Latest / The Promotion Memo with Fexingo: Getting Visibility, Sponsors, and Executive Presence / How One Employee Got Promoted by Building an Executive Network
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's this marketing manager — let's call her Priya — at a Fortune 500 consumer goods company. Mid-level, solid performer, three years in role, ready for director. But she had a problem. Luna: Let me guess — her work was great, but the people who make promotion decisions didn't know who she was. Lucas: Exactly. Her direct boss knew her. Her team knew her. But the VP of marketing and the CMO — the people who actually sit in the room where director promotions get approved — had no idea what Priya was capable of. And this is incredibly common. A 2025 Gartner study found that employees with active executive sponsors are 47 percent more likely to be promoted within 18 months. But most people never build those relationships. Luna: So what did Priya do differently? Because I think a lot of listeners hear 'build an executive network' and they picture forced coffee chats or awkward hallway small talk. Lucas: Right, and she was exactly the same way at first. But she approached it strategically. She identified three senior leaders — not her own boss, but leaders in adjacent functions who had a stake in the kind of cross-functional work she was already doing. One was the VP of sales, one was the head of product, and one was a senior director in strategy. Luna: So she picked people who could actually see her work in action, not just someone high up she wanted to impress. Lucas: Exactly. And then she did something really smart. She didn't ask for a meeting to 'pick their brain.' Instead, she found a way to create value for them first. For the VP of sales, she pulled together a quick analysis showing how a marketing campaign she ran had directly influenced a specific sales channel — something the VP hadn't seen broken down that way. She sent it as a one-pager with a two-sentence email. Luna: That's such a low-friction move. She's not asking for anything — she's giving them useful information. Lucas: Exactly. The VP replied within an hour, thanked her, and asked if she had time to walk through it. That turned into a fifteen-minute call that became a recurring monthly touch base. And that's really the model — find a way to be useful before you ask for visibility. Luna: And the head of product and the strategy director — did she use a similar approach? Lucas: Similar but adapted. For the head of product, she noticed they were about to launch a feature that marketing would need to support. She proactively drafted a go to market outline and shared it with the product team, cc'ing the head of product. One paragraph, attached doc, no pressure. The head of product forwarded it to the CMO with a note saying, 'This is the kind of strategic thinking we need more of.' Luna: Wow. So she essentially got the head of product to become her referral engine without her even asking. That's a smart play. Lucas: It is. And for the strategy director, she did something different again. She volunteered to help with a quarterly business review presentation that the strategy team was pulling together. She offered to handle the data visualization — something she was genuinely good at. That got her a seat at the prep meetings, where she got to show her analytical thinking directly to a senior leader. Luna: So the common thread is that in each case, she's doing real work that helps them, not just networking for networking's sake. Lucas: A couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these going — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, if you've gotten something out of them. We keep the show ad-free precisely because of listeners who toss in a coffee now and then. Luna: Yeah, it's a small thing that adds up. And honestly, it's what lets us dig into real cases like Priya's without any sponsor pressure. Lucas: So back to Priya. Over about four months, she built genuine working relationships with all three leaders. Not friends, not mentors in the formal sense — sponsors. People who had seen her deliver value and would vouch for her when the promotion conversation came up. Luna: And did it work? I mean, she got promoted, right? Lucas: She did. When the director of marketing role opened up, the VP of sales mentioned her name in a leadership meeting. The head of product seconded it. The strategy director added context about her work on the QBR. The CMO had never met her before those references, but three trusted voices saying the same thing was enough. She got the interview and the offer. Luna: There's something important there — she didn't bypass her own manager. That's a common fear, right? That going around your boss will backfire. Lucas: Absolutely. And she didn't. Her manager was kept informed and was supportive. In fact, her manager was part of the reason she had the bandwidth to do those extra projects. So it wasn't an end-run — it was an expansion of her network. Her manager saw it as her being proactive about her career, not as a threat. Luna: I want to bring up something that I think holds a lot of people back from this approach — the fear that it feels like brown-nosing or that it's inauthentic. How do you do this without feeling like a suck-up? Lucas: I think the key is that Priya never asked for a promotion or a favor directly. She focused on being useful. And she only engaged with leaders whose work she genuinely respected and had something to contribute to. If you're just targeting the highest-ranking person you can find, it's going to feel forced. But if you identify someone whose challenges you understand and can help with, it's a real professional relationship. Luna: That makes sense. And she also didn't try to build relationships with all three at once. She started with one, let it develop naturally, then moved to the next. Lucas: Right. Networking in general is a long game, and executive networking especially. You can't rush it. Priya spent about four months building these relationships before the promotion opportunity even came up. And there was one moment where it almost went wrong. She was in an elevator with the VP of sales and tried to pitch a new idea on the spot — it came out rushed, the VP looked confused, and she realized she had broken her own rule of always being prepared. Luna: Oh, that's a nightmare scenario. How did she recover? Lucas: She sent a follow-up email later that day with a one-sentence apology — 'I should have framed that better' — and attached a clear one-page summary. The VP actually appreciated the humility and the follow-through. So even the mistakes can become opportunities if you handle them right. Luna: So the playbook seems to be: identify leaders whose work intersects with yours, find a way to add value before you ask for anything, keep your manager looped in, and be patient. Is that about right? Lucas: That's exactly the framework. And one more thing — be strategic about which leaders you choose. Priya picked people who were influential in the promotion process but not directly in her chain of command. That gave her multiple independent advocates. If she had only focused on her own chain, she'd have just one path. Luna: I think a lot of people assume that if they do great work, it will get noticed. But this case really shows that visibility is a deliberate act. You have to make your work visible to the right people. Lucas: Exactly. And the data backs that up. The Gartner study I mentioned — 47 percent higher promotion rate for those with sponsors. But the study also found that only 17 percent of employees proactively seek out sponsors. So there's a huge opportunity for people who are willing to take that step. Luna: Seventeen percent — that's wild. So just by doing what Priya did, you're separating yourself from the vast majority of your peers. Lucas: Exactly. And it doesn't have to be three leaders. Even one strong sponsor can make a difference. But the strategy is the same: add value, be consistent, and make it easy for them to see your impact. Luna: All right, so for someone listening who wants to start this week — what's the one thing they should do? Lucas: Pick one senior leader in your company whose work you genuinely find interesting. Look at a recent initiative they led. Find a small way to contribute — a piece of data they might not have, a customer insight, a process improvement. Send it to them with a short note. No ask. Just value. See what happens. Luna: I like that. Low barrier, high potential upside. And if nothing comes of it, you've lost maybe an hour of your time. Lucas: Exactly. And if it works, you've started building a relationship that could change your career trajectory. That's a pretty good bet.