leadership | Jourdan Marie Hathaway

I bring a track record of outcomes that reflect what I like to think of as a “Swiss Army knife” business leader. I’ve led some defining chapters—scaling a business 4x, improving EBITDA by ~30% year over year, and driving a full turnaround to breakeven.

I’ve served as Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Operating Officer, and Chief Business Officer—roles that require not just functional expertise, but strong business acumen, high EQ, and a real ability to connect with people and lead through complexity.

I’m also an AI-enabled operator who leads hybrid teams with agentic AI agents embedded in various departments. I know how to use AI to increase speed, scale, and operational efficiency, but I also know when human discernment, judgment, and inspiration are what matter most. I lead by knowing the difference.

Over the years, I’ve come to understand that leadership isn’t just about strategy, operations, or metrics. Those are table stakes. The real differentiator is how you show up as a human being.

For me, that’s captured in an acronym: DRIVEN.

D – Determined: I will find a way. From shopping carts to boardrooms, determination has been the throughline.
R – Resilient: The path has never been linear. Doors close. Plans fall apart. I keep going.
I – Impactful: If I’m in a role, a room, or a relationship, I’m there to move something meaningful forward—for the business and for people.
V – Vulnerable: I say “I don’t know” when I don’t. I ask for directions from those who’ve been where I want to go.
E – Empathetic: I’ve lived what it means to start from “less.” That shapes how I hire, how I coach, and how I design opportunity.
N – Nimble: I’m willing to reinvent myself, to pivot, to learn in public when the world or the business demands it.

The “V” and the “E” have been the hardest-won and most transformative for me. Vulnerability and empathy aren’t soft skills; they’re force multipliers. They’re how trust gets built. They’re how cultures of continuous learning actually take root.

This combination for me is about having an achievement mindset and a bias for growth and action while also being profoundly self-reflective and tuned-in to others around me.

‘DRIVEN’ – Determined. Resilient. Impactful. Vulnerable. Empathetic. Nimble.

I can’t “arrive” somewhere I don’t know how to get to. So I routinely seek out people who have the map, whether it’s a CFO walking me through a new financial construct, a seasoned operator helping me see around corners, or a speaker helping me refine a keynote.

And every time I find my way to that new place, I turn around and offer the directions to others.

That’s what leadership is to me: not a title, but a practice of turning your hard-won maps into pathways for other people.

“Ok, here’s the roadblock, but we can totally figure this out. I have a plan on how we can tackle it.” ⏳ 4 hours later…..

“Ok team, thanks for the rapid problem-solving meeting. We’ve now prosecuted the plan. Triage is underway. To recap, I’ll do this. You take that. She’ll own this part. He’ll own that other part. Now let’s go deliver! We’ve got this. See you back here in 24 hours to confirm our collective resolution and success.”

What to do when you hit that inevitable project roadblock

The above are conversations that transpired on a super thorny, complicated, tech project. Hitting a roadblock on a technical project itself is never a surprise. C’mon, you know the kind – tons of systems, tons of competing priorities, tons of stakeholders, not enough time, unforeseen downstream impacts of something not operating as intended (say what? never). Then that heat that envelopes a team nearing the go-live deadline – and 💥 – big roadblock emerges and someone has to call an audible.

We overcame such a project this week and it had me thinking about what makes a team high-functioning. I saw it in action. I was in the thick of it with them (and I’m morbidly captivated to moments like this because I’m obsessed with the power of human connection and its resulting achievements). Days later, I’m still reflecting on how proud I am of what the team overcame and ultimately accomplished – not just the ‘what’, but our ways of working (and treating each other) while doing the ‘what’.

I’ve routinely noticed 2 FEELINGS that make all the difference:

Trust (I trust my co-worker to do his/her part and they can count on me to do mine)
Winner’s Mindset (I believe we can conquer this and find a successful path forward)

High functioning team members have innate accountability

My next observation after calling the audible was our Head of Product Marketing saying, “I understand the roadblock and I have a triage plan we could rapidly execute to navigate this. It comes with tradeoffs so let’s assemble the team now and prosecute it.” She did this unasked with total ownership. Then our Senior Technical Product Manager did the same thing, but on the technical side.

Back the “what” – here’s what the team did:

uh-oh moment ➡️ project audible called ➡️ roadblock identification ➡️ areas of ownership established ➡️ rapid problem-solving as a group ➡️ plan created ➡️ tradeoffs explored ➡️ expectation setting ➡️ stakeholder alignment on triage-plan ➡️ divide and conquer to execute ➡️ plan activated

This all happened in hours – not days and weeks, HOURS.

Today we celebrated that we ‘did the thing’. Internal comms went out about our go-live and the action plan to finalize all the remaining to-dos. Remember those tradeoffs? People typically won’t be upset about tradeoffs so long as you set clear expectations and get buy-in along the way.

This is where it’s important to have durable skills, not only hard technical skills.