The best marketing campaigns aren’t the ones with the most moving parts, they’re the ones with the clearest message.

That’s the perspective I shared in my latest Forbes feature, where I joined other communications leaders to reflect on what really makes a campaign resonate.

One of the biggest fears leaders have when they hand off writing is that their brand’s authenticity will get lost in translation. And I get it. Now that I’m a founder, I know firsthand how personal your brand can feel. You’ve poured yourself into it. Your voice isn’t just about tone, it’s about trust. Every word shapes how customers perceive you, and if something suddenly feels “off,” your audience notices.

I remember the first time I asked someone else to draft content for my brand. I opened the doc with my heart in my throat. Would it sound like me? Would it capture the balance I wanted between being approachable and authoritative? That nervousness is real, and it’s why so many leaders hold on too tightly to the writing.

But here’s the truth: you don’t have to write every email, post, or article yourself to protect your voice. What you do need are systems that preserve consistency without bottlenecking your growth.

When you’re building something new, it’s natural to want to keep your hands on everything. I’ve been there — trying to manage messaging, campaigns, the website, even ad accounts, all while leading the business itself. At first, it feels like the scrappy thing to do. But over time, it drains your energy and keeps you from focusing on the parts of growth only you can drive.

What I’ve learned, both in my own career and in working with founders, is that the fastest way to make progress is not by doing more yourself, but by delegating in the right order. If you outsource too early or in the wrong places, you risk losing your voice or burning money. But when you get the sequence right, you build momentum that compounds.

Here are the first three tasks I recommend founders hand off, and the tactics that make each stage work.

Everywhere I look, I see brilliant marketers caught in the same cycle: handed impossible expectations, tasked with owning revenue without authority, or burning out in roles designed to fail. These aren’t issues of talent — they’re structural problems in how our industry values marketing leadership.

That’s why I created the Growth Circle.

When I first introduced it, the idea was simple: a space where founders and marketers could share honest stories and learn from each other. That starting point still matters — but over the past months, the idea has evolved into something bigger, more focused, and more powerful.

This fall, the Growth Circle will launch as a peer-led movement to fix what’s broken in marketing leadership.

Trust is the real currency of marketing. Without it, even the cleverest campaign will struggle to land.

But earning trust has never been harder. We’re all competing in a noisy environment where audiences are overloaded with content and skeptical of claims. Cutting through means more than just volume—it means credibility.

That’s the perspective I shared in my latest Forbes feature, where I joined 18 other communications leaders to explore practical ways to earn and keep audience trust. The article, “19 Communication Strategies To Earn Audience Trust In A Noisy World,” highlights proven approaches to build stronger, more authentic connections.

In 1999, I was in high school, burning mix CDs on the family computer and calling friends on a landline with a cord that barely reached the kitchen counter. Friday nights meant a trip to Blockbuster, praying they hadn’t rented out the last copy of 10 Things I Hate About You. If you wanted to get online, you listened to the screech of dial-up and hoped no one picked up the phone in the middle of it.

The world felt modern then, but looking back, it’s astonishing how much has changed in 26 years.

And yet, according to Grant Thornton’s Women in Business 2025 report, it will take another 26 years — until 2051 — before women achieve equal representation in senior leadership.

As a marketing leader and founder, I believe equality in marketing leadership isn’t just a moral issue. It’s a growth issue. And for founders building companies today, it can mean the difference between flatlining and scaling.

Most of the best marketing I’ve ever seen didn’t start out polished.

It usually wasn’t the carefully worded copy that had been revised over and over.
It wasn’t the campaign that stayed in planning mode until every detail felt “just right.”
And it wasn’t the social post that lived in drafts while everyone debated the perfect angle.

It was messy. Imperfect. Sometimes a little rough around the edges.

But it moved.

That’s why I love this graphic: two ladders.

• One is beautifully designed, but it only has one rung.

• The other is crooked and uneven, but it has enough rungs to climb.

The lesson? The ugly ladder gets you somewhere. The perfect ladder doesn’t.

And if you’re an early-stage founder, your marketing often works the same way.

Memorable campaigns are fun to talk about. They get remembered, repeated, even admired.

But memorability on its own is not enough.

For a campaign to truly work, it has to connect with your customer’s needs in a way that prompts them to act. Otherwise, it is just a good story floating around with no real business impact.

That is the perspective I shared in my latest Forbes feature, where I joined 19 other communications leaders to unpack the formula behind campaigns that stick and convert.

Attention has become the most valuable currency in marketing.

We are living in an age where customers are flooded with content from every direction, and every brand is competing for the same limited focus. The challenge is not just getting noticed, but holding attention long enough to build trust and spark action.

That is the context for my latest Forbes feature, where I joined 19 other communications leaders to share how brand storytelling is evolving to meet the demands of the attention economy. The article, “20 Ways Brand Storytelling Is Adapting To The Attention Economy,” is packed with ideas on how to cut through noise and connect with audiences in meaningful ways.

After two decades in marketing, I’ve seen a pattern I can’t ignore.

Marketing leaders aren’t leaving their roles because they’ve lost their edge, or because they’re not capable of delivering results. They’re leaving because the jobs they’re hired for are often set up to fail.

It starts with good intentions: a founder wants a “Head of Marketing” to drive growth, own the go-to-market strategy, and lead the brand forward. But too often, the role they create looks more like 15 disconnected jobs in one—everything from lead gen to PR to event planning—plus full revenue accountability, and little to no structural support to make it all happen.

The result? Burnout. Frustration. High turnover. And a cycle that hurts both the marketing leader and the business.

It’s time to break that cycle.

You’ve already seen the shift.

Your team’s using ChatGPT to research.
Your customers are asking questions that never touch your website.
Your SEO traffic is plateauing even though your content’s solid.

And now the question isn’t whether AI is changing the rules. It’s:

How do we make sure our brand still shows up when it matters?

Internal communication is often treated like a “soft” function, but the truth is, it is measurable.

Too often, leaders rely on broad engagement scores or open rates as a proxy for effectiveness. Those numbers can be helpful, but on their own, they do not reveal whether employees are truly informed, aligned, or equipped to act.

That is why I was excited to contribute to this Forbes feature, where I joined 11 other communications leaders to highlight the KPIs that matter most when measuring internal comms.

Change inside a company rarely stays inside a company.

Whether it is a leadership shift, a merger, a rebrand, or a major strategic pivot, what you communicate internally will almost always find its way outside. And if your internal and external messaging are not aligned, the result is confusion, rumor, and erosion of trust.

That is why I was glad to contribute to this recent Forbes feature, where I joined 18 other communications leaders to share strategies for keeping messaging consistent during big company changes.

Over the past few years, I’ve seen too many smart, capable marketers step into senior roles only to burn out—or quietly opt out. Not because they lacked skill or drive, but because they were handed a title without the support, clarity, or authority to succeed.

I’ve lived it myself. And now, through Grounded Growth Studio, I work with founders who want to break that cycle and build something better.

In my latest article for Forbes, I unpack what’s really going wrong with modern marketing leadership—and how we fix it. From performance marketing’s influence on role design, to the pressure of revenue ownership without control, to the blurred lines between strategy and execution, this piece is a look at the bigger picture.

Creative work doesn’t happen without trust.

That’s true whether you’re shaping a brand, building a new campaign, or just trying to get a team to think beyond the backlog. When people don’t trust each other—or their leadership—they hold back. The energy shifts. The collaboration slows. And the work reflects it.

That’s why I was honored to contribute to this recent Forbes Communications Council feature: 20 Proven Ways To Build Trust Among Creative Teams

It’s a round-up of real-world ideas from creative and marketing leaders across industries—tactical ways to build team trust, encourage creative risk-taking, and strengthen culture. If you’re scaling a team, rebuilding one, or just want to create a more thoughtful rhythm of collaboration, this article is a great place to start.

Before you hire (or rehire) marketing leadership, ask yourself these 5 questions.
Because churn isn’t about bad talent, it’s about a misaligned setup. And fixing it starts at the top.

You’re back here again.

Staring down another marketing leadership search.
Wondering if this time it’ll finally work.
Maybe your last hire didn’t stick. Or maybe they stayed—but the results didn’t.
You thought you’d found someone great. Maybe they were great. But somewhere between the job description and the day-to-day, things went sideways.

You're not alone, but before you post that next job spec or bring someone new on board, take a breath. These five questions can help you shift the setup—so your next hire has the clarity, authority, and support they actually need to succeed.

Pumpkin-flavored everything is on the horizon. Budget season is creeping closer. And like clockwork, the business world is bracing for the usual fall frenzy — inboxes overflowing, calendars filling, pressure mounting.

But here’s the truth:
Your Q4 results? They’re already in motion.
The decisions you make right now, in the final stretch of summer, shape the traction you’ll feel when the market speeds back up.

That’s what makes this season so valuable. Even if you're still in motion, summer creates a different kind of rhythm. One that makes it just a little easier to step back, scan the horizon, and think about what needs to shift before the end-of-year push.

Internal comms is often the quiet engine of a healthy organization—but it rarely gets the time, tools, or headcount it deserves. In departments like HR or ops, where writing might not be a core skill, that challenge only grows.

That’s where AI is shifting the game.

In my latest Forbes feature, I joined 19 other communications leaders to share tactical, creative ways teams are using AI to elevate internal messaging. The article, “How To Streamline Comms And Craft Better Internal Content: 20 AI Tips,” is full of quick wins for anyone trying to engage internal stakeholders without burning out their bandwidth.

Hiring creative talent is more than reviewing resumes or checking portfolios. It’s about spotting the spark—the instinct to push boundaries, solve real-world problems, and bring fresh energy to the work. In a world where marketing is changing daily, that spark matters more than ever.

In my latest Forbes feature, I joined 19 other marketing leaders to share smart, practical strategies for identifying truly creative candidates. The full article is a toolkit for anyone building a high-impact team—whether you're hiring your first marketer or growing a full department.

I talk to a lot of founders who are rightly skeptical of automation. They don’t want robotic drip campaigns or soulless cold emails. They want real relationships, thoughtful outreach, and a brand that feels like them. I get it. I feel the same way.

But here’s the thing: the right automation doesn’t take the human out of marketing—it gives you time and headspace to be more human where it counts.

So if you're trying to scale without sacrificing authenticity, here are five things worth automating. Each of them is designed to help you show up with relevance and care, not just efficiency.