Latest / The Promotion Memo with Fexingo: Getting Visibility, Sponsors, and Executive Presence / How One Employee Got Promoted by Building a Career Pitch Deck
Transcript
- Lucas: So here's a question I get a lot: how do you get promoted when you're not in the room where the decisions are made? When you're two levels below the people who actually decide who gets the director role? Luna: Right — you need someone to carry your story upstairs. But that someone usually has their own agenda. Lucas: Exactly. And that's what makes today's episode interesting. We're looking at a marketing manager at a global CPG company — I'll call her Priya — who decided she wasn't going to wait for someone else to tell her story. She built a career pitch deck. Twelve slides. And she used it to land a director role two levels above her. Luna: A pitch deck for your own career — I love that. It's like a business case, but the product is you. Lucas: That's exactly the framing. Priya's company — a large consumer packaged goods firm, think the size of a Kraft Heinz or a Nestlé — had just reorganized. Her boss's boss left. There was a vacuum. And she realized that the new senior leadership didn't know her work. They knew her title, maybe saw her name on a few email chains, but they had no idea about the revenue she'd driven or the team she'd effectively led without the title. Luna: So she took control of the narrative. What was the first slide? Lucas: She started with a one-sentence personal mission statement and a photo. Not a headshot — a picture of her leading a cross-functional workshop. It immediately signaled: I'm not just a manager, I'm a leader. Then slide two was a 'competency heat map.' She listed the director job description's ten core competencies down the left column, her self-assessment on a scale of one to five in the middle, and evidence for each score on the right. Luna: So she's mapping herself to the role, not just listing what she's done. That's smart. Most people would start with 'here's my resume in slides.' Lucas: Exactly. The heat map made it obvious where she was strong — strategic planning, cross-functional influence — and where she had a gap, like direct P&L ownership. But she didn't hide the gaps. She addressed them on slide three with a development plan: 'I will shadow the current P&L owner for one quarter, and I've already enrolled in an executive finance course.' Luna: That's the kind of honesty that builds trust. You're not claiming you already have everything; you're showing you know what you need and you're already working on it. Lucas: Right. And then slides four through seven were what she called the 'value creation timeline.' She plotted every quarter for the past two years and mapped specific revenue impacts: a product launch that added one point two million dollars, a process change that saved four hundred thousand, a team restructuring that reduced churn by fifteen percent. Each bullet had a number and a named stakeholder who could verify it. Luna: So she's not just claiming these numbers — she's saying, 'Call Sarah in supply chain if you want to confirm.' That's next-level credibility. Lucas: She even included a footnote on each slide: 'Source: quarterly business review, Q2 2025, slide 14.' She made it auditable. And that's the detail that separates a pitch deck from a brag document. Luna: What was the reaction when she first showed it? Did she present it to her new boss directly? Lucas: She didn't lead with it. She asked for a thirty-minute 'career conversation' with the new vice president. Frame: 'I'd like to share my perspective on the marketing organization and my role in it.' That's disarming. It's not 'promote me,' it's 'let me help you understand the landscape.' She brought a printed copy — not a digital deck — and walked through it page by page. Luna: Paper — interesting. Forces them to look at you, not at a screen. Lucas: Exactly. And it worked. The VP spent forty-five minutes with her, asked detailed questions, and at the end said, 'I had no idea you were doing all of this. Why haven't we talked about a director role?' She wasn't offered the job on the spot — but she was put on the shortlist for a newly created director position that hadn't even been posted yet. Luna: That's the dream scenario. But I have to ask — was there a slide that almost backfired? Lucas: There was. Slide eleven. She called it 'stretch goals' — a list of three initiatives she wanted to lead if promoted, including hiring two new senior managers and launching a new product category. The VP later told her that slide made him nervous because it sounded like she was already spending money she didn't have authority over. Luna: Ouch. So how did she recover? Lucas: She reframed it in the moment. She said, 'These aren't demands — they're opportunities I've vetted with the current team leads. The hiring is contingent on budget approval, and the category launch has a pilot ROI model that shows break-even in six months.' She turned it from a wish list into a proposal. Luna: Good save. So the lesson there is: if you're going to include stretch goals, frame them as options with contingencies, not as a shopping list. Lucas: Exactly. And that's a microcosm of the whole deck — it's not about what you want, it's about what you can deliver and how it aligns with what the business needs. Priya got the director role six weeks later. She told me the deck was in the hands of the hiring committee the day before the final decision. Luna: I wonder how many people miss out on promotions simply because the decision-makers don't have a clear picture of their contributions. A deck like that forces clarity. Lucas: It does. And it's not just for external job searches. It's an internal marketing document. The people who get promoted are often the ones who make it easy for others to advocate for them. Luna: You know, speaking of making things easy — this show is completely ad-free, and that's because a small group of listeners chips in to keep it that way. If you've ever gotten a useful tactic from an episode like this, we'd be grateful if you considered supporting the show at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's not a big ask — just a way to keep these conversations going without interruption. Lucas: Yeah, and it really does make a difference. We hear from listeners who say these episodes helped them land a promotion or navigate a tough career conversation, and that's exactly why we do this. So if you find value here, that's the place. Luna: Alright, back to Priya. One thing I want to circle back to: did she update the deck after she got the role? Or was it a one-and-done? Lucas: She told me she updates it quarterly now. It's become a living document — every quarter she adds a new slide on what she's accomplished, and she shares an abbreviated version with her boss before each performance review. She calls it her 'career quarterly report.' Luna: That's brilliant. It keeps her top of mind year-round, not just during promotion cycles. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the real secret — consistency. A pitch deck isn't a one-time Hail Mary. It's a system for making your impact visible every single quarter. Luna: Alright, so for anyone listening: if you're feeling invisible in your organization, consider building your own career pitch deck. Start with a competency heat map, add a value creation timeline, and don't forget the footnote. Lucas: And maybe skip the stretch goal slide until you've tested the waters. That one almost derailed a great story. Luna: Fair point. I think the biggest takeaway is that promotions aren't just about doing good work — they're about making sure the right people know about it, in a format they can digest quickly. Lucas: Well said. That's all for this episode. I'm Lucas. Luna: And I'm Luna. See you next time.