This is one of those transitions that looks straightforward on paper. You’ve been a Director for a while. You’ve built teams, owned strategy, delivered results. The next step should be VP. And yet it doesn’t happen. You keep getting close and then losing out to someone who, on paper, doesn’t seem that different from you.

I’ve seen this enough times that the pattern is pretty clear. Most people don’t get stuck here because they’re not ready. They get stuck because they’re not being read as ready.

The gap isn’t what you think it is

At this level, everyone has:

• Strong execution experience
• Some level of team leadership
• Measurable impact

That’s table stakes. The difference between Director and VP isn’t just “more of that.” It’s how your work is understood.

Directors are evaluated on scope. VPs are evaluated on influence.

This is where things start to shift. As a Director, you’re often responsible for a defined area: a function, a team, a product line. You execute within that scope and ideally improve it. As a VP, you’re expected to shape things that don’t neatly belong to you: cross-functional decisions, organizational direction, tradeoffs that affect multiple teams.

If your experience is framed primarily around:

• What you owned
• What you delivered
• What your team accomplished

Then you can be very strong and still look like a Director.

This is where strong candidates get filtered out

I’ve seen candidates who are absolutely operating at a VP level. But their resume and LinkedIn read like:

• “Owned X function”
• “Led Y team”
• “Delivered Z results”

All good. All necessary. But not enough to signal that this person operates at the level of the business, not just within their function. So when someone scans their background, the safest interpretation is: Director. And once you’re placed there, it’s hard to break out of it.

The uncomfortable part

Most people are actually closer than they think. They have the experience. They’ve influenced cross-functional decisions. They’ve shaped strategy. They’ve operated beyond their formal scope. They just haven’t made that visible. Or they’ve treated it as secondary to their “core responsibilities.” So it shows up as a footnote instead of the headline.

Why applying more doesn’t fix it

At this stage, more volume usually just reinforces the pattern. You apply to VP roles, and you get some traction, but not enough. You get pulled back into Director conversations and it starts to feel like a job market problem. Sometimes it is, but most of the time, it’s the interpretation of your story.

What actually needs to change

This is less about leveling up your experience and more about making your level legible. That means being explicit about how you’ve influenced decisions beyond your immediate scope and showing where you’ve shaped direction, not just executed against it. It means framing your work in terms of business impact, not just functional outcomes. And, just as importantly, deciding that you’re targeting VP roles and aligning everything around that.

Don't leave it open-ended.

This is the part people resist

Because it requires tradeoffs. You can’t position yourself equally well for:

• Director roles
• VP roles
• And lateral moves across functions

at the same time. At some point, you have to decide what this version of your story is for. And that usually means letting go of some of the “safety” that comes with being broadly applicable.

What changes when this clicks

The shift isn’t always immediate, but it’s noticeable. You start getting evaluated differently. Conversations move faster and the questions change. You’re not having to prove that you can think at that level, because it’s already assumed. And just as importantly, you stop getting pulled into roles that feel like a step sideways.

If you’re in that in-between space

Where you know you’re ready, but the market isn’t quite reflecting it yet, that’s usually the signal. It's not that you need more experience. It's that you need to make the experience you already have easier to interpret at the level you’re aiming for.

Where to go from here

This is exactly the kind of gap the Executive Market Repositioning work is designed to close. We take the experience you already have and align how it’s presented with the level you’re actually operating at, so you’re evaluated accordingly.