Is your marketing set up to fail? with Heather Hurd, Head of Marketing & Consultant

<p><strong>You can have the best plan in the world, but if the environment is a mess, you’re just decorating a sinking ship.</strong></p><p>When things don’t go to plan, it’s not always because the work was bad. From unclear decisions to conflicting priorities, the stuff that sits <em>above</em> the work often determines whether your strategy ever actually lands or just ends up as a footnote in a slide deck.</p><p>Heather Hurd has seen this from every angle - starting as a copywriter, moving into brand strategy, and now as a consultant helping organisations assess their &quot;marketing readiness.&quot; She spends her time asking the deeper questions that most teams skip, diagnosing the structural roadblocks that keep marketing functions from ever reaching their full potential.</p><p>Drawing on what she’s learned inside fast-moving startups and corporate giants, we discuss:</p><p><strong>The 6 factors of marketing readiness:</strong> A diagnostic toolkit for looking under the hood of any organisation.</p><p><strong>The template trap:</strong> Why &quot;bespoke&quot; strategy so often defaults to recycled busy-work when pressure hits.</p><p><strong>The sidelined marketer:</strong> What happens to the mission when marketing loses its seat at the top table.</p><p><strong>The silent kkill:</strong> How to use active listening to build high-level influence, regardless of your job title.</p><p><strong>The aspiration gap:</strong> Why a &quot;moonshot&quot; mission might be the very thing eroding your team&#39;s trust.</p>