Fractional Chief Commercial Officer for founder-led Brands and Technology companies
Your commercial engine is working.
Just not together.
As brands grow across channels, complexity starts outpacing clarity. Sales, marketing, operations, and field execution stop running on the same plan, and growth gets harder than it should be.
Growth should be easier than this.
You’ve built something real. The product is strong, the team is capable, and the demand signals are there. But somewhere along the way growth got harder, slower, and more exhausting than it should be.
The playbook at $500K won’t work at $10M or $25M, no matter how much effort or manpower you throw at it. And the market isn’t making it easier: tariffs, consolidation, margin pressure, shifting consumer behavior.
That’s when complexity starts outpacing clarity.
The pattern
Does any of this feel familiar?
If more than two of these are true, growth complexity is starting to create drag.
Sales & Marketing aren’t using the same plan
Missed opportunities you weren’t ready for
Growth is getting harder to predict
You can’t confidently prioritize the work
Too much time spent on fixing instead of growing
The team is reactive instead of proactive
The measurable cost
This isn’t just a feeling. It’s measurable.
The pattern you’re recognizing shows up in the research. Founder-led companies are losing measurable revenue to the exact drag you’re feeling. It’s rarely the market, the product, or the team. It’s the misalignment underneath all of them.
55%
of companies say they are slowed by internal friction and functional silos
75%
report they can’t consistently execute in channel because they lack operational infrastructure
50%
say they can’t confidently identify which trade investments are working
Source: Promotion Optimization Institute, 2026 State of the Industry Report
The upside
$1M – $2.5M
McKinsey puts moderate alignment improvement at 5 to 10% of topline growth within 12 months. That’s without changing product, market, or team.
McKinsey research
Three areas of strain
Most companies are held back by one of three areas.
Strategy. Ownership. Operations. Three places the drag usually lives. Most engagements start by finding out which one is yours.
01
Strategic Alignment
When the commercial strategy hasn’t kept pace with the market: underperforming channels, unclear priorities, capital spread too thin.
02
Ownership & Decision Clarity
When the business has outgrown the playbook: undefined swim lanes, recycled decisions, too much depending on too few people.
03
Operating Rhythms
When strategy breaks down in the handoffs: misaligned functions, inconsistent execution, spending more time firefighting than building.
The Chief Commercial Officer role, defined
The connective tissue between every function that drives growth.
A CMO owns marketing. A CRO owns revenue. A Chief Commercial Officer owns the full commercial function: sales, marketing, trade, channel, and the systems and alignment that let them execute together.
Commercial systems – CRM, marketing automation, demand gen infrastructure, financial visibility – are part of the commercial function too. When those systems are creating the drag, they belong in the work.
Proven across categories
Experience across consumer, retail, enterprise, and complex channel environments.
Built from real operating experience across growth stages, channel models, and leadership challenges.
Who you’re working with
Marshall Welch
I’ve built demand generation engines at $2B enterprises, rebuilt CRM instances so automation actually delivers, and I co-own a craft cider brand where I’m standing up the marketing automation myself. It’s an operator background, which matters when you’re deciding who should be in the work with you.
Ready to move forward?
See what’s creating the drag – and what to address first.
The free Trail Finder takes a few minutes and shows you what’s creating drag.
It’s the fastest way to see what to focus on first.
We work with a limited number of clients at a time – by design.