Chapter 5: Scene Two. The CEO. The Growth Delusion
Place: The CEO Office
Billy, the CEO, had swaggered through the first half of the interrogation with all the ease of a man who thought he was untouchable.
Cigar smoke coiled through the air. His feet rested lazily on the edge of the polished boardroom table. And his whisky? Aged 25 years, poured like he had nothing to worry about.
But now, he was in the hot seat, no longer the orchestrator of growth, but a suspect in its destruction.
The boardroom was still.
Ivor returned to the centre of the room and slid another file across the table. The thickest one yet.
Exhibit D: The Growth Delusion
Billy liked to talk about growth.
He posted about it on LinkedIn. He chased it in board meetings. He dropped the word into investor updates like confetti.
But when it came to actual marketing-led growth strategy?
He was out of his depth.
The title “Chief Growth Officer” had become a corporate fashion statement—
a rebranded Chief Marketing Officer, dressed up to look strategic and revenue focused.
Marketing?
Left outside the room.
No seat. No influence. No recognition.
“Only 4% of FTSE 100 CEOs have a background in marketing,” Ivor noted aloud, his voice steady but sharp.. “And even fewer make any attempt to understand it.”
Billy leaned back, unbothered. But the tension was creeping in around the edges.
“And when marketing is misunderstood… it’s mismanaged.”
Ivor placed the evidence on the table - slide decks, campaign plans, customer insight reports - all buried by Billy’s obsession with more.
📉 CEOs expect instant results from a discipline built on compounding returns.
📉 They fund performance over positioning.
📉 Tools over strategy.
📉 Volume over value.
From BCG’s Making Sense of the Marketing Measurement Mess, Ivor quoted:
“With all the tools and data now available, marketers find it harder than ever to prove their value. Why? Because the organisation—especially the CEO—wants certainty, not strategy.”
Billy blinked. “We measure everything.”
“No, you don’t, Billy!” Ivor said with a raised voice. “You measure activity. Not impact.”
Ivor pulled a dusty dashboard printout from the file. It was colourful. Busy. Impressive at a glance.
But it told no real story. It tracked clicks, not customer understanding. MQLs, not momentum. Impressions, not impact.
“You’ve created a marketing culture built on chasing metrics,” Ivor said, spreading out the evidence. “But what you’ve missed is the architecture. The bigger picture. You’ve incentivised short-termism, and punished long-term investment.”
Billy glanced down. His cigar had gone out.
For a moment, the silence said everything.
Exhibit E: Strategy Starved, Funnel Ignored
Billy’s posture stiffened. His glass was nearly empty, and so was the illusion of control.
Ivor didn’t wait for an invitation. He placed another file on the table, this one marked in red.
“This,” he said calmly, “is where your negligence turned fatal.”
Billy raised an eyebrow. “Marketing was never strategic enough.”
Ivor didn’t flinch.
“No,” he replied. “You never gave it the chance to be.”
When Mary Marketing had tried to build brand preference, Billy called it fluffy.
When she mapped out customer insights, tracked drop-off points, and revealed the funnel’s weakest links, Billy interrupted her with one question:
“Why are leads down?”
He never heard what she was trying to tell him.
That brand preference was weakening. That emotional salience was eroding.
That consideration was leaking out of the funnel like water through a cracked pipe.
And the biggest irony?
The funnel, the very thing he demanded results from, was the exact thing that could have saved him.
It was the missing link between short-term tactics and long-term growth.
But Billy wasn’t listening.
Like so many CEOs, he had fallen for the myth. That performance marketing was enough. That MQLs told the whole story. That repeating short-term wins somehow added up to long-term success.
Billy was building a house on sand and mistaking the scaffolding for structure.
Ivor stepped closer now.
“You ignored your own growth funnel,” he said bluntly, “because you didn’t understand how market orientation, brand memory structures, and emotional salience drive performance.”
Billy said nothing.
Because deep down, he knew.
He had demanded tactical activity without strategic clarity.
Leads without loyalty.
Results without resonance.
Mary Marketing had seen the truth.
She knew customer consideration was leaking.
She knew B2B buyers weren’t just logical—they were human.
They craved stories, trust, meaning, memory.
And Mary tried—again and again—to tell Billy this.
But he didn’t want meaning.
He wanted metrics.
He wanted MQLs.
And so, Mary gave him what he asked for… until she had nothing left to give.
Exhibit F: Neglect Disguised as Discipline
The silence in the room was sharp enough to cut glass. Ivor didn’t move. Billy tried to hold his stare, but for the first time since the interrogation began, his eyes dropped to the floor.
Ivor stood and walked slowly around the table, speaking low, with precision:
“You wanted results, Billy. You wanted growth. But you never invested in the system required to deliver it.”
A slide flashed up on the screen behind him—cold, damning data:
📉 57% of CMOs don’t last beyond two years.
📉 80% of CEOs say they don’t trust their marketers.
📉 And yet, marketing is still expected to deliver growth—with fewer resources, less time, and under greater scrutiny than ever before.
Billy cleared his throat.
“That’s just the pace of business these days.”
Ivor stopped in his tracks.
“No,” he said firmly. “That’s not pace. That’s pressure without process. That’s accountability without authority. That’s leadership failure dressed up as operational rigour.”
CMOs today are expected to perform in months what should take years.
Brand equity? Needs time.
Market education? Needs consistency.
Reputation? Needs nurturing.
But in Billy’s boardroom, discipline was code for deprivation.
He had trimmed budgets, shortened time horizons, and cut long-term bets to chase short-term wins.
And when the strategy buckled under the pressure?
He blamed the person holding the smallest seat at the table: Mary Marketing.
Ivor took a step closer, his voice steely now.
“You didn’t kill her, Billy. But you weakened her. And then you left her unprotected while everyone else took their shots.”
Billy looked up, tired now. Resigned.
His empire was built on growth, but his foundations had been hollow all along.
He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t defensive.
Billy wasn’t a villain in the traditional sense. He hadn’t schemed. He hadn’t plotted. But he had allowed it all to happen—under the guise of “discipline,” “efficiency,” and “focus.”
“You let Charlie the CFO slice away her resources. You let Ronnie the CRO reduce her to a function. You let Victor the VC set her on fire with growth-at-all-costs.
And you stood there, arms folded, nodding along.”
And now, Mary Marketing was bleeding out on the boardroom floor.
Billy shifted in his seat and whispered, “So what now?”
Ivor’s eyes didn’t waver.
“That,” he said, rising slowly, “is the real question.”
The detective turned away.
Behind him, the industry’s brightest light dimmed.
Ahead of him, a bigger battle loomed.
Mary Marketing wouldn’t be revived by budget alone. Not this time.
He questioned, not for the first time during this investigation, who had truly been there to protect her? Who had stood beside her as the walls closed in?
The professional institutions should have done more.They should have supported her. They should have guided the struggling CMOs and fought back against short-termism, and championed the strategic value of marketing when it mattered most.
But they hadn’t.
They’d been silent.
Absent.
Asleep at the wheel.
And now, Mary was on life support, and the very organisations built to safeguard her had become part of the crime scene.
To be continued…
Lost Your Influence? It’s Time to Fight Back.
If Mary’s story feels uncomfortably familiar...
If your role has been absorbed under revenue targets, sidelined in strategic conversations, or reduced to "doing" instead of leading...
Then it’s time to take your power back.
The Influential Marketing Leader Accelerator is now open.
A 10-week transformational course designed for marketers who are done playing small and ready to lead with strategy, credibility and confidence.
The next cohort starts 29th April
Built for senior marketers ready to reclaim authority, elevate influence, and lead marketing the way it is meant to be led.
If you're tired of marketing being misunderstood, misused, or diminished — this is your moment.
Enrol now and start the comeback.
Ways to Work With Me
I partner with ambitious B2B companies, marketing leaders, and executive teams to unlock sustainable growth through marketing transformation.
Here’s how we can work together:
1. Strategic Growth Consulting (for B2B companies)
Revive stalled growth, refocus your go-to-market strategy, and turn marketing into a commercial growth engine.
Outcome: Clearer strategy, tighter execution, and marketing fully aligned to business goals — so growth accelerates without adding chaos.
2. Marketing Team Development & Operating Systems
Audit your marketing team’s skills, reshape your org structure, and build systems that enable high performance and strategic thinking.
Outcome: A stronger, more confident marketing team equipped to lead — not just execute.
3. CMO & Leadership Mentoring
Build strategic confidence, stakeholder influence, and executive presence. For CMOs, VP-level marketers, and rising stars.
Outcome: Become the trusted growth advisor your CEO can’t live without.
4. Internal Academies & Custom Learning Programmes
Create internal academies that elevate marketing maturity across your organisation and foster cross-functional alignment.
Outcome: A more commercially savvy, strategically minded marketing team that earns trust across the business.
5. The Influential Marketing Leader Accelerator (Open Enrolment)
A 10-week online programme for senior marketers ready to lead with confidence and make marketing matter again.
Outcome: You’ll gain a strategic toolkit, influence the C-suite, and finally stop firefighting and start leading.
6. Keynotes, Workshops & Offsites
For executive teams, cross-functional leaders, or marketing teams who need clarity, energy, and alignment.
Outcome: Shared language, stronger collaboration, and renewed focus on what marketing can (and should) do.
This episode really hit hard. This negligence and the deliberate lack of understanding of the CEO - ouch. I have lived this over and over.