One client came to us with a specific concern: they had a succession slate for the top 20 roles in the company—and it was strikingly narrow. Not in intent, but in outcome. Their most critical roles were being “fed” by a small set of familiar pathways, and the slate wasn’t reflecting the full leadership capacity that existed in the organization.

They asked us to help them build a structured sponsorship approach. We agreed with the objective—but not with the typical design.

Because here’s what many organizations miss: you can’t assign real sponsorship.
A true sponsor doesn’t just offer advice or open a door. A true sponsor is willing to put their personal capital on the line—recommending someone for high-stakes work, defending them in talent discussions, and attaching their name to a bet. That kind of advocacy requires something you can’t mandate: belief. And belief requires exposure, evidence, and a sponsor who chooses the person.

That’s why the traditional practice of pairing one senior leader with one “protégé” so often underdelivers. It asks an executive to wager capital before they have a strong enough basis to do so—and too often it produces a well-intended relationship that never turns into meaningful advocacy. In the worst cases, it becomes a time investment that feels “nice,” but doesn’t materially change opportunity, visibility, or outcomes.

So instead, we built a marketplace-style approach: senior executives met multiple
high-performing VPs across the business in a series of focused conversations. The design was deliberate: create meaningful exposure, let leaders experience capability directly, and make it normal for talent to be “pulled” into bigger work—sometimes even competed for.

In a handful of those conversations, executives circled back and said some version of:

“This leader is exceptional. How did I not know they existed? I have three critical projects I want them on.”

What struck us wasn’t simply that these executives hadn’t crossed paths with these VPs. That part is normal in any large organization.

What struck us was this: if an exec who had never worked with them could see their capability so quickly, why hadn’t their own leadership chain already expanded their scope and placed them on enterprise-visible work?

In other words: the exposure moment didn’t create capability—it exposed a leadership gap.

In most companies, that doesn’t happen because people are malicious or careless. It happens because many managers are trained to manage work—not to surface capability. They default to what’s familiar, who is already “known,” and who presents strength in the most obvious way.

The result is predictable: strong talent can spend years doing excellent work without being scaled. Not because they lack potential—because their leaders haven’t built the skill of seeing it early and acting on it.

The lesson wasn’t that we needed better matchmaking. The lesson was that organizations need more leaders who can recognize capability sooner—and create the conditions for it to travel.