Business Growth Strategies For CEOs: Top CMOs On Marketing Strategy Implementations

Sarah Polk

With deep senior level management and marketing expertise, Sarah leads businesses through international expansion initiatives, difficult transitions, mergers, acquisitions, and turnarounds. Adept at recognizing growth opportunities, strategic positioning, creative conceptualization, new product launches, and brand management, she builds and expands extensive marketing departments to maximize ROI and shareholder value. Also skilled at product marketing, she works with engineering teams to craft products that meet the market's needs. With an ability to inspire and lead cross-functional global teams, Sarah builds productive, long-lasting business relationships.

Why the CEO-Led Growth Model Breaks at Scale

Tue, Feb 10, 2026 | Posted by The Chief Outsider

Series Overview

As companies grow, GTM breakdowns rarely show up as sudden failures. They emerge as friction. Progress slows, pipelines become less predictable, and confidence in forecasts declines, even as teams work harder and act with good intent. Written from both the marketing and sales lens, this six-part series, Building a Unified GTM Operating Model, explores why scale exposes weaknesses in informal GTM systems and how an intentional operating model restores clarity, alignment, and scalable growth.

Executive Takeaways

CEO-led, informal GTM models break predictably as scale introduces complexity.
Early GTM failure shows up as friction, not collapse.
Sales–marketing misalignment is a structural issue, not a performance problem.
A unified GTM operating model is required to restore growth, confidence, and value.

Read More

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Positioning for Explosive Growth: A CEO’s Guide To Enthusiastic Leadership - Part Six

Mon, Mar 22, 2021 — Creating Like No Other There’s no body part more popular these days than the human eyeball. Marketers invest millions of dollars in a competition for its attention; technology companies plunk down billions in development costs to wow it with the latest devices and apps; and content creators seek to create visually appealing potions with just the right amount of sizzle to keep it pointed in their direction. This never-ending bid for eyeball-inducing superiority has created a crowded, cacophonous landscape unlike anything we’ve ever seen. For businesses, we must find a way to elbow and muscle aside competitive interests and earn an interested gaze that could, with a little luck, lead to buying behavior.

Positioning for Explosive Growth: A CEO’s Guide To Enthusiastic Leadership - Part Seven

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Positioning for Explosive Growth: A CEO’s Guide To Enthusiastic Leadership - Part Eight

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Positioning for Explosive Growth: A CEO’s Guide To Enthusiastic Leadership - Part Three

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Positioning for Explosive Growth: A CEO’s Guide To Enthusiastic Leadership: Part Two

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Positioning for Explosive Growth: A CEO’s Guide To Enthusiastic Leadership

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