I'm usually the person asking, “Okay, but how does this connect to everything else?”
Hi, I’m Stephanie!
I've spent most of my career working across marketing functions rather than neatly inside one of them. Social led me into influencer marketing. Brand priorities had to account for what sales was seeing. Digital work exposed problems in the customer journey. Agency recommendations needed context from inside the business.
And honestly, that's the part of marketing I've always liked best.
I like figuring out how the pieces connect, noticing the thing everyone else has been working around, and asking enough questions to understand what's actually happening before deciding what to do about it.
It's also what eventually led me here.
I LIKE THE PART BEFORE EVERYONE STARTS DOING THINGS.
Give me the research. Give me the dashboards. Let me talk to sales, hear what the agency thinks, understand what the founder is worried about, and figure out why three people who are all looking at the same business have three completely different ideas about what the priority should be.
That's usually where the interesting stuff is.
I've always had strong pattern recognition and a tendency to read between the lines. It's why I've done some of my best work in roles where I was wearing multiple hats and had visibility into more than one part of marketing.
I don't need to be the person executing every piece. In fact, I'd rather work with smart people who are really good at what they do. I want to understand enough of the whole picture to make sure those people have the context, direction, and support they need to do their best work.
GOOD MARKETING GETS A LOT EASIER WHEN EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE WORKING TOWARD.
One of my biggest frustrations is watching companies jump ten steps ahead because they're eager to see results.
They'll rebuild the website while someone else develops a social strategy based on messaging that's about to change. They'll hire another specialist before figuring out how that person fits with everyone already doing the work. They'll add another tactic because growth has slowed without stopping to figure out where the actual problem is.
Then everyone works very hard on things that don't quite connect.
I don't think everything has to be perfect before marketing can move. It never will be. But some decisions create the direction for everything that follows, and those need to happen in the right order.
I'd rather spend more time getting the foundation right than spend six months paying people to run quickly in different directions.
I LEAD THE SAME WAY I LIKE TO BE LED.
Hire smart people. Give them context. Make sure they understand why their work matters. Then trust them to do the job you hired them to do.
I've always wanted the people who report to me to understand how their work contributes to something bigger, whether they're leading a major part of the function or they're an intern working on their first project.
I believe in open communication. I believe people do better work when they have enough context to make good decisions. And I don't believe hovering over someone makes them better at their job.
I also don't expect marketing to win every time.
Sometimes the campaign doesn't perform. Sometimes the metric goes down. Sometimes the idea everyone felt great about simply doesn't work. I'd rather have a team that can say that out loud, understand why, learn something useful, and make the next decision better than one that's afraid to admit anything went wrong.
why fractional?
I like getting close enough to a business to understand it without needing to own every part of the execution.
After years inside larger organizations, I realized the work I enjoyed most was the work that came with a problem to understand. A new function to build. A strategy to figure out. A team that needed direction. A business question marketing needed to help answer.
Fractional work lets me do more of that.
I get to learn the business, become part of the team, help untangle what's getting in the way, and bring the experience I've built inside larger marketing organizations to companies that need that level of thinking before they necessarily need another full-time executive.
And because I'm not there to execute every tactic myself, I get to stay focused on the part I'm best at: connecting the pieces and helping the people responsible for them move in the same direction.
A LITTLE LESS MARKETING, A LITTLE MORE ME.
I'm based in Charleston, South Carolina, although that wasn't exactly the plan.
In 2020, I came to South Carolina for what was supposed to be a two-week visit with a childhood best friend. I never left. He's now my husband, and his job eventually brought us to Charleston.
Our house also includes three rescue dogs: Henry, Lily, and Benny. Henry and Lily are pit bulls. Benny is a tiny toy fox terrier/rat terrier mix who is fully convinced he's just as large as they are and also happens to be my soul dog.
When I'm not working, I'm usually reading, journaling, going down a research rabbit hole I absolutely did not need to go down, learning more about human behavior and psychology, or helping with rescue dogs whenever I can. Most recently, I bought a sewing machine, so we'll see where that one goes.
WHAT I WANT MARKETING TO FEEL LIKE WHEN WE WORK TOGETHER.
I want you to feel like someone else finally sees the whole picture with you.
You don't have to stop caring about marketing. You don't have to disappear from it. And you certainly don't have to hand over every decision and hope for the best.
I want you to have someone you trust enough to say, “Here's what's happening. What do you think?”
Someone who can dig into the problem, ask the questions you may not have thought to ask, work with the people already around you, and help turn all of that information into a clearer path forward.
Because ultimately, I don't want you spending less time thinking about marketing because you've given up on it.
I want you spending less time thinking about marketing because you finally trust how it's being led.