel harder than they should. That’s not random. It’s structural.

Where does leadership actually need to change?

The good news: this isn’t about adding more marketing. It’s about changing how growth is led. In some cases, that means building new capability internally.

In others, it means bringing in experienced leadership to:

• Align the system
• Clarify how growth actually works
• And create traction before scaling it

Not as an extra layer. But as a way to make everything else work.

CEO Gut Check

• Is your leadership model helping decisions move faster or slowing them down?
• Are your teams aligned on how growth actually happens?
• Are you adding resources, or improving the system those resources operate within?

You don’t feel this because you’re missing something obvious. You feel it because your business has evolved, and your leadership model hasn’t caught up.

And until it does, growth won’t break. But it will keep feeling harder than it should.

Growth Leadership FAQ for CEOs

1. Why does growth feel harder even with strong teams, data, and investment? Because complexity has increased, but clarity hasn’t. When growth isn’t aligned across teams, more activity creates friction instead of progress, making results harder to achieve despite higher investment.

2. How can I tell if this is a marketing problem or a growth leadership problem?
Marketing problems show up in execution, like poor campaigns or weak conversion. Growth leadership problems show up in misalignment, slow decisions, and teams moving in different directions despite strong activity.

3. What is a growth leadership model?
A growth leadership model defines how a company structures, aligns, and leads growth across marketing, sales, product, data, and AI to drive consistent, measurable revenue outcomes.

4. When should a company rethink its growth leadership model?
A company should rethink its growth leadership model when investment and activity are increasing, but alignment, speed, and revenue clarity are not. This often shows up as disconnected teams, shifting priorities, and slower decision-making as the business scales. 

5. When should a company bring in external growth leadership advisory?
A company should bring in external growth leadership advisory when growth becomes harder to achieve despite increased investment, strong teams, and access to modern tools like data and AI.

This typically happens when the issue is not effort or talent, but how growth is structured and led across the organization.

Common signals include:

• Marketing activity is high, but revenue impact is unclear
• Sales, marketing, and product teams are not aligned on priorities
• Strategy exists, but does not translate into consistent execution
• Investment in tools, data, or AI is increasing complexity without improving outcomes
• Leadership teams are making decisions more slowly as the business scales
  

External growth leadership is most effective when a company needs to:

• Align cross-functional teams around a single growth model
• Clarify how marketing translates into revenue and financial outcomes
• Identify structural gaps that internal teams may not see
• Create traction quickly before committing to long-term hires or transformation

Rather than adding another layer of management, external advisors provide experienced, objective leadership that connects strategy, execution, and accountability—helping the organization move faster with greater clarity.

The CMO Syndicate
Trusted by CEOs who understand that speed, insight, and execution, not certainty, define market leadership.

📩 Contact us here to learn more.

About the Authors

Ani Matson
Partner, The CMO Syndicate
Ani has extensive strategic marketing expertise. Before becoming a Founding Partner of The CMO Syndicate, she enjoyed a twenty-year career in a broad range of leadership positions that cut across marketing strategy, digital transformation, and data analytics.

Ani is a seasoned professional with current clients in the telecom, insurance, and biotechnology sectors. She has held executive positions at prestigious organizations such as the National Education Association’s Member Benefits Corporation and S&P Global’s Aviation Week Group.

Lisa Bratkovich
Partner, The CMO Syndicate
Lisa is an accomplished Chief Marketing Officer known for driving significant growth for e-commerce, direct-to- consumer, and omnichannel CPG brands. With an over 30-year track record of proven results, Lisa works with CEOS and CMOs to unlock revenue and profit for large-cap to early-stage start-up brands.

She has led the launch, optimization, and scale for many brands and is also an expert in subscription business models, DRTV, and celebrity-based brands. With her P&L, general management, and AI-focused experience, Lisa also helps companies better monetize their marketing efforts and internal expenditures.

Jennifer Welch
Partner, The CMO Syndicate
Jennifer Layne Welch is a growth architect for ambitious businesses. With 30+ years of experience, she helps companies scale faster, align smarter, and market with purpose. Her superpower: turning brand and marketing into a commercial growth engine.

Jennifer advises founders, C-suites, and PE-backed teams on how to move from reactive tactics to strategic systems. She brings clarity to the chaos—building marketing functions that drive revenue, elevate reputation, and accelerate results. Before co-founding The CMO Syndicate, Jennifer spent two decades inside one of the world’s largest companies—earning global leadership roles and building brands from the inside out. She now brings that enterprise rigor to scaling businesses across sectors.