Career Coaching for

Marketing Leaders in Tech, SaaS & Growth Companies

Five star strategies, forged in the AI & Cloud capital of the world.

Close Collins Career Consulting is a nationally recognized executive career coaching firm serving senior professionals across the United States. The Marketing Leadership Coaching program serves the full range of senior marketing leaders: Senior Marketing Managers, Marketing Directors, Senior Directors, VPs and SVPs of Marketing, CMOs, senior marketing ICs, and specialists across brand, growth, GTM, and product marketing, all ready to lead at the next level. Close Collins has coached senior marketing leaders from tech, SaaS, AI, and growth-stage companies including Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta, Adobe, Nvidia, Anthropic, Starbucks, Walmart, J.P. Morgan Chase, and other Fortune 500 organizations.

The firm has been recognized as Best Executive Career Coach five consecutive years. Coaching focuses on scaling brand, growth, and revenue impact; advancing to VP Marketing or CMO; leading integrated marketing organizations; building executive presence with CEOs and boards; and navigating AI-driven transformation of the marketing function. Engagements are one-on-one with a senior Close Collins coach using the firm’s structured five-step method. Close Collins coaches have trained marketing professionals holding MBA degrees from Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, MIT Sloan, and other top business schools.

Five-star reviews

2,500+

Executives coached

Trusted by senior marketing leaders at Fortune 500 and high-growth companies

What the Close Collins Marketing Leadership Coaching Program Includes

A proven, tailored approach with a seasoned executive coach to achieve the marketing career results you’re after.

Private mentorship and accountability from a senior marketing leader
Strategic project plan customized to your marketing career goals
Strengths & blindspot assessment
Field assignments, real-world exercises tied to your live marketing work
Executive presence development with CEOs, boards, and cross-functional peers
Coaching on positioning marketing as a revenue driver, not a cost center
Curated learning and resources on AI-era marketing leadership
Dedicated online space for live, responsive communication with your coach

Natalie S.

Incredible expertise, these are not your average coaches, they’re the executives you wish you had.

The Close Collins Method

A proprietary five-phase framework built for senior marketing leaders at career inflection points.

The 360° Intake & Blind Spot Assessment

Before any strategy is built, we need the full picture. Your engagement begins with a structured 360-degree intake, a deep diagnostic covering your marketing career history, leadership patterns, executive relationships, and the blind spots that may be limiting your trajectory in an AI-transformed marketing function.

Most senior marketing leaders arrive knowing what they want. Fewer know what’s actually in the way. This phase surfaces both.

Output: A written assessment that your coach uses to build your strategic project plan.

Phase 2:
Your Strategic Project Plan

Generic coaching produces generic results. Close Collins builds a custom strategic project for every client, a working plan that defines your goals, identifies the highest-leverage actions, sequences your work in priority order, and establishes the milestones we will hold you to. This is not a list of suggestions. It is a project plan, built the way a McKinsey engagement would be built, except your marketing leadership career is the deliverable.

Output: A live roadmap updated throughout your engagement that keeps both you and your coach accountable to outcomes.

Field Assignments

The work happens between sessions, not during them. Every Close Collins client receives custom field assignments, exercises embedded directly into your real work and personal life that accelerate the specific skills and outcomes your plan targets.

Assignments range from structured preparation for a CEO or board presentation, to influence-mapping the executive stakeholders shaping marketing’s charter, to practicing executive presence techniques in live cross-functional settings. Nothing is hypothetical.

Output: measurable behavioral change between sessions, not just insight.

Executive Presence & Influence Amplification

At the senior marketing level, performance is necessary but not sufficient. Promotion, budget defense, and organizational impact are determined by influence, how you are perceived by the CEO, the board, the CFO, and the cross-functional leaders whose partnership marketing depends on.

This phase deploys Close Collins’s structured executive presence framework: candid feedback on how you show up, targeted work on communication, authority, and strategic visibility, and coaching on the specific relationships and rooms that determine your next move.

Output: a documented influence strategy and the skills to execute it.

Synthesis & Self-Navigation

The goal of Close Collins coaching is not dependency, it is capability. In the final phase, your coach works with you to consolidate your learnings, stress-test your self-navigation instincts, and ensure you leave the engagement with a repeatable framework for every marketing leadership decision you will face after we are done.

Clients who complete this phase consistently report that the most valuable outcome was not the immediate goal they came in with, it was knowing how to navigate the next one without us.

Output: a self-navigation framework and the confidence to use it.

Refreshing to feel so accomplished at the end of each session.

Jennifer T.

Wow that went fast! We never stopped focusing on our mandate which made the work very clear.

Ryan L.

Close Collins is the best Marketing Career Coach for the job

Close Collins coaches senior marketing leaders through the specific inflection points where careers stall, accelerate, or pivot.

Advance to your next marketing leadership level, Senior Manager to Director, Director to VP, or VP to CMO
Break through after being passed over for promotion
Get the title and scope that match the next-level work you're already doing
Prove strategic and business impact, not just marketing output or campaign delivery
Build executive presence and C-suite influence with CEOs, boards, and CFOs
Position a broad or non-linear marketing background for your target senior role

Run a senior marketing job search with clear positioning
Prepare for senior-level marketing interviews with strategic depth
Decide between the IC track and management track at senior marketing levels
Scale brand, growth, and demand generation impact
Lead integrated marketing organizations across brand, product marketing, growth, and comms
Navigate AI-driven change in the marketing function

Meet Your Marketing Coaches

Close Collins’s marketing coaching bench includes former senior marketing executives from REI Co-op, Starbucks, Zillow, and Publicis Groupe.

Kyle Cleary

Executive Coach | Former EVP, Arc Worldwide

Former EVP at Arc Worldwide (Publicis Groupe), Kyle led marketing and commerce activations for billion-dollar brands including Pepsi, Gatorade, and SC Johnson across Publicis and Omnicom.

Read Kyle’s bio

Vivienne Long

Executive Coach | Former CMO, REI Co-op | Former VP, Starbucks

Former SVP and CMO of REI Co-op, leading a 100+ person marketing organization. Previously a decade as VP at Starbucks. Wharton MBA.

Read Vivienne’s bio

Nancy Poznoff

Executive Coach | Former VP, Starbucks, Zillow & T-Mobile

Former VP at Starbucks, Zillow, and T-Mobile, Nancy built marketing engines that powered billion-dollar valuations. Also co-founder & CEO of a marketing and communications firm.

Read Nancy’s bio

Top Rated Executive Coaching Reviews

Liza Jane Green

6 months ago

I highly recommend working with Jenna. She is outstanding, and does an exceptional job at balancing genuine encouragement with clear, actionable feedback that actually drives improvement. For our interview prep session she had reviewed the role, researched the interviewer, and built a highly tailored mock interview. Her insights were sharp, practical, and grounded in experience, helping me focus on the highest impact changes. Most importantly, she helped me show up with clarity and confidence. Thank you, Jenna!

Rochelle Lietke

6 months ago

I hired Close Collins to help update my resume and prepare for looking for new jobs. Jenna did an amazing job spending time with me to go through my skill sets and fine tune my pitch. She also helped me ramp up my interview skills which have been paying off with getting follow up interviews. I’m so happy with their service and have been recommending them to my friends and colleagues.

Cameron Griggs

7 months ago

I’ve had an overall great experience with Close Collins Career Consulting, especially working with Jenna. She is phenomenal! Insightful, supportive, and incredibly easy to work with. The process was very flexible, which made a huge difference as I was actively job searching and interviewing. I initially came in looking for help with mock interviews, but I walked away with so much more… mainly a clearer understanding of the modern job search process and how to effectively brand myself for the roles I’m targeting. I’m very grateful for the support and would highly recommend Close Collins to anyone navigating their career or job search!

Lauren Riefflin

9 months ago

I had a great experience working with Nancy. Our sessions were focused, very personalized, and extremely productive. Everything was modern, actionable, and tailored to where I was in my career. I left feeling confident, current, and much clearer on how to position myself. The accountability and structure built into the process was a huge plus for me as well. Highly recommend!

Terri Hendricks

1 year ago

This was my first coaching experience, and working with Nancy since the beginning of the year has been very valuable. She has helped me better understand where I am in my career and how to navigate the early stages with more clarity. She has also helped me build confidence at work and given me the tools to apply more strategic frameworks that open up new ways of thinking. Each session gives me practical advice and clear takeaways I can put into action right away. Nancy brings empathy, energy, and fun, and she makes it easy to have conversations I hadn’t had or even thought about before.

Maddie Heye

1 year ago

Working with Nancy Poznoff has been truly transformative. At a time when I was feeling stuck and misaligned in my career, she helped me take a powerful step back and reorient everything around my values, purpose, and long-term vision. Through thoughtful conversation and coaching, listening, and just the right amount of challenge, Nancy guided me through a period of change. I gained clarity, confidence, and a renewed sense of direction. If you're an executive or professional navigating transition, questioning your next step, or wanting to lead with more authenticity, I can’t recommend Nancy highly enough.

Carlee Price

1 year ago

I have worked with Close Collins for many years, both at junctures in my career and also where I could use support in an existing role, to level up my game or move through a tricky spot. I've found better clarity through my work with them, and some incredibly practical and enduring tools and resources. If you want to invest in yourself & your career, if you want to build understanding of the system operating around you and "make sense" of your professional environment, there's no better place to turn. Highly recommend this talented team.

Elizabeth Hawkins

1 year ago

I’ve been working with Close Collins on and off for 12+ years now and after a session the other day I realized I should update my review to reflect the multiple career transitions they’ve supported me with since I was a law firm founder seeking leadership development support for myself and my team. I reached out because after taking somewhat of a career break to raise my two young children abroad, I’m trying to figure out my next steps and needed some wisdom and guidance. Even after a multi-year hiatus, within minutes we had gotten to the heart of the matter and I came away with renewed confidence and optimism about the next phase of my career, multiple concrete action steps and a framework for making the decisions that loom on the horizon. Having a team this dedicated in my corner makes me feel like anything is possible. Thank you!

Flavio D

1 year ago

I've worked with Close Collins for executive coaching for almost three years and it has been a great professional investment. My sessions with Alisa Cohen helped me understand how to tell my professional story, how to present to peers and leaders. They know their stuff at Close Collins. The coaching was practical and focused on real leadership challenges I was facing. Alisa helped me think through situations in ways I hadn't considered before, and it definitely improved both my presentation skills and how I work with my teams. Worth considering for anyone looking to level up their leadership and executive skills.

David Kellis

1 year ago

I chose CloseCollins based on a personal recommendation. They stand out for delivering actionable coaching that elevates my performance. And I value the accountability. The two coaches I worked with brought exceptional expertise and a clear results focus. I'd recommend them to anyone.

Andy T

1 year ago

Close Collins has been an exceptional partner in sharpening my leadership approach. The coaching is thoughtful and immediately applicable to high-stakes work. Both coaches I’ve worked with combine expertise with a collaborative style that makes the process both effective and enjoyable. They helped me land my last two jobs, significantly elevating my scope. Recommended

Libby Postovoit

2 years ago

Daria is a fantastic career coach -- smart, empathetic, and strategic. She was an invaluable thought partner during my most recent career transition, helping me understand what mattered most to me in a company and role, and the areas where I was competitive as a candidate. She also provided excellent guidance on how to optimize stakeholder relationships and impact. Working with Daria was a great investment for me during my transition into a more visible and senior role. I can't thank Daria and the team at Close Collins enough.

John Fulton

2 years ago

In the Spring of 2024, I reached out to Alisa Cohen feeling stuck, unprepared, and lacking confidence after a long, challenging tenure at a toxic company. From our very first meeting, I felt a renewed sense of hope and excitement about the future of my career. Alisa’s comprehensive and thoughtfully designed program pushed me to truly reflect on my work history and skills, and helped me define what I genuinely wanted to pursue next. Her guidance was transformative. We overhauled my resume, revamped my LinkedIn profile, refined my portfolio, and prepared strategically for interviews. Yet, beyond these tangible changes, Alisa provided a steady stream of encouragement, focusing on my strengths and reigniting my self-belief. The results were almost immediate. My applications began getting more attention, and I found myself going through multiple interview loops for executive-level positions. After 5.5 months of hard work and dedication, I received two incredible offers on the same day. Alisa then helped me carefully evaluate the options and provided invaluable advice on negotiations, ultimately helping me secure a role that will allow me to leave behind a toxic environment. Alisa’s work may feel magical, but the results are real—and so worth the effort. She makes you dig deep, and she empowers you to find the answers within yourself, all while building you up every step of the way. I often refer to Alisa as my career therapist. Her warmth, empathy, and practical approach to career growth not only rebuilt my confidence but truly changed my life.

Colleen McArdle

2 years ago

I reached out to Close Collins Consulting when I was at a crossroads in my career and needed help in focusing on future goals and how to tactically get there. Alisa Cohen is such a great coach and mentor! She listened and provided the feedback that helped guide me to new decisions and reshape my approach about my career and what I really wanted and needed out of it. I cannot recommend her and Close Collins enough!

Danielle Allsop

2 years ago

I happily recommend Alisa to anyone seeking executive coaching. She's a fantastic coach, supporter, and partner during the journey -- highly organized, insightful, top notch listener, supreme writer/editor, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Working with Alisa was essential for building my confidence, launching my candidacy, and landing my next role. Five Stars and then some!

Scott Merlino

2 years ago

I worked with Alisa Cohen and she was fantastic. I highly recommend her if you're looking for career consulting/coaching advice and support.

Erica Paoli

3 years ago

Alisa is an amazing coach – smart, kind, and encouraging. I learned so much from her during our time together, and she helped me build confidence in myself; especially with interviewing and asking for what I’m worth. She was always available to answer questions, offer support and feedback along my journey and beyond. The best part is – I landed a fantastic new role a mere 4 months after working with her, and I could not have done it without her!

Amy Persell

3 years ago

Alisa is a terrific coach. Her thoughtful and organized approach was appreciated. I really liked how I was kept accountable. In addition, I found her coaching to be a great mix of informal counseling and specific job search tasks. Unlike lots of couches that you will find on Google-Close Collins is all about finding the right fit for YOU, not about filling roles at specific companies where you may or not be a good fit.

Andrew Cardillo

3 years ago

I am writing to leave a 5-star review of Close Collins Career Consulting, LLC based on my experience with their Senior Level Career Coaching package. I wholeheartedly endorse the services and attention I received throughout the entirety of my time. Alisa Cohen gave me practical, results-oriented advice right from the start of our sessions. This advice has materialized as increased views of my LinkedIn profile, a suite of new tools to aid in my career progression, and strategies to help me network, apply, and negotiate through every phase of the process. I have gained genuine confidence from defining and owning the value proposition I offer to an organization. If you are looking to enhance your own career progression, I assure you that for me the results speak for themselves. Thank you Close Collins Career Consulting!

Alina Perez-Campos

4 years ago

Alisa Cohen acts as a beacon, guiding you through your career journey. With her exceptional ability to identify and highlight your key strengths, you'll stand out amongst the competition and secure the job of your dreams. Her guidance is both insightful and compassionate, consistently encouraging you to stay true to yourself. Investing in her coaching services is a wise decision that will yield long-lasting benefits for years to come.

Vivian Ramos

4 years ago

I worked with Laura back in 2018 when I was looking for a new role and in general a new outlook in my career. My experience was life changing to say the least. She was empathetic and warm, and she came up with an action plan that I still reference to this day. Fast forward to 2022, and I started working with Alisa for interview coaching. I seriously couldn’t have gotten my new role without her. Her coaching and feedback was crucial to my lengthy interview process, and I owe her for helping me land my dream job. Laura and Alisa are incredible and I’m so grateful to have them as lifelong allies.

Lindsay Burke

5 years ago

The team at Close/Collins career consulting was fabulous. They helped me through every step of my career move. From building my self-confidence and building my resume to making my social profile interesting to making me interesting for interviews, Alisa was the mastermind. I felt completely comfortable and supported through the process. I always knew Alisa was in my corner. She helped me negotiate when I was given an offer. I plan to stay in contact and hope to utilize their services throughout my career.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Marketing Leadership Coaching

What is marketing leadership coaching?

Marketing leadership coaching is a structured, one-on-one engagement where a senior-level coach works with you to clarify your marketing career goals, strengthen your executive presence with CEOs and boards, and build a concrete strategy for your next marketing leadership milestone. At Close Collins, coaching is not therapy or generic advice, it is a goal-driven project with defined milestones, field assignments, and measurable outcomes tailored to the marketing function.

Who is marketing leadership coaching designed for?

Close Collins works with CMOs, VPs of Marketing, Heads of Growth, Directors of Brand, Product Marketing leaders, and senior marketing executives at companies including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Adobe, and Starbucks. Our coaching is designed for established marketing professionals with at least five to seven years of leadership experience. It is not a fit for early-career marketers or individual contributors in the first few years of their career.

What does a Close Collins marketing coaching engagement include?

Each engagement includes a 360-degree intake and blindspot assessment, one-on-one coaching sessions via video, a custom strategic project plan, field assignments embedded in your real marketing work, executive presence coaching for CEO and board interactions, cross-functional influence development, ghostwriting and editing support for career materials, mock presentation or interview preparation as needed, a curated resource list, and a dedicated online channel for real-time communication with your coach between sessions.

How long does marketing leadership coaching take?

Most clients engage with Close Collins for three to six months, depending on the scope of their project. Common project areas include VP Marketing or CMO promotion campaigns, CMO-track job transitions, executive presence development for board-facing marketing leaders, and coaching on leading integrated marketing organizations. Some clients return at multiple career inflection points over many years.

Do you coach both B2B and B2C marketing leaders?

Yes. Close Collins coaches marketing leaders across B2B SaaS, enterprise technology, consumer brands, retail, financial services, healthcare, and other industries. The coaching method is universal, the strategic project plan is customized to the specific market context you operate in.

How does AI change marketing leadership?

AI is restructuring the marketing function faster than any prior technology shift. Senior marketing leaders are being asked to consolidate teams, integrate AI into brand and demand generation, defend headcount against automation, and articulate marketing’s ROI to CEOs increasingly skeptical of traditional marketing spend. Close Collins coaches marketing leaders through this transition, positioning you as the marketing executive who leads the change rather than the one displaced by it.

How do I get promoted from Director to VP Marketing?

Promotion at this level is decided on scope of impact, executive presence with the CEO and CFO, and the ability to lead cross-functional initiatives that produce measurable revenue outcomes, not tenure or campaign delivery. Close Collins’s Marketing Leadership Coaching works one-on-one to define the target role, close the specific blindspots holding the promotion back, and build the visible leadership signals decision-makers look for at the VP level.

What's the difference between coaching for a VP Marketing search and a CMO search?

Both use the same Close Collins method, but the emphasis differs. VP Marketing searches weight functional depth, team leadership, and cross-functional influence. CMO searches weight enterprise strategy, board-facing presence, revenue accountability, and the ability to shape the company narrative. Coaching is tailored to the altitude you’re targeting.

How much does Close Collins marketing coaching cost?

Close Collins offers a complimentary 20-minute intake consultation to understand your goals and recommend the right program. Pricing is discussed during that call based on the scope and duration of your engagement.

Still have questions? Send us a note

Get all your questions answered in your complimentary 15-minute consultation.

Reviewed by Laura Close, Founder — Close Collins Career Consulting.

Last updated:

13 Oct 2026