Title families
A title is a family, not a string. One wording finds a third of the people who hold the role. For each role the input names, write the family in four parts.
The four parts
| Part | Rule | Example for "CMO" |
|---|---|---|
| Acronym and long form | both, always | CMO, Chief Marketing Officer |
| Size variants | VP, Head, Director, Lead, when company size makes them the same person | VP Marketing, Head of Marketing, Marketing Director (at 11 to 200 employees these are the CMO) |
| Local-language forms | one set per entry in languages |
Directeur Marketing, Responsable Marketing, Directrice Marketing |
| Adjacent budget owner | the function that owns the same budget | Growth (for a marketing tool), Demand Gen |
Size decides the variants
| Company size | Who owns the function | Titles to include |
|---|---|---|
| 1-10 | the founder | Founder, CEO, Co-founder, plus the function title if any |
| 11-50 | one person, any title | Head of, Lead, Director, VP, C-level, all the same person |
| 51-200 | Head or VP, with a manager under them | Head of, VP, Director; exclude Manager unless the tool is bought at manager level |
| 201-1000 | VP with directors | VP, Director; the C-level is too far from the tool |
| 1001+ | a director owns the budget line | Director, Senior Director; VP only for strategic deals |
Writing "CMO" against a 1001+ band finds the wrong person: the CMO of a 3,000-person company does not buy a tool, a director does.
Worked families
"Heads of Sales at French SMBs" (languages: French, English, sizes: 11-200):
CEO, Founder, Co-founder, Head of Sales, VP Sales, Sales Director, Directeur Commercial,
Directrice Commerciale, Responsable Commercial, Head of Revenue, CRO.
"RevOps at mid-market SaaS" (sizes: 201-1000):
Revenue Operations, RevOps, Head of Revenue Operations, Director of Revenue Operations,
Sales Operations, Sales Ops, GTM Operations, Head of GTM Ops. Adjacent: Head of Sales
Enablement (same budget at 201-500).
"CFOs at Swiss fintechs" (languages: French, German, English):
CFO, Chief Financial Officer, VP Finance, Head of Finance, Finance Director, Directeur
Financier, Finanzchef, Leiter Finanzen, Finanzvorstand. Adjacent: COO at 11-50 (the
CFO does not exist yet).
The exclusion list
Always in exclude: fractional, freelance, interim, intern, assistant to,
student, former, ex-, retired, looking for, open to work.
Usually in exclude, unless they are the buyer: recruiter, talent, agency,
consultant, advisor, coach, investor.
Exclusions are absolute. A model scoring fit will rate a fractional CFO as a fit; the exclusion runs before scoring, or the list fills with people who do the job for six clients and buy nothing.