Mark Fiske: Operating Partner and Head of Digital Transformation at H.I.G. Capital on Building Credibility, Scaling Impact, Redefining the CMO, and Unlocking Value with Generative AI

The phrase that I’ve heard used quite often is it’s like going from a parent to being a grandparent. And when you’re a grandparent, you need that gentle guidance, you need to bring them along on the journey.

I think the other piece that's very common in private equity industry prior even to operating roles being as prioritized as they are is really valuing the network, especially if you're functionalized or specialized. I realized there wasn't a really great network of operating partners out there, so I created a small Slack community and every time I meet someone in digital and marketing in these operating and value creation roles, I tap them in and say, "Hey, do you want to join?" And now not only do I have my own list of past experiences, vendors, partners, resources I can draw on that I feel like are really the best at that little thing they do, but now I've got that network that I can draw on and say, "Hey, go to market for XYZ type of organization at this scale, in this stage, anyone got a ringer?" And usually someone's got that perfect resource that you can bring to the table that everyone's like, oh wow, how'd you find them? I think that's really valuable.

Then finally, I'd just say it's about the rituals. Anyone who knows me knows I'm pretty process-oriented. I love a good weekly or a fortnightly call with a built-in check-in on key items. I said before, strategy is cheap, execution is everything. It's the execution where things fall down. I've gone into companies countless times and just seen the pull off this old deck from an MBB and say, "We did this last 18 months ago," and I'm like, "What's happened since?" And they're like, "Oh, well we never really did anything with it." And it's like, wow, you spent a lot of money to get these really interesting insights and now you've done nothing with them.

So, I think creating those rituals around accountability and the planning, and then the execution against that plan is critical. Otherwise, you just get so distracted so easily.

Linnea: Another thing I want to pick up on that you mentioned quite a bit earlier is that your prior experience has really helped you to build credibility in your role. As you think about your work earlier at Credit Karma, at Ancestry, at Gap, how does having been in those growth and digital and marketing roles in those types of organizations enabled you or helped you?

And what do you pull from that experience specifically besides being able to sit down and say, I've been there and been able to do that, that really allows you to shine today?

Mark: That's a great question. I think I've mentioned already, and we talked about credibility comes a little bit more built in when you've got that, which is stellar. Great, love that. But I think it's also just understanding that organization needs are very different as organizations scale. And every organization has a different model that it's currently falling or operating within, and you need to be able to adapt your style to that. And I've learned that from having worked from everything from very early-stage startups all the way to Fortune 500s like Gap way back in the day. I'm able to understand, okay, at this stage, this is how I need to engage.

There's a framework, the “ISIS” framework for organizational maturity that I'm a huge fan of because it's a great tool for me to go to the executives and say, "Hey, you're in that awkward adolescent space. What you're feeling is normal, it's okay. Let's actually talk about what we now need to know now that we know that to actually be more effective in getting to the next stage and evolving."

Role challenges and critical focus

Linnea: Different business problems at different stages of businesses. Lots of different challenges and lots of different companies, curious what you find most challenging in your job.

Mark: It's tough when you've got a large portfolio you're working with, you've got a bunch of different investors, they don't know what you're working on. They don't know if you're already in four or five other diligence processes or things like that. It is really important to focus on communication and also prioritization. I'm the guy now that's like, hey, where are we in the stage of diligence? How likely is this deal to close things along those lines so you can really prioritize and focus. But I think the other part is just not only communicating that to the teams when they're trying to engage with you, but then keeping that communication and keeping everyone on the same page as you go.

You don't just have the immediate team doing the execution, you've got the portfolio company's functional team, you have the portfolio company's leadership, you have your internal deal team, and then you have your internal operating group that needs to be apprised of everything that's going on so they can be aware and tap in when it makes sense. So, a lot of my life, for better or worse, is just a lot of update emails, but I think it's really important to maintain that communication. Because I like to say in a void, people assume the worst, so it's really important that they continue to see that progress and get excited for it.

Linnea: If you think about that communication cadence, are there important, you talked about routines and rituals that you've put in place to either help automate or help establish and drive that cadence?

Mark: It's really interesting. You would think that this would be dramatically different than any other operating role, but really it's the same tools that I brought to the table. So, I have quarterly OKRs and I have numbers that I need to hit, and I think it's going to be these companies where we're going to find that opportunity and I'm going to score myself against them. And it's great to have quarterly OKRs, but I think everyone's done that and then they get to the end of the quarter and are like, whoops, we got distracted by XYZ, the new Gen AI cool tool or whatever it might be.

We have a monthly sit-down on the calendar that's separate from all our other regular recurring meetings. And it's just like how are we doing against our goals? Are we tracking? Do we need to catch up? How do we really drive that? We've got those weekly check-ins, we've got those monthly scoring against those goals, and then we do that not just with the internal operating team, but with the portfolio team to make sure that the internal resources and the portfolio company talent are really all on the same page.

Linnea: Stay focused. And how do you maintain that laser focus? Is there anything else in terms of preventing shiny object syndrome?

Mark: Well, I like to say the almighty dollar is a leveling agent. At the end of the day, I drove X million dollars of under writable EBITDA last year. This year I want to do 10% better. So, I've got these goals by quarter of where I think I'm going to find it, and a lot of times you get these really interesting in-bounds like, “Oh, we really want to do this rebranding project for our portfolio company.” You're like, “Okay, great. Let's double click at that. Why is that? What do we think the value is?” All that fun stuff.

Because a lot of times certain types of issues, you really can't demonstrate the EBITDA impact as much, and you really need to be able to find that balance between how do I get that directly measurable result versus maybe the projects that a lot of people might want or find interesting, but might not be as directly impactful.

The state of the CMO

Linnea: I want to dive a little bit further into marketing: the state of the CMO. During due diligence, what are some of the better questions to ask at that point regarding marketing and digital transformation to discover those critical opportunities for exponential returns and for the EBITDA improvement?

Mark: First and foremost, I love to ask the portfolio companies, where do you think your opportunities are? When you're talking to companies, these are people who've lived and breathed in this organization for, in some cases, many years or even decades. They know their industries, they know their businesses, they know their competition really, really well. And a lot of times they have a good sense for what those initiatives might need to be, but they don't necessarily know how to get there.

Just understanding and hearing in their own words, I really think I need to build out a demand generation machine, or I think I need to move from a sales-led order-taking model to one that's digitally enabled so people can log in. All those different types of things are like, “Okay, great, let's talk through this. Have we sized it?” You can really double-click a little bit more there. I think more broadly I'll ask the broad strokes question, “What is your growth model and how does growth happen for your organization?”

What's really amazing is there are a lot of organizations out there that have been incredibly successful, but only on one growth motion. And they might have a paid ads driven growth motion, but they've never thought about if there could be a product-led growth motion. Could there be a community-led one, could there be a referral? What are all the different layers to this? It's a really great way to understand where there might be blind spots and where you might actually be able to tap in and add value.

Then finally, especially when you get the question of are they spending more than 20% on sales and marketing and you're asking these questions, I'd love to just ask, “If you had more budget, how would you go about deciding where to spend it?” I think it's a really quick and easy way to understand if key concepts are really understood in organization, like diminishing returns, demand capture channels versus demand creation channels, incrementality, concepts like that. It's a good sense for you to understand, should my Spidey senses be tingling? Those are really great questions, not only when you're talking to a portfolio company, but also when you're talking to a potential candidate.

Linnea: It probably helps you also just understand what the maturity level of the organization or the leader is that is in the CMO role or the product officer role or the digital officer role.

Mark: 100%. It also helps you understand what archetype do they have for a marketing leader? There are a lot of different archetypes and some might be a great fit for an organization in a certain state and others might not be. It's a good understanding of whether we have archetype portfolio company fit.

CMO archetypes

Linnea: Why don't we dive into some of those archetypes because I think that's a great place to go from here. What are your thoughts on the state of the CMO? Big question.

Mark: It's crazy to me that CMO is still one of those roles where the average tenure continues to be shorter. You would probably know better than me, but I think it's ticking up in the last couple of years, but it still tends to be on the shorter side, and I think we're in the midst of a decade plus evolution of making marketing a data-driven role. It's really funny as I listen to a lot of product and growth podcasts and they're like, marketing's over here spending money still viewing as a cost center and we really need your product person to really drive the growth of your business. You need your marketer and the marketing partner to be just as lockstep with the rest of the organization around how they're actually going to do that, what those goals are and how they're aligned.

You need your marketer and the marketing partner to be just as lockstep with the rest of the organization around how they’re actually going to do that [drive business growth], what those goals are, and how they’re aligned.

I'm starting to see a lot more of the maybe visionary-type brand-oriented CMOs, start to get a lot more comfortable with understanding the data, understanding how they might measure the softer components of marketing as well as the hard components of marketing and really leaning in there.

You even see it in public company earnings reports, a lot of them created chief growth officers and all of these. I think that's a bug more so than a feature. I think really at the end of the day, that needs to be responsibility of the marketing suite, and I'm seeing marketers get more and more sophisticated and data-driven in how they operate.

I’m starting to see a lot more of the visionary-type brand-oriented CMOs start to get a lot more comfortable with understanding the data, understanding how they might measure the softer components of marketing as well as the hard components of marketing and really leaning in there.

Improving marketing's efficacy

Linnea: When you think about the CMOs that you work with, the state of marketing today, how do you go about improving the effectiveness of marketing in the organizations that you end up partnering with?

Mark: It really comes back to, what are your major growth levers? Are they the right strategic initiatives, and then how do we optimize them? So really just understanding when you say your growth model is this, okay, great, that is, let's just say for a traditional e-commerce business traffic to merchandising assortment, which drives conversion rate, which drives checkout, which drives… there's a lot of different component pieces. Let's break all those out and then let's make sure we've got a plan against each of those key individual areas with KPIs as we go.

That's just really important. Absent that, you're really just picking from a grab bag and hoping for the best. And ultimately what you have is a bottoms up budget for the organization that reflects all those key strategic initiatives and hopefully marries with a tops down budget that you might get from a CFO or from an investment team.

Linnea: As you think about how you approach that, but in the context of the current environment, longer hold periods which have allowed firms to underwrite more transformational improvement projects, what are some of the bigger or more strategic programs that you can get to now that maybe you weren't able to before because of the more limited time window?

Mark: I remember when I first joined the firm, they would be like, hey, there's an exit process happening in the next X months. What can you do? And you're like, oh boy, let me look. And you're like, they don't have a data warehouse.

I think now when you work earlier on and end up with a longer hold period, you can really focus on those really big foundational projects around infrastructure and enablement. I like to say sometimes you have to go slow to go fast, and yeah, that might mean we need to reorient our data model, develop a data dictionary, put in place a data warehouse and a CDP. But those are so foundational and important that without them you won't be able to really tackle the much more impactful, sophisticated strategies that you might want to be able to see and call in years two, three, and four.

Sourcing CMO talent

Linnea: You described a number of projects. Obviously, we have to also think about who the leaders are that are going to execute on those. And I think many times you've got great people in those roles, other times, which is when we get brought in, you realize maybe we don't have the leader that we need to get there. If you are in a situation where you need to replace or upgrade a CMO, how do you go about approaching the hiring process and what do you look for in that new leader?

Mark: I think a lot of times it's even having that conversation with the current executive team and the current leader around, this is where your organization is today, and this is where we need to go. Just being candid about that and understanding if there is a role for this individual in the organization as we think through this. And really being transparent and honest as we kind of go through that process. It's really important to recognize though that you need to find somebody who has been through that stage and that particular challenge in an organization.

I think it’s really important to recognize that you need to find somebody who has been through that stage and that particular challenge in an organization.

I've seen countless CMOs get hired and they were the SVP of XYZ at brand name public company. Isn't that great? It's a growth stage company that needs to build out its go-to-market and its team and they have no KPIs, and that person comes in and they expect to have this infrastructure around them that just doesn't exist.

I think what I really focus quite a bit on is finding those CMOs who align with that organization's position in that as I kind of referenced that “ISIS” life cycle or where they are in their maturity or even just what their big challenges today. The challenge is Salesforce efficacy, we don't have the right compensation structure, we don't have the right objection handling. Let's find someone who's actually been on that journey before because we don't want to have to pay them to learn on the job.

I also would just say, no one's perfect. I think we all have biases built in. I'm a big fan of outside firms that'll come in and really dig in and partner alongside a candidate who invests sometimes two, three, four hours of their time to go really deep and do maybe a modified Hogan assessment or really help you understand what is this individual's blind spots? So, we can go in eyes wide open and be transparent with that individual like, hey, we really like you. Here's your blind spots. As we're thinking through your organization, how do we complement you? Do you hire a senior director of XYZ to help that area that you might not be the strongest in? And just really having that dialogue as you work with potential talent.

Linnea: What I'm hearing is a focus on fit for purpose. So, what are the business challenges? Again, do we have somebody that's close to being able to execute on that? If so, can you pair them up with a coach or are they far enough along that journey? And if they're not, let's make sure we go out and identify as this and attract and be really, really clear on what that scorecard looks like.

Mark: 100%. And also do they have the appetite for it? A lot of times you talk to people and they're like, oh yeah, I've done that 15 years ago, blah, blah, blah. And then you're like, okay, you're ready to do it again? They're like, oooh.

The CMO hot seat: must-ask questions

Linnea: We always say we hire people knowing nobody is perfect and no one's going to be perfect. So, it is really about figuring out who's that person that's going to complement, supplement, and again, drive the needle for you.

As you get into the interview process with people, I'm curious, when you're hiring for CMOs, what are some of the better interview questions that you ask?

Mark: There's some questions that I think almost regardless even of function, you really want to get a deep understanding of. One I love to ask is just what gets you out of bed versus is just part of the job.

There’s some questions that I think almost regardless of function, you really want to get a deep understanding of. One I love to ask is: what gets you out of bed versus is just part of the job?

You might be really good at it, you might be the best budgeter ever, but if that's not something you really thrive in, great, I want to know that. I want to know what you're passionate about and how does that align with the organization needs. There are a lot of great candidates out there that you're talking to and you're like, you are stellar, but you are not stellar for this particular company. So, I'll really try to get to understand what makes them tick and what are they going to be most passionate about in this role.

Then I actually go back to why, why are you interested in this company? What are you trying to get out of your next opportunity that you aren't getting today? Because I think it's absolutely critical to understanding again, are they going to be motivated, are they going to be driven, all those things. And then I really try to understand what environments do they thrive in best? And I'll ask them, but then I'll also go do relatively deep references - and the references are never should I hire this person because by the time you're calling references, if you can't find three people to say something nice about you, something's wrong. It's much more, hey, how does Linnea thrive? What environment does she operate best in? As her former manager, what would you want her next manager to know?

Is this person going to be able to operate with this type of environment? If I have a very direct CEO who plans on top-down communication, and you know you're not going to change that overnight, I might need to find a leader or a partner for that individual who's comfortable with that style. And that might completely change the candidate you select for a role.

Linnea: You hit on something that's super important, which is don't just take the list of that three to five references that are going to say great things about this person. You need to dig deeper, and you also need to reference much broader.

You need to get into things around development management of that person and how you unlock and unleash their potential. But really figuring out through the interview process, and this is part of what we do, which stems out of some of the top-grading hiring methodology, which is as you're going through the interview process, you're sort of figuring out who did they report to, who were some of their peers, who were people that reported to them, and kind of plotting out a map in each role they've been in of who the people were that surrounded them.

A-players love to make introductions to references, and you can figure out, “Hey, this seemed like a really important project, could we speak to XYZ person from this part of your journey earlier in your career, this person from this role and this role and this role?” You get a pretty good picture then of that individual from doing that.

Mark: 110%. I'd also say when they're comfortable sharing, and that's not always the case, I'll say, who would be a detractor? Who would say they didn't think you were super effective in this role? And why do you think they would say that?

On occasion, they'll actually introduce you to that person. It's hugely valuable because it also I think demonstrates a little bit of self-awareness and the ability to learn and grow when you're working with those people. It's also completely fair to say, this person really didn't like me because they didn't promote them, but here's my take on it, feel free to go talk to them. And it's very helpful to understand that EQ and the cultural fit component when you're having some of those discussions.

Linnea: You've also put them in a place to be vulnerable and comfortable and say, look, this is all the things we like about you, but we want to watch out for you when you get here, how we help to make you even stronger and better at your job, which is why we want to talk to XYZ person. It's all how you kind of set it up.

Mark: Totally. And honestly, I still feel like the most successful executives we've hired are the ones that have that self-awareness and that transparency and openness because developing a growth mindset, they're not stuck in their ways. They're like, I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to learn. Here's what I learned from working with this individual or this organization and here's how I'm going to apply it in my next gig. I think that's hugely impactful.

The mechanics of Generative AI

Linnea: I want to pivot to a totally different topic, which is Generative AI. I know you just hosted a Gen AI summit. What were the insights you gleaned from that?

Mark: Oh boy. Well, it was really interesting. We originally planned the summit back in February and we're like, oh gosh, Gen AI, everyone's interested in it. We really need to be able to help the portfolio. And I feel like over the following call it six, seven months, we might've entered that the gardener like trough of disillusionment a little bit the articles and the major publications went from being like, this is how it's transforming the world to organizations are realizing the cost and maybe not seeing as big of an impact.

In general, I think we tend to overestimate in the short term and underestimate in the long term. And what I've really seen with our portfolio companies at that summit is I think a lot of are coming to the table with hammers, looking for nails. I found this Gen AI tool, I really want to apply it to my business.

You have to take a step back and say, okay, what is your business strategy and what are your big levers? Okay, great. Is this a distraction that is maybe a tenth of the impact of the next highest priority initiative that might not have a .AI domain associated with it, or is this actually going to have a meaningful impact? And what we're seeing is there are still quite a few meaningful impacts in the organization, in the areas of sales, customer support, training and enablement, recruiting, things along those lines. But where we expect to see the really transformative impacts are probably still a little bit in the future where companies are completely rethinking their strategy and incorporating Gen AI into the core strategy of the company versus bolting on kind of like a third party tool or chat bot that solves a very point-solution type need.

Where we expect to see the really transformative impacts are probably a little bit in the future where companies are completely rethinking their strategy and incorporating Gen AI into the core strategy of the company.

Linnea: I read recently somebody posted something and I love the series of questions they asked about this, which was first and foremost, could we use Gen AI? If that's the case, should we? And then the third question is how should we? That framework is a good way to set it up.

Mark: 100%. And it's also kind of like you need a little bit of game theory in there too. I've had portfolio companies come to me and say, "I found this really great startup Series A, they do expense management reporting and optimization in automated manner." I'm like, "Cool, aren't you guys on Concur?" And they're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but give us a year to integrate with it and it'll be great." And you're like, "Go talk to Concur. I'm pretty confident that they've got something like this on the roadmap." Then they come back and like, okay, we decided just to wait four months and we'll be in the data.

Leveraging Generative AI to drive innovation

Linnea: Building off of that, how are your portfolio companies thinking through in applying Gen AI today?

Mark: I think right now a lot of them are starting with a list of tools, and I think that's probably a bad idea. That's a really good way to find those very tactical easy wins, but not-

Linnea: The point solution stuff.

Mark: Point solution stuff, that's not particularly impactful. I think the ones that are most interesting to me are the ones that start with business problems. And the story I always tell around this is when I was at Gap Inc. and the iPhone was new, they said, we need a mobile app, launch a mobile app. There was a big discussion around, do we visualize this piece of apparel on someone using some type of VR functionality or do we build something out? It's like, okay, well that'll take a long time to build out all of that. Let's actually look at what our customer challenges are, go back to the customer. And still probably to this day, the number one reason a customer doesn't transact in a retail store is they don't have my size, or they don't have the color I wanted in stock.

So instead of a really fancy AR thing, we just took a barcode scanner that allowed you to find what you needed in a nearby store or order online, and it was probably far more impactful and tied to customer satisfaction than the neat shiny thing that you'd want.

That's something I keep reminding portfolio companies of - start with the customer first. Start with your business problems and then let's see where we can apply these solutions. It's fine if you want to put a chatbot on your customer support page because it helps remediate tier one tickets, I'm not going to stop you, but that's not going to be the thing that actually has impact in your organization.

And that’s something I keep reminding portfolio companies of is start with the customer first. Start with your business problems and then let’s see where we can apply these solutions.

Linnea: Again, everything just comes back to driving impact.

Mark: 100%.

Linnea: Having said all that, I do want to ask you if there are any particularly exciting Gen AI tools or technologies.

Mark: It's really interesting. I actually think starting with the generalist tools is hugely impactful and getting people comfortable with them can be such a time saver and the rising tide that lifts your productivity. So, we have a ChatGPT enterprise, but we realized that people didn't really understand how to use it, so we really focused on let's develop a prompt library and database. Let's incentivize people to actually submit really interesting and cool prompts to that so we can help educate our investors.

I initially saw what I'd call maybe a little bit of a barbell where you had users who were super users using ChatGPT 10-15 times a day for real business problems, and then you had a lot of people on one other side that signed up for it, tried it a couple of times, didn't really understand how to engage effectively or what the art of the possible was and kind of dropped off.

So now my focus really is how do we demonstrate the art of the possible, and that is case studies, it is showing sample prompts. It is really demonstrating what was a recent business challenge, and then let me show you how we could have done that in a third of the time type thing. Just getting those messages out there, not just internally for our investment professionals, but also to our broader portfolio. And that's really what, when we had that summit, it was more intended to demonstrate here's all the art of the possible, and we don’t want to constrain your thinking so you can think about where you might apply this in your organization.

Linnea: Do you have any favorite prompts?

Mark: I definitely have favorite prompts. I have favorite prompt frameworks, all of that fun stuff. And then I have favorite tools too. There are some tools that are just really easy to implement and it's like, hey, yeah, it's a point solution. It's not going to revolutionize your world, but it's still pretty cool.

In terms of chatbots, we use quite often one called Ada, Ada.cx. It's really cool, easy to implement, and it really drives value quickly, so it kind of helps that light bulb in the portfolio company. Then there’s a lot of other vertical specific tools where it's like, oh wow, if this is a very common challenge for healthcare companies and this very compliant platform over here that's been tried and true and proven is doing great, we'll go ahead and cross pollinate it to our other ones. And an example that would be like Liine (L-I-I-N-E), that just helps automate some of the challenges that a lot of our healthcare portfolio companies have.

Linnea: Is there a favorite prompt you could share? What should we add to our library?

Mark: I mean, it really just starts with, and I'll use one example of many. I also occasionally support our corporate marketing team, and we have very specific guidelines around how press releases need to be written, whether using Oxford comma, what the boilerplate looks like, and what boilerplate you use. And it was really relatively complex.

Linnea: Speaking my language, Mark, and always use the Oxford comma.

Mark: What we did is we took a bunch of historical press releases. It said, hey, in the style format tone, you are a professional PR person. You need to make sure that it has these strict criteria that we've set as our standards, generate a press release for XYZ new deal announcement. Really basic, a lot of these press releases tend to be a little formulaic or boilerplate, but it generated the first press release that didn't have any edits after it went through our whole review process internally.

Linnea: Not a single one?

Mark: Yeah.

Linnea: Wow.

Mark: Which was eye-opening. I think that was at least for our marketing team, an “aha” moment because it really did a good job. When you give it the context, you invest in the prompt and in being clear enough, and then you've got a prompt that you can apply to probably most deal announcements going forward.

Linnea: I guess it's like anything, input equals output.

Mark: Exactly. And just understanding how do I make this tool work hardest for me?

Generating positive energy

Linnea: Speaking of inputs, in terms of generating great output for your personal performance, for your life, your work, what are some of the things you do outside of work that allow you to show up as your best self every day?

Mark: I'd say fitness and time to actually reflect is such a luxury, particularly in a world where you have constant distractions. I put screen time on my own phone. I have my partner set the passcode so I can't spend too much time on TikTok or social media and just get distracted, and it forces a certain level of mindfulness. One on the fitness front, I think I had to find a ritual that really worked for me, and it was a home workout system that I really liked. I'm not a gym guy, but I'll hit that home workout machine, and that's a really great way for me to get that in.

Then also my morning reflections. I'm not the person who's going to sit in a dark room and meditate, but I will have a nice long walk to the office. So, while I could hop on the train and be in the office in 20 minutes, I'd prefer to walk, spend 45 minutes with some music in my ears and really think through the day ahead and some of the challenges that I'm having. It really just helps prime me for my day.

Linnea: Having somebody else hold your password. That's my next level I guess I need to get at. I do have the timer that pops off and it says, "Hey, you're almost at your end." And then I'm like, oh, no, I'll take 15 more minutes.

Mark: It's probably more a statement on my personal willpower than anything else.

Linnea: That's too good. But I do love an early morning meditation if I can, or a yoga class. Again, I think it's just like you said, just a little bit of a pause, just taking a few moments for yourself before you get into the stimulation and the business that just helps to level set your energy, I think.

Mark: Yep, and there's no right answer. I think everybody's ritual is going to be unique and specific to them, and that's perfect.

Sources of inspiration

Linnea: As unique as every portfolio company. Any leaders that are inspiring you lately, or books, podcasts, quotes that are inputs for inspiration?

Mark: On the leader front, I'd say I just love following Adam Grant on LinkedIn. I think he's incredibly thoughtful both around organizational dynamics, understanding of people and incentives, and I just love to try to absorb maybe 1% of the brilliance that you can from his LinkedIn and his books.

In terms of books, I tend to not follow the latest trend or craze in business books and really stick to the really old tried and trues. I just absolutely love Carnegie's ‘How To Win Friends and Influence People’. If anything, it's a reminder our life and our job really is all about change management and how you go about that is hugely impactful.

I'm going to get it a little wrong, but I think it's George Shaw or George Bernard Shaw, but it really goes back to it says, “The people who get along in this world are the ones who, when they hit a wall, they look for the circumstances they want. And if you really can't find those circumstances, you make them.”

I really attribute that back to grit. If you persevere, if you keep hammering away at a problem and understanding the constraints and the other challenges around it, a lot of times you can find that you had a false view of the world or a view of a problem that was artificially limiting. So really just hammering away at it and trying to understand it deeply and asking those three “Whys?” is hugely impactful and really pushing through whatever a challenge at hand might be.

If you persevere, if you keep hammering away at a problem and understanding the constraints and the other challenges around it, a lot of times you can find that you had a false view of the world or a view of a problem that was artificially limiting.

Defining Brilliance with Mark Fiske

Linnea: We are almost at the finish line. We have gotten here, and in each episode, we'd like to wrap up by defining brilliance in a few different ways. So, I'm going to hit you with a quick lightning round. If you could please fill in the blanks. Get ready.

Mark:

	Purpose is...	being helpful and seeing impact.
	Leadership is...	creating clarity of everything: expectations, direction, and a shared vision.
	Success is...	having impact, period. Preferably impact in a way that elevates those around you.
	Brilliant leaders are...	thoughtful, open-minded, and empathetic.
	Brilliant digital operating partners are...	collaborative, thoughtful, and right back to our last question, I think empathy is critical.
	Brilliant CMOs are...	customer-obsessed, data-driven, and creative.
	I perform at my best when...	I'm really challenged, but given space to solve a problem and then try to remove those constraints that allow for some creativity.

Linnea: This has been so fun. Mark, thank you for joining us in the studio here in New York today.

Mark: Thank you for having me.

Linnea: Thank you to Mark Fiske of H.I.G. Capital for joining us on today's episode. I hope all of you walk away inspired to step change, grow through more effective marketing, digital transformation, and Generative AI initiatives. And thanks to you, our listeners, for tuning in.

That's it for this episode of The Brilliant People Podcast. I'm Linnea Jungnelius. If you found this conversation valuable, be sure to subscribe, rate and review the show, and follow Acertitude on LinkedIn for the latest insights on how to lead and perform at your best.

Until next time, stay brilliant at work and find a way.

For more Brilliant People content, check out the insights from Ben Humphreys, Senior Operating Executive at Monomoy Capital Partners.