No guest this week. Just me and a coffee.

I've been waiting to tell this story properly. Not the polished version, not the abstract. The actual one. Where the imposter syndrome hit hard. Where CrossFit kept teaching me more about leadership than any marketing job I'd ever had. Where I nearly didn't press send on that first outreach email to a CMO.

This episode covers the whole journey. From realising the gap in my own career to spending the best part of a year interviewing 40+ senior marketing leaders, watching people pause mid-sentence to dig up a memory they hadn't thought about in years, and slowly making sense of over 250 mentions of different values.

It's also the episode where I explain the IIOE framework in full — not the bullet point version, the real version. Why integrity sits at the centre. Why CrossFit of all things helped me see it clearly. And the moment one interviewee challenged me on whether values even matter for success.

If you listened to the trailer and wondered what's behind all of this, here's your answer.

You can read more about the research project and some of my thoughts here: https://medium.com/@eddieguevarra.mktg

Look, I get it. There are thousands of marketing podcasts out there. The last thing the world needs is another one telling you which tactics to use or what the algorithm wants this week.

This isn't that.

I've never had a marketing leader I truly looked up to. Thirteen years in marketing, and not one. That gap bugged me for a long time—until I decided to do something about it.

In this trailer, I explain why I spent the best part of a year interviewing 40+ CMOs, VPs, and senior marketers about the values that actually shape how they lead. What emerged was the IIOE framework (Integrity, Impact, Originality, Empowerment) and a whole new way of thinking about marketing leadership.

This podcast isn't about tactics. It's about the stuff nobody talks about. The beliefs that guide how you lead when there's no playbook.

If that sounds like something you've been looking for, hit subscribe.

In this episode:

• Why I created this podcast (and why it's not like the others)
• The question that kicked off my MSc research
• What the IIOE framework is and where it came from
• What you can expect from future episodes

You can read more about the research project and some of my thoughts here: https://medium.com/@eddieguevarra.mktg