Nearly Half of Company Executive Leadership Now Women

HOUSTON, TX – November 18, 2022 – Chief Outsiders, the nation’s largest and fastest growing firm offering fractional Chief Marketing Officer services with Fortune 500 experience and which recently made the Inc 5000 list for the 9th year in a row, announced the appointment of three of its leading CMOs to the company’s executive leadership board. As a result, seven of the 15-member board seats are now comprised of women.  

"We’re very pleased to announce that we’ve promoted three prominent women who have significant experience in C-level marketing around the globe and have demonstrated a track record of stellar contributions to Chief Outsiders,” said Art Saxby, founder and co-principal of Chief Outsiders. “This new trio of rockstar leaders will join existing Managing Partners Karen Hayward, Clay Spitz, Slade Kobran, and David Vroom to ensure excellence in insights and delivery of top-notch marketing services for our rapidly expanding client base.” 

The new appointees are Deborah Fell, Managing Partner, Northeast, Paige Chadwick, Chief Learning Officer, and Sharon Spooler, Managing Partner, Midwest. 

Deborah joined the firm as CMO in 2015 and today focuses on helping client CEOs accelerate growth in their companies by matching the right CMO-level resource from the Chief Outsiders stellar roster with specific client goals and challenges. After six successful years as a fractional CMO with Chief Outsiders, Deborah was promoted to Area Managing Partner where she focused on developing the company’s presence in the Washington, DC area. Due to her success in that market, Deborah was promoted again after 18 months to lead the Northeast Region. An experienced CMO-level executive in her own right, Deborah previously worked at Marriott International and AT&T among other global brands. She earned her MBA from George Washington University School of Business. 

Paige, who hails from Phoenix, works with CEOs in fast-growing and established companies to exceed growth goals through customer insights, data-driven analyses and innovative marketing strategies. Before Chief Outsiders, Paige worked for KPMG US, International Banking Technologies, and AAA Arizona. She has a BS from the University of Texas, Austin. As Chief Learning Officer, Paige will continue to develop the company’s culture of learning and collaboration to enhance our CMO and client success, as well as leverage the knowledge and experience base of the entire team to ensure modern and effective solutions for clients.   

Sharon joined Chief Outsiders in 2015 as a fractional CMO and has worked with more than 25 clients across a very wide range of industries, both B2B and B2C. Known for her “data first” mentality, Sharon focuses on driving and measuring the ROI of marketing. Sharon was initially promoted to the leadership team in 2018 as the company’s first Area Managing Partner where she simultaneously worked with clients while developing the Southern California region for Chief Outsiders. In her new role as the Managing Partner of the Midwest, Sharon will use her broad background in business as well as leadership development and coaching training to match CEOs with fractional CMO talent that meets their revenue growth goals. This includes companies across a wide range of industries and scale from early stage through Fortune 1000 companies. Her background includes a BSE degree in Operations Research from Princeton University and work leading growth initiatives at both small and large companies including Wells Fargo, FICO, Capital One, and StraighterLine. 

Both Deborah and Sharon have consistently achieved the highest level of client satisfaction marks across their many clients and are both recipients of “top CMO” awards in the company.

“As an organization, Chief Outsiders has always had a culture of diversity. Our flexible model and opportunity to drive results at a variety of businesses appeals to world-class marketing executives. Demand for our services is increasing rapidly which has created a need to expand our leadership team and recognize the talent and success that these three women have achieved both during their tenure with Chief Outsiders and before joining our firm.” said Karen Hayward, Managing Partner, who has been a member of the company executive team since 2015. “We’ve more than doubled our CMO count by adding 65 new CMOs to our ranks in less than two years. This represents a more than 100% growth rate. And these new additions to our team will help deliver even more growth for both our firm and for our clients.” 

For more on Chief Outsiders’ executive leadership team, please click here. 

About Chief Outsiders

Chief Outsiders is the leading Fractional CMO firm that helps CEOs accelerate growth through the development and disciplined execution of well-crafted growth plans. The firm has more than 120 part-time, or fractional, Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) engaged from coast-to-coast. Unlike traditional marketing and management consulting firms, each CMO has held the position of VP Marketing or higher at one or more operating companies, including many Fortune 500 firms. Chief Outsiders CMOs have served on the executive team of more than 1,500 client companies, driving growth strategy and execution plans by offering instant access to talent with highly customized and flexible engagements.

Because of its market-based growth plans, quality of leadership, and experienced team, Chief Outsiders has been recognized for the past nine years by Inc. Magazine as one of the 5,000 fastest growing privately held companies in the US, and was recognized in 2019 as a Forbes Small Giant. Chief Outsiders’ CEO Art Saxby and Principal Pete Hayes are the co-authors of “The Growth Gears: Using a Market-Based Framework to Drive Business Success,” an Amazon #1 best-seller for business owners and CEOs. For additional information about the companies who trust Chief Outsiders as their premier source for business growth acceleration, click here.

CONTACT: Sterling Wilkinson, SWilkinson@ChiefOutsiders.com