Chasing the Wrong E: How I Learned the Difference Between CEO and Chief Experience Officer

For nearly twenty years, I thought I knew exactly what I was building toward.

I'd helped grow a division at Title Alliance from $1,000 to $17.3 million in annual revenue. I became Chief Strategy Officer. I had the title, the region, the team, the trajectory. If you'd asked me what came next, I would have told you: more of the same, just bigger. A bigger region. A bigger title. A bigger officer.

Then in May of 2024, the company made the decision before I did.

I didn't have a five-year plan for what came after. I had Pilates sessions with a woman named Christina, a lot of quiet mornings, and more time with my kids than I'd had in a decade. I wasn't chasing anything. For the first time in a long time, I was just sitting still.

And that's when it actually hit me.

The Realization

I sat back one day, somewhere in the middle of rebuilding myself, and asked the question I'd never actually let myself sit with: what am I actually trying to build?

The old answer would have been a title. CEO. Run something big. Lead a company.

But that wasn't it. It had never really been it.

What I wanted was to instill one belief, everywhere I could reach: everyone matters. Everyone deserves to feel like a VIP. Not as a slogan. As a lived, felt experience, in the way a company recognizes its people, welcomes its clients, and shows up in the ordinary moments nobody's grading.

I'd spent two decades chasing the wrong E.

I thought I wanted to be a Chief Executive.

What I actually wanted was to be a Chief Experience Officer, not of one company, but of an idea. And if I could actually do that, if I could teach leaders to build human experiences instead of transactions, I wouldn't just change one organization.

I could touch thousands of companies. Tens of thousands of lives. Not one region. Not one team.

Why This Matters Beyond Me

I tell you this not because it's a tidy career pivot story. It's not.

It's because I think a lot of high performers are chasing the wrong E right now, and don't know it yet. They're climbing toward a title, assuming the title is the point. Sometimes it is. But sometimes what you actually want isn't a bigger seat at the table. It's a bigger impact on how people at every table feel.

Those aren't always the same goal.

If you've ever felt the pull between "climb higher" and "matter more," that's worth sitting with, the way I finally let myself sit with it. Because the answer might not be the promotion you've been chasing.

It might be a completely different E.

CTA: This is the belief behind everything I build now, from keynotes to workshops: that the small, human moments of feeling seen are not soft, they're strategy. If your organization is ready to build that into your culture, let's talk.