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.

Outsider Insights | What We’re Hearing from CEOs Right Now — And Why AI Keeps Coming Up

Wed, Mar 18, 2026 | Posted by Dawn Werry

Outsider Insights

Across Chief Outsiders, we talk to hundreds of CEOs every month. In this series, we explore the trends and challenges we’re hearing from these discussions – and what you can do if you’re facing the same issues in your business.

Executive Takeaways

AI accelerates clarity. It doesn’t fix broken data.
Speed to confident decisions is the real competitive edge.
Shared definitions matter more than more dashboards..
Governance comes before automation, alignment before acceleration.

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

Mon, Mar 29, 2021 — Hiring Talent and Setting Them Free It is highly unlikely that the New England Patriots of the NFL would have won so many championships if they kept quarterback Tom Brady on the bench. The NBA’s Chicago Bulls would likely have been a perennial loser if Air Jordan was grounded on the sidelines. Fortunately for these players and their fans, rather than being threatened by their greatness, their coaches put their own egos aside, embraced their excellence, and got out of their way.

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

Mon, Mar 15, 2021 — Measure, Measure, Measure There are many things in our life that would fall flat if we opted not to use measurements: Everything from home construction to a load of laundry would be a bit off kilter if not for the rulers, cups, and spoons that allow us to be precise with our intentions. Strange that for several generations, then, that in the advertising and marketing arena, the only measurement used was in dollars and cents. Along the way, there would be creative campaigns, print ads, billboards, and radio commercials, with no means to really measure whether they were hitting the mark.

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

Thu, Mar 4, 2021 — Celebrating Success At a time when it seems that employee pay has been increasingly in the spotlight, there lies an interesting conundrum that might be just as shocking as it is contrarian. Money, it turns out, for today’s employee, isn’t everything. Though our present-day landscape is dotted with discussions about a K-shaped economic recovery from COVID-19, and the push for a $15 federally mandated minimum wage, it just so happens that there’s a lot more that motivates today’s employees besides the bi-weekly take-home check.

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

Thu, Nov 5, 2020 — Knowledge Is Power What’s holding you aloft in 2020? Whether or not you have cracked the code of 2020, most CEOs have spent the year snapping back to a changed reality. In our last blog, we looked at the importance of being engaged, insightful, and plugged in as the “table stakes” of leadership change in turbulent times. But all the engagement in the world is pointless if you don’t know the direction from which your headwinds and tailwinds are coming.

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

Thu, Oct 29, 2020 — The Four Inhibitors of Engaged Leadership Little known fact about ducks: Though they exude grace as they glide atop the water, ducks hide a little secret just below the surface. For all the poetry they project in our view, ducks are actually shuffling their feet quite quickly to achieve that silky-smooth movement. As a CEO, you know this bifurcated existence all too well. Though you are expected — nee, required — to display a semblance of outward calm, beneath this facade are the fears, insecurities, and realities that come with the job.

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

Fri, Oct 23, 2020 — In 2020 and beyond, the notion of leadership has been indelibly changed. No longer is it adequate to rule from 30,000 feet, to remain at arms lengths from strategies, and unable to touch tactics with a 10-foot pole. Leadership from a distance, in a time when distance is not just a suggestion, but a mandate, can strike a critical blow to a company that is already likely still trying to divine its direction in a pandemically-impacted landscape.

Growth Insights for CEOs