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Marketing executive Natacha Hildebrand has always had a goal. Make VP by 30 and then CMO shortly after that. Since her twenties, these are the markers that meant career success in her mind.
But when she got that coveted VP title just before she turned 31, the view from close to the top of the corporate ladder was not what she thought it would be.
“It’s very isolating,” she said. “I was young and I [worked really hard], but I also was like, ‘I’m kind of here by myself, and I don’t feel like I have anybody to talk to.’”
Hildebrand would go on to co-found BasBlue, a Detroit organization for women born out of her desire to build community outside of work. She ran it in early mornings and late nights while working full time at Nike three time zones away.
Her last full-time job was at Madewell as vice president of marketing, one rung below the CMO title. That was where she realized she was compromising in ways she was no longer proud of. She gave notice with six weeks of runway.
She now holds the CMO title at California-based retailer Z Supply, but on a fractional basis.
An increasing share of top talent is making the same decision as Hildebrand as the career ladder straight to the C-suite is losing its shape across the U.S. economy. Spencer Stuart’s 2025 CMO Tenure Study found that roughly one-third of Fortune 500 companies have no enterprise-wide marketing leader at all. Companies are meanwhile buying senior leadership fractionally, with Heidrick & Struggles counting a 151% increase in C-suite engagements for independent talent since 2021 in its 2026 High-End Independent Talent Report.
Hildebrand is three months into testing what fractional work actually feels like from the inside. Here are some of the most useful things she has figured out so far:
“When you are full time, you feel an onus to the company, even though they’re paying you to show up…Who’s saying that besides ourselves and society? Can we question that? Can we say, actually, what I have been doing is worth that extra title? And I think fractional really puts that into a sharper focus because I am giving 110% in the time that I am with them, but then I’m able to give 110% to myself.”
The confusion Hildebrand runs into most often is companies using the two words interchangeably, which is why she forces the distinction into the first conversation before anything gets signed. While consultants come on a short-term basis to complete a deliverable or a project, fractional executives are embedded in the team and the culture of the company, she said.
The difference determines what a company can ask for. A consultant is bought for an output, so the scope is the deliverable and the relationship closes when it ships. A fractional leader is bought for consistent judgment, which pulls culture, hiring and how decisions get made inside the engagement even though the hours stay fixed.
Hildebrand has direct reports in the fractional seat, which is the detail that confuses a lot of people. “How can you have direct reports if you only work part-time?”
“They go to bed at seven and I go to bed at eight, and somebody’s gonna pick up the baton and keep moving the work forward because we are aligned on the vision and aligned on the strategy,” she said. “I’d be lying to say that we’re not still working through it. It is definitely an evolution. But it’s a conversation and it’s communication and it’s trust.”
Hildebrand is often asked when she knew it was time to try something different in her career. And for her, it was a very slow realization. Her exit from Madewell took roughly six months of diagnosis before she gave notice, then six weeks of runway on top of that.
“I’ve heard that so many times, people like, I had this spark and then I felt this way and I had to do the thing,” she said. “For my startups, for anything in life, it’s never been the spark. I’ve always wanted to feel the spark, but I’ve never felt the spark. It’s always been the slowest bloody burn to get into that moment, to be like, okay, fine, I have to, I can’t not do it anymore.”
Hildebrand’s story made me think of the countless people sitting in jobs right now waiting for a clarifying moment that never arrives and in turn, just staying put. For her, the realization came after months — if not years — of constantly moving the goalposts for herself, only to find the score on the other end was never what she really wanted in the first place.
When I asked Hildebrand what the fractional seat lets her do that full time never did, her answer had nothing to do with the title she finally holds. The term she renegotiated is pace. Her old roles priced her time and then assumed the remainder, and the remainder was where community, a Substack and a book were supposed to fit. Naming the hours moved that remainder back to her. She says keeping it takes constant permission.
“I have to put the boundary or the governor on to say, okay, actually, ‘you’re not gonna respond to where to put that asset at this time because that’s probably not the best use of your time,’” she said. “I get to impact a brand that I’m really excited about that I think can grow in so many directions, but still have the space to write, to do, to have a 9 a.m. coffee on a Thursday.”
Know a leader who is charting a career path on their own terms? Reach out so I can consider interviewing them for this series. And if you want this in your inbox for free, subscribe here.
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