The biggest promotion red flag no one talks about? It’s not low performance. It's stagnation. When your role looks exactly the same year after year, leadership assumes you've hit your ceiling. And that's the catch: promotions aren't about tenure - they're about trajectory. If you want to understand how promotion decisions actually get made behind closed doors, I break that down in detail here. For Directors aiming for VP, trajectory is everything. Senior leaders aren’t asking

If one person is the only one who make or break your promotion, you don’t have a promotion strategy for Directors in Tech. You have a single point of failure. And I know, that sounds dramatic. But it’s just… accurate. Because promotions are not decided in your one-on-ones. They’re decided in rooms you’re not in, by people who don’t work with you every day, using criteria nobody bothers to write down. In those rooms, leaders are comparing multiple strong Directors. If only one

For a long time, I thought success in my business would come from the flashy stuff. Being everywhere. Posting all the time. Saying yes to podcasts, collaborations, travel, and visibility plays. And to be fair, some of that helped. But when I look back honestly, none of those things were the real growth engine. What actually moved the business forward was painfully boring. Sharpening my positioning instead of changing it every few months. Refining my offer instead of chasing n

If you’ve been thinking, I should probably be more intentional about my internal relationships this year, you’re not wrong. But maybe, like a lot of professionals (myself included), you tell yourself you’ll get to it later. You want to focus on your goals first and make sure you hit your KPIs. Truth bomb coming up: Relationship building is part of your work. Arguably one of the most important parts. And February is actually a great moment to build relationships. Early in the

Most people think becoming VP-ready takes years. It doesn’t have to. What takes years is doing great work while waiting for someone else to notice. A few weeks ago, I was interviewed on a podcast and asked a deceptively simple question: “If someone wanted to be VP-ready and seen as the obvious next candidate, what would they need to do?” Not eventually. Not after one more year of proving themselves. But starting now. Most people expect the answer to be about skills, experienc

There was a period in my career when every day felt like a sprint with no finish line. Back-to-back meetings. Requests flying in from every direction. Firefighting disguised as "leadership." And the constant pressure to deliver, deliver, deliver. It looked productive on the outside. It felt draining on the inside. I was doing great work - but I was doing it in a way that gave me zero leverage. Everything relied on me showing up, grinding harder, pushing through another week o