Episode 56 – Cognoscenti Archive: Andy Champion & Wayne Starritt 

Welcome to What's Broken in GTM and How to Fix It with Louis Fernandes and Simon Daniels. Each week, together with occasional guests, we explore the challenges that face go-to-market leaders in SaaS scale-up businesses and suggest solutions to common issues. 

This episode heads back into the Cognoscenti Archive to revisit the original conversation with Wayne Starritt, Founder & Managing Director of Bullingstone Associates, and Andy Champion, Global Head of Enterprise Sales Atlassian and a returning friend of the show, recorded following Bullingstone's CROs Who Succeed research into why so many Chief Revenue Officers fail within 18 months. Louis explains why the conversation is worth hearing again rather than leaving it in the archive: when it was first recorded, the discussion was framed principally as a people question — hiring for adaptability over pedigree, diagnosing before prescribing, holding strong ideas lightly. Having since spent much more time on revenue architecture, growth architecture, and revenue operating governance, Louis now hears the same conversation differently — not just as a question about the individual CRO, but about the system they're placed into. Fragmented objectives, incentives that reward local optimisation, and a reliance on one heroic leader holding everything together can undermine even a very capable CRO. 

Here's the TL;DL: Great revenue leadership matters, but sustainable performance comes when great leadership is supported by great architecture and great governance. 

Other mentions in this episode: 

CROs Who Succeed The Bullingstone Associates white paper behind the original conversation. 

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