In Depth Executive Function: Building systems that can make decisions without you | Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (COO, Vercel)
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Feb 5, 2026 
Jeanne DeWitt Grosser, Vercel's COO who scaled GTM teams at Stripe, talks about building systems that let decisions happen without you. She covers balancing strategic vision with hands-on execution. She describes hiring loops and workshops that reveal thinking. She explains driver trees, metric definitions, and designing org forums to align teams.
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Nike CTO Interview Prompt
- She used a Nike CTO prompt to test executive selling and product knowledge in interviews.
- Candidates who geeked out on product and tailored value won high signal.
Why Executives Fail To Land
- Failed executive hires often pattern-match and skip contextual work.
- Cultural mismatch and weak cross-functional networks also predict failure.
Use Driver Trees For Metrics
- Build driver trees: break revenue into every upstream node and leading metric.
- Use this to know where to double down or course-correct during the year.
