Five Superpowers That Set Me Apart as a Fractional CMO

📌 Key Highlights (tl;dr)

• Brand is my anchor. I operationalize brand identity across teams, culture, and marketing to create coherence and lasting loyalty.
• I connect vision to execution. My systems thinking bridges strategy and daily action for scalable, meaningful growth.
• I communicate with clarity. My direct, jargon-free style builds trust, collaboration, and innovation across teams.
• I lead with values. I help build businesses that are aligned with personal, societal, and environmental wellbeing.
• I’ve seen it all. My cross-industry experience lets me spot patterns early and solve problems creatively and calmly.

I’m a visionary and a storyteller. I believe stories create meaning, and meaning motivates people to do great things. At our core, we are creators, inventing the world through imagination and intention. If we want to build a better future, we must first be able to see it, speak it, and deeply connect with it. Then we need to design systems that intentionally carry that inspiration through every level of an organization.

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This, to me, is the essence of brand.

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Not all CMOs start with brand. I do. Because brand is the architecture for every system that follows. When done right, a resonant brand becomes the gravitational center of your business. It aligns teams, inspires customers, energizes communities, and simplifies decision-making.

That’s why my first priority in any engagement is to build a compelling, deeply aligned brand identity—one that’s anchored in vision, values, and a clear sense of purpose. Once that’s in place, everything else flows: from messaging to culture, product to partnerships, even merch.

When hiring early-stage executives, alignment on values, goals, and worldview isn’t a bonus—it’s essential. The people you bring in will shape your company, consciously and unconsciously.

That’s what inspired me to write this article. What follows is a reflection of my core beliefs—the motivations behind my work, and the reasons people hire me. If what follows resonates with you, I  might be a fit for your company.

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Superpower #1 –  Brand as Operating System

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Branding, to me, is storytelling. It’s how we create meaning, define purpose, and shape culture. A strong brand articulates shared goals and aspirations, it gives people something to believe in, root for, and grow with. I follow Simon Sinek’s advice and 'start with why' to create brilliant, enduring brands.

When a brand resonates internally with your team, externally with your customers, and authentically with your community, you’ve built more than a message, you’ve built a network of resilience. This kind of brand drives loyalty, clarity, and long-term growth. It’s not just feel-good, it’s strategic. It amplifies impact in every other part of marketing, from messaging to media to momentum.

This is the work I do best.

I build brands rooted in a future vision of the world. Aligned with values. Driven by purpose. Embodied at every touchpoint. I don’t stop at messaging. I weave the brand into internal culture, team rituals, external partnerships, and daily operations. The result is coherence. A company that feels as aligned as it sounds.

I’m known for operationalizing brand. That means your values don’t just live in a slide deck, they become a felt experience. From onboarding to emails to customer support, I ensure the brand is lived across the company. This kind of clarity gives employees a sense of purpose and gives customers a values-based identity they can align with. More and more, that’s the foundation of true loyalty. It motivates excellence. It builds trust. And it lasts.

I don’t believe work should feel like a slog. Done right, brand turns work into a form of creative expression. One that amplifies impact and brings people together around a shared mission. A deeply aligned brand is magnetic. It draws in the right people and naturally filters out the ones who aren’t a fit. That’s what makes it powerful.

Superpower #2 – Systems Thinking That Connects the Dots

I have the ability to hold the vision and goals while observing what’s happening on the ground, then bridge the two by building systems that turn ideas into reality. I cut through noise and complexity to identify what matters most and design processes that make meaningful progress inevitable.

This isn’t a learned skill, though years of practice have refined it. My background in physics and mathematics trained me to look for governing principles, underlying structures, and patterns in complexity. I see relationships, ripple effects, and how things connect across time and teams. That’s what enables me to translate long-term strategy into day-to-day execution.

Connecting high-level ideas to everyday tasks is where the rubber meets the road. If they’re disconnected, what gets built won’t reflect the original intent. When ideas aren’t communicated clearly and understood at every level, the work becomes a patchwork of personal interpretations that often miss the mark. The result is busywork, bloated workflows, and a lot of motion with very little momentum.

This kind of systems thinking is a superpower in early-stage companies. It allows me to build frameworks that evolve with the business, support iterative innovation, and adapt to change. I create systems infused with brand values that create real momentum in achieving goals and realizing the vision.

Superpower #3 – Authenticity That Builds Trust

Silicon Valley, and marketing in general, are full of jargon and acronyms that exclude smart people and brilliant ideas. Another world I spent years in, theoretical physics and astronomy, was also steeped in language that filtered people out of conversations. Sometimes specialized language is necessary. But more often, it’s used to signal authority or status. It creates an environment where people feel like outsiders when, in truth, their ideas might be exactly what’s needed. If they don't feel confident in speaking up, those ideas are simply lost.

I have no interest in dominating conversations or proving my authority. I’m far more interested in surfacing the best ideas, especially the ones I wouldn’t have thought of myself. That mindset drives how I work. I speak plainly and transparently because I want to encourage participation at every level. It’s the most reliable path I’ve found to innovation.

When I was an undergrad, I gave talks to non-science majors about my work in astronomy. I also worked as a math and science tutor for young teens. The more simply I could explain a concept, the more people engaged with it. It also sharpened my own understanding. The same principle applies in marketing. Jargon and overcomplicated technical language act as barriers to connection. Even with a highly technical product, its best to break it down and bring it to ground level so everyone can understand.

All of this adds up to the high degree of authenticity I bring into every engagement. I’m direct and honest in everything I do. I have high standards and a meticulous approach to observation, planning, and execution. I believe we do our best work when we bring our full selves to the table. When we strip away jargon, we make space for cross-pollination, where insights from different backgrounds and disciplines come together to create something truly original. Explaining complex ideas clearly is a form of mastery over the subject at hand, and it’s foundational to how I operate.

This clarity extends to my leadership style. People always know what I’m thinking, what I’m planning, and what I expect. Strategy is never siloed. That transparency builds trust. My praise is genuine. My feedback is clear. I’m intentional about recognizing each person’s unique contributions. That creates an environment of openness and safety where the best ideas can surface and grow.

My goal is to create synergy. True synergy is a kind of dynamic interdependence that amplifies outcomes and accelerates ideas. But it can’t happen without trust. And trust starts with authenticity.

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Superpower #4 – Business as a Tool for Transformation

I believe a better world is possible and I work every day to bring it into being. I am a hopeful futurist. I think the way to healing ourselves, our communities, and our planet is through transforming the incentives and goals of business to be more aligned with our own personal and societal goals and ideals.

At its core, business is just people collaborating to produce change in the real world. It has shaped civilization and uplifted humanity in ways that would seem miraculous to earlier generations. But it has also produced deep harm. Environmental degradation. Burnout. Exploitation. These outcomes are not inevitable. They are the result of choices. And we can choose differently.

If we bring creativity and high standards to the way we build, we can generate outcomes that lift everyone. We don’t have to accept a dying planet as the price of modern comfort. We don’t have to sacrifice wellbeing today in exchange for safety someday. The best businesses uplift. And I believe startups and small businesses are uniquely positioned to lead this shift.

They are nimble, unencumbered by legacy systems, and often led by people who are still open to evolving their views of the world. When these companies are built on a foundation of values and clarity, they have the power to innovate not just in what they offer, but in how they operate. Standards and goals can be reimagined to create value for everyone the business touches; employees, customers, partners, and communities alike.

In my work, I constantly ask: How are we impacting the world? Are we living up to our standards? Would I want my kids to live in the world we’re creating? I am values-driven, but I am also deeply committed to transformation. I believe the most strategic, resilient companies of the future will be the ones who are, too.

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Superpower #5 –  Wisdom Earned in the Arena

I’ve worked across industries, business models, and stages of growth—from bootstrapped artist collectives to VC-backed technical startups. I’ve seen companies launch, scale, stall, pivot, and sometimes collapse. I’ve been in the room when strategy clicks into place, and I’ve watched good ideas fall apart from misalignment or poor execution.

That kind of exposure builds a different kind of intelligence. It sharpens your eye for patterns and makes you sensitive to early warning signs others might miss. When you’ve watched enough things succeed and fail up close, you start to see the inflection points before they hit.

This depth of experience also gives me a broader problem-solving toolkit. I can reference approaches from different disciplines and industries to unlock creative solutions when things get stuck. I’m not limited to best practices from one vertical. I cross-pollinate ideas in ways that open up new paths forward.

Underneath it all is a worldview rooted in curiosity and openness. I move through the world with as little judgment as possible, always looking for what works, what connects, and what teaches. That mindset keeps me adaptable and expansive, and it helps me see opportunities others might miss.

Why This Matters to You

When friends and colleagues are asked to name my strongest traits, these are the ones they mention. They’re the throughlines of my work—my personal headlines. Nearly everything I do traces back to this combination of perspective, discipline, and creativity. These qualities differentiate me in a packed field of professionals and make me a unique voice among startup executives.

I wrote this article to help potential clients understand how I work and why. Hiring the right partner at an early stage is one of the most important decisions you’ll make. It deserves alignment—not just on experience, but on values, mindset, and approach.

If these traits resonate with you, if they reflect the kind of energy and leadership you want inside your company, reach out. I might be exactly the partner you need to take your business to the next stage of growth.