In this episode of How I Hire, Andy Mowat speaks with Sylvia LePoidevin, CMO at Kandji and early marketing leader at Flowcast and Datafox, about her approach to building marketing teams that prioritize customer proximity over conventional playbooks. Drawing from 500+ interviews conducted over five years, Sylvia shares specific frameworks for structuring teams at different scales, evaluating senior talent through storytelling, and creating organizations where internal narrative matters as much as external messaging. Topics Discussed - Why writing a company manifesto should precede all marketing activity. It defines why you exist and what will be different in 10 years because of your company. This isn’t positioning, it’s the existential story about what you’re trying to change. The critical distinction: she’ll join a company without a manifesto, but never one unwilling to write one. - The ”tastemakers vs. operators” framework for structuring lean marketing teams under five people. Tastemakers have film or journalism backgrounds and care about quality and storytelling with zero ego. Operators can take 17 disconnected tools and build them into a functioning engine. Pairing these profiles prevents AI commoditization by combining automation that scales with soul that differentiates. - How the squad model solves the velocity problem in 30+ person marketing organizations by eliminating assembly-line handoffs. Cross-functional squads organized by domain (ABM, SEO, website conversion) include embedded designers and copywriters. Squad leaders own end-to-end execution including goal setting, quarterly planning in Asana, and resource allocation. The model is orthogonal to org structure. - ”Proximity over playbooks” as the defensible moat when AI commoditizes helpful content. When you understand your buyer’s pain, daily problems, and context at a deep level, marketing strategy becomes obvious rather than theoretical. This customer intimacy fuels authentic storytelling that cuts through AI-generated, interchangeable content. - Why internal storytelling matters more than data for getting budget and organizational support. Sylvia teaches her team that conviction and narrative about impact often move initiatives forward better than perfect data sets. Data becomes supporting evidence rather than the primary argument for executive buy-in. - Why ”What’s your story?” separates self-aware leaders from professional personas in first interviews. She doesn’t want job history, she wants life story, pivotal moments, and mistakes that shaped who candidates are today. This question immediately reveals whether someone can lead with the vulnerability required to create psychological safety for teams. - The product marketer who reverse-engineered competitive positioning before the second interview by visiting Kandji’s booth and every competitor booth at a conference, then synthesizing the positioning gap in an email. This delivered immediate value before hire, instant credibility with sales, and organizational buy-in before day one. - The five interview mistakes from 500+ conversations: asking basic questions about her role easily found on LinkedIn, speaking in broad jargon without specifics about tools or workflows used, zero personal sharing that prevents feeling passion, resume and LinkedIn mismatches on dates or roles, and no clear articulated reason for leaving current or past roles. - The ”hire to the next level” strategy where her highest success comes from hiring senior managers into director roles rather than lateral moves. These candidates have something to prove and bring urgency to perform. When explaining departures, articulate what you’re looking for in your next role to implicitly communicate what was missing without badmouthing previous employers.