If you are a CEO waiting for the market to finally "settle down" so you can comfortably execute your five-year plan, you are already falling behind.
In a recent episode of The Revenue Room™ podcast, Laura Molen, former President of Advertising Sales & Partnerships at NBCUniversal, now the Founder and President of Monarch Advisory Collective, delivered a masterclass on steering massive organizations through relentless market shifts. Having navigated the transitions from broadcast to cable, cable to digital, and digital to streaming, her thesis is a wake-up call for the C-Suite: "Disruption is not a moment. It's an environment".
To survive and thrive, leaders must stop fighting the current and learn to navigate the rapids.
Here are the core leadership secrets Molen shared for turning nonstop change from a corporate threat into a massive competitive advantage.
1. Cultivate Conviction Before the Proof Arrives
One of the greatest traps for a CEO is waiting for a bulletproof data set before making a move. By the time you have the proof, your competitors already have the market share.
Molen proved this during the high-stakes launch of NBC's streaming service, Peacock. Just six weeks before Peacock's Investor Day, leadership promised 10 exclusive launch partners. The sales team had secured exactly zero. While others let fear dictate their strategy and wanted to walk back the commitment, Molen recognized that the consumer was undeniably moving to streaming.
She didn't approach clients "hat in hand" begging them to test a new product. Instead, she sold a vision. She invited them to "be a part of history" and build the future of streaming advertising. They secured all 10 partners and hit their billion-dollar revenue goals by unifying the team around a clear mission—proving that true leadership requires acting with conviction before the proof shows up.
2. Demolish Internal Silos to Serve the Customer
Most companies defend their internal silos as "strategy," but Molen boldly calls it out for what it truly is: comfort and control.
During her tenure at NBCUniversal, advertisers were forced to buy audiences in fragmented silos—broadcast, cable, digital, and Hispanic. But consumers don't watch silos; they watch content. Molen helped spearhead "One Platform," completely reorganizing the massive NBCU sales team away from legacy structures and aligning them strictly around the customer's needs.
For a CEO, the lesson is clear: You must organize your business around your customer, not your org chart. When you prioritize the client's desired outcome over your internal fiefdoms, you unlock exponential growth and stop forcing your customers to navigate your bureaucracy.
3. Provide "Air Cover" for Your Change Agents
You cannot ask your teams to break legacy rules and disrupt the market if you are going to punish them for taking risks.
Molen credits visionary executives like Linda Yaccarino and Jeff Shell for having her back when she was fighting internal inertia to change how legacy brands were monetized. They gave her the financial leeway and public support necessary to challenge the status quo.
As a CEO, your job is to provide air cover. Give your leaders the safety to act boldly. At the same time, Molen advises rising executives to leave their egos at the door: communicate early when warning flags appear, and know exactly when to escalate a problem to the C-Suite so that leadership can effectively deploy that air cover.
4. Curiosity + AI = Evolution
When facing a new, terrifying disruption—like the current AI revolution—many legacy businesses react by locking down. They restrict tools out of fear and cling to the old way of doing things.
Molen warns against this, offering a simple formula for the future: Curiosity + AI = Evolution. While compliance and guardrails are necessary, you must allow your teams to experiment and play with disruptive technology to accelerate outcomes.
If you let ego and fear drive your strategy, you will suffer the fate of legacy giants. As Molen poignantly noted, if Kodak had accepted that consumers wanted to view pictures digitally rather than clinging to hard copies, they wouldn't have become obsolete.
5. Translate B2C "Fandom" into B2B Growth
While navigating tech and internal silos is crucial, perhaps the greatest untapped opportunity for today’s B2B CEOs lies in a concept traditionally reserved for B2C: Fandom.
During her time overseeing Bravo and E!, Molen didn't just sell TV spots; she monetized passionate communities, turning audience engagement into experiential powerhouses like BravoCon. By inviting advertisers to organically partner with these massive fanbases, she built entirely new revenue streams based on trust and shared purpose. The challenge for B2B leaders today is to stop settling for sterile transactions and start applying these B2C community-building lessons to their own sales strategies. You must understand your customer deeply enough to give them something to be a part of, not just something to buy.
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Join the Conversation at RevvedUp 2026
The consumer waits for no one, and technology waits for no one. If you are a CEO trying to outlast the current era of disruption, you are playing a losing game. The leaders who win follow the consumer, follow the money, and are never afraid to make themselves profoundly uncomfortable.
If you are ready to stop reacting to the market and start turning disruption into your ultimate growth strategy, you cannot afford to miss what comes next. Mastering the convergence of B2B and B2C strategies, leveraging data and AI, and redefining new business models are the exact challenges we are tackling at RevvedUp 2026. Join us March 23-24 at The Vinoy in St. Pete, Florida, where Laura Molen will be taking the main stage to deliver her insights live.
Join RevvedUp 2026 now and get in the room where CEOs and revenue leaders are rewriting the playbook for the future. 
