You need a story.
Most companies get storytelling backwards.
Imagine you’re in a conference room watching a presentation on how using story is the key to your company’s success. There's a slide with a Nike swoosh on it. Another one with Apple's silhouette logo. The pitch is "We need to tell stories like they do."
I've seen this pitch before. The next slide talks about product innovations. There is a messaging architecture and a few new buzzy terms. And while everyone is excited, this company will not end up telling stories like Nike.
Nike tells you to Find Your Greatness, to celebrate Failure, to Dream Crazy.
They never mention their "Dynamic Tension Retention System,"which is what you'd call the shoelaces if you started with a focus on your latest “innovation”. They never hype the "Ground Contact Module," which is what we normies call the soles. But that's exactly how Nike would describe their shoes if they'd had a week-long marketing offsite to build a messaging deck approved by sales and the CEO.
This is the reason most brands storytelling fails. It is not a lack of creativity. Or budget. Or talent. It's that companies start with what they want to say.
Before I think about products or customer pain points or positioning, I ask…
What does our audience value? Does our company genuinely share those values?
When you align values through story, the dynamics shift. You stop trying to convince customers to buy and they start finding reasons to do business with you.
Your Missing Role. A VP of Narrative.
Most companies split storytelling across a dozen teams. Brand says one thing. Product marketing says another. Thought leadership lives in a silo. When those stories don't match, when they don't align with what your audience values, you fail more often than you succeed.
A VP of Narrative makes all of it one story, tied to your business strategy.
This is the role your company needs. This is the role I am after next.
or call me at 1 (517) 898-8878
Case Study: Threat Vector PodcastA few years ago, I was asked to launch a podcast for Palo Alto Networks.
The brief was essentially "make a cybersecurity podcast." Most people expected me to build a product podcast. Episodes about features, releases, use cases.
But I kept thinking about the audience. CISOs. Security practitioners. When I talked to them they told me:
Don't waste my time. I don't have enough of it.
Don't sell to me. Help me get smarter.
Don't give me marketing fluff. Be real. Be authentic.
With that as our North Star, I built the Threat Vector podcast. It focuses on honest, useful, human conversations about the hardest problems in their field. It does not sell products.
That podcast has been downloaded 1.3 million times. It reached #2 among all US technology podcasts. It ranked in the top 10 in 47 countries. It won four industry awards in a single year, including Most Influential Cyber Podcast. And it influenced over $1.1 billion in bookings.
The most valuable brands don't just sell products—they sell belonging to a narrative larger than themselves.
What This Role Delivers
One story across the entire company
Brand, product marketing, thought leadership, sales enablement, executive comms. When they all tell the same story, the market hears a company that knows what it stands for. When they don't, you sound like six companies in a trench coat.
Content that drives revenue, not just engagement
Downloads and impressions are fine. Pipeline, bookings, and customer retention are better. Every narrative I build has a measurable line back to business outcomes.
A brand position competitors can't copy
Products get replicated. Features get matched. A narrative rooted in shared values with your audience is something a competitor cannot easily take from you.
Employees who believe the story too
The best brand narratives don't just attract customers. They align the people inside the company around a shared mission. That changes how teams prioritize, collaborate, and perform.
“He is truly an excellent storyteller. He has an incredible ability to make complex and often dry technical topics fun and easy to understand through analogies and storytelling.”
— May Wang, Palo Alto Networks
Through podcasts, keynotes, video, games, events, enterprise and mobile software, interactive demos, and the written word. At Palo Alto Networks, IBM Security, Salesforce, Cynergy, and TechSmith. For audiences ranging from CISOs to Fortune 500 boardrooms to UPS, SPX, and Paycore.
I’ve told stories everywhere I’ve been
The title changed every time. The work never did.
What I'm looking for.
I want a seat at the table where narrative is treated as strategy, not decoration. A company that knows the difference between producing content and building a story the market wants to belong to.
I've spent twenty years learning how to find the story an audience is already waiting to hear, and then building the systems that turn that story into measurable growth. I want to do that work at the VP level, for a leadership team that's ready to invest in it.
Call me at (517) 898-8878