Every ambitious RevOps leader eventually asks the same question: is the top of this ladder the COO chair or the CRO seat? Thurman Sneed has sat in both — and ten years ago he would have given you the opposite answer he gives today.

Thurman didn't come up through sales. He came up through accounting. Auditor and CPA at Arthur Andersen, then FP&A, until a CIO named Jose tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to go lead a CRM implementation from inside the finance org. That was RevOps, years before anyone called it that. From there: go-to-market operations at Novell, NetIQ, Intralinks, Micro Focus and Sierra Wireless, then Marigold — where he ran RevOps, took over as COO of the services business, and stepped into the Chief Revenue Officer role after Marigold sold its enterprise software business to Zeta Global.

In this conversation with LeanScale co-founder Anthony Enrico, Thurman lays out the ROI floor every RevOps team should clear, the exact move that gets you invited to the board meeting, why the belief that a CRO must have carried a quota is now wrong, and the one weekly meeting he says you should be running if you want the job above yours.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

Why the answer to "COO or CRO?" flipped in the last ten years — and what AI had to do with it

CHAPTERS

00:00 — Cold open + intro

01:39 — The CIO who tapped him on the shoulder

07:06 — How much should you actually invest in RevOps?

09:14 — The floor: RevOps should pay for itself annually

11:44 — The power of one percent

13:07 — Finance to operations: the CRM implementation that changed everything

21:40 — How to get invited to the board meeting

24:08 — Volunteering for interim CRO — and being made COO

27:43 — Why the seat opens when the org goes through turmoil

31:57 — COO or CRO? The answer that changed

34:14 — Do you have to carry a bag first?

42:13 — Where RevOps is going: go-to-market engineers

48:01 — Let the CFO be a pure CFO

49:35 — Wrap

ABOUT THE GUEST

Thurman Sneed is Chief Revenue Officer at Marigold, where he leads global sales, customer success, revenue operations and marketing. He began his career as an auditor and CPA at Arthur Andersen before moving into FP&A, then into go-to-market operations after a CIO asked him to lead a CRM implementation out of the finance org. He went on to build and run GTM operations at Novell, NetIQ, Intralinks and Micro Focus, and served as SVP of GTM Operations at Sierra Wireless. At Marigold he led revenue operations, then global enterprise professional services, production services and customer support as COO of the services business, before stepping into the CRO seat following Marigold's sale of its enterprise software business to Zeta Global. He holds a Master of Professional Accounting and a BBA from The University of Texas at Austin, and completed Harvard Business School's Program for Leadership Development.

ABOUT THE LEANSCALE PODCAST

The LeanScale Podcast is the show for GTM operators building the next generation of revenue infrastructure. Hosted by Anthony Enrico, co-founder of LeanScale, we go deep with the operators, founders, and executives shaping how modern go-to-market teams are designed, scaled, and transformed.

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KEYWORDS / TAGS

RevOps, Revenue Operations, RevOps Career, RevOps to CRO, RevOps to COO, Chief Revenue Officer, Chief Operating Officer, GTM, GTM Operations, GTM Engineering, AI in RevOps, AI Strategy, Sales Operations, Sales Enablement, Forecasting, Quota, Sales Compensation, GRR, NRR, Board Meetings, Executive Presence, CRM Implementation, Salesforce, CFO, CPA, Marigold, Zeta Global, B2B SaaS, RevOps Leadership, LeanScale, Anthony Enrico, Thurman Sneed

HASHTAGS

#RevOps #GTM #AI #RevenueOperations #SalesOperations #GTMEngineering #CRO #COO #RevOpsLeadership #RevOpsCareer #B2BSaaS #SalesEnablement #Marigold #LeanScale #LeanScalePodcast

COO or CRO? Where the RevOps Career Actually Ends Up | Thurman Sneed, CRO at Marigold

The LeanScale Podcast with Anthony Enrico

COO or CRO? Where the RevOps Career Actually Ends Up | Thurman Sneed, CRO at Marigold