Noelle Bloomfield

Be it as an individual contributor, or in a managerial role, moving to become a director requires ownership, impact, and managerial skills. Here's what this means: * Ownership: The difference in managerial levels often comes down to scope, but even without massive scope increases, can come with a higher level of independence in operating. To advance from a senior manager to director level, you need to show ownership of your scope, end-to-end from project planning, execution, measurement, results-sharing, and re-prioritizing. Treat your scope like you are the CEO, iterating and innovating to make the process better wherever you can. The more independently you can do this, the more it will justify moving you up to a higher level. Secondly, when you see a problem or area where your organization could function better, OWN IT. Leaders are change-makers and don't let "scope" prevent them from making a difference. * Impact: Tie your scope and results to bottom-line impact. From win rates, revenue, faster sales process, feedback, and engagement, measurement to show you truly move the needle for the business is essential to justify a higher title. If you can't do that today, create a way to (surveys, new measurement tools), as this is your greatest negotiation tactic. * Managerial Skills: Even without direct reports, moving to a director-level means you have to know how to drive progress by managing stakeholders, leadership, processes in ways that go beyond just a project end-to-end. Can you look at the goals for the business and manage up/down/across to make meaningful changes to reach those goals? Practice peer-to-peer management, making cases to leadership independently, and prioritization of tasks to help gain the critical skills to help you succeed. Have all this? Ask! Research your market value, continue to gather performance feedback, negotiate, continue to demonstrate growth and change, and find the right opportunity!

1) Get experience managing up and across. Take opportunities that allow you to influence leadership and drive change across teams. For example: - Leading cross-functional product launches - Suggesting and creating processes or tools to drive organizational efficiency for your teams - Volunteer to support your boss or leadership on strategic initiatives - Manage events, sales kickoffs 2) Don't wait for permission. Start driving change and solving pain points for your team, and your company. Can releases be done better? Are we regionalizing our strategies? Is there a better way to keep the right people informed? A good head of PMM will need to be scanning for org improvements and finding ways to prioritize and deliver results efficiently which takes practice! 3) Train and practice management. Take courses on managing people. Find ways to mentor, support and coach junior employees across the team, and practice peer-to-peer management. How can you practice eliciting the best work out of your teammates? What questions can you ask? 4) Nail the basics in everything you do.