What type of skill sets and experiences do I need to build in order to strengthen my career and move from being a Sr. Demand Gen manager to Director level and above? What type of leadership career tracks do you see people continue their careers?

Ask yourself these two questions: 1) Are you already performing at the level you are aspiring to be in? The best orgs won't promote you soley on tenure, but also with peformance leveling. If you're already performing at a director level, you will get promoted. You can ask your team for a career pathing guide so you have something to hold yourself to. (And also show it off to your manager) 2) Do you have the time? Recall your last 1-1 with your manager. Did you spend the time complaining about ha ...Read More

The move from Manager to Director is about transitioning from someone who is told what to do and "pulls the levers." In someone who can own a strategy and help execute it. Before you can build a strategy, you need to be an expert on the execution side of the work. Dive into every channel, and understand how they work and when they are leveraged. Additionally, always be looking at how others market. Look at your competitor's digital ads, read their blog, sign-up for a newsletter, and immerse your ...Read More

The leap from manager-level to director-level demand gen leadership might be one of the biggest lifts in career development. Being a manager, coaching, and making sure your team is performing well and achieving goals are manager-level skills. Being able to develop a vision, strategy and creating a plan to executing on it is director-level.  Directors are often given more substantial resources and budgets, and therefore held accountable at a higher level much more often. I think one of the most o ...Read More

I think the shift from a Senior Demand Gen Manager to a Director role is less about doing more campaigns and more about changing how you think and where you focus your time. At the manager level, you’re measured on execution and launching programs, hitting targets, optimizing performance. At the director level, you’re expected to set the direction. You’re thinking about portfolio strategy, resource allocation, tradeoffs, and how marketing actually drives the business. A few skill sets really mat ...Read More

The jump from Sr. Manager to Director is usually the biggest one. You move from program ownership to system ownership. Skill sets to build now Annual planning and forecastingShow that you can build a top-down and bottoms-up plan, then manage in-quarter adjustments without losing the number. Financial and resource decision-makingDirectors allocate capital. You should be able to explain where to invest, where to cut, and why. Executive communicationConvert complex performance data into simple stra ...Read More

From my experience, the step from the Senior to Director level focused on a few areas: Having a deep understanding of metrics and the tracking setup associated with these metrics. Not always but often this includes being a people manager. I did a ton of research on leadership from people I deeply respect like Brené Brown. Being able to tell the story and articulate performance and strategy to varying types of stakeholders. Know your audience and tailor the story based on what matters to them. As ...Read More