To Be Fair, Pricing Leadership Isn’t Doing Itself Any Favors, Either

This is a follow-on to last week’s piece on the lack of pricing representation in the C-suite. In that article, I argued that too many executives sideline pricing in strategic decisions. To be fair, pricing leadership hasn’t always helped its own case.

When most executives hear “pricing,” a set of well-worn caricatures pops into their heads:

The Data Geek – buried in spreadsheets, fluent in Tableau, precise… but precisely incorrect, or incorrectly precise. They can run pivot tables all day but can’t explain how the numbers can be used to drive the business.

The Professor – can fill a whiteboard with lines and curves, but hasn’t met a customer since the Clinton administration. Brilliant in theory, but allergic to messy market realities.

The Mercenary – obsessed with searching and destroying profit leakage, regardless of customer collateral damage. Thinks in quarters (as in fiscal quarters and loose change), not in long-term value.

The Wizard – conjures amazing achievements from a black box. Wizards produce a flash the business should build on, but without translating them into something scalable, they vanish when the Wizard leaves the room.

The Speed-Trap Cop – helpful for reminding everyone there are rules, but never around when you need them — and always there to pull you over when you’re in a rush.

Don’t get me wrong…

I’ve got nothing but respect for my pricing peers — and that’s exactly why it’s worth calling out where we hold ourselves back.

And Here’s the Problem

When asked about pricing, too many pricers step right into these personas. They reinforce the stereotype — and then wonder why they’re sitting outside the boardroom, not in it.

The “Upskilling” Mirage

There’s a growing chorus claiming that pricing leadership just needs a bit of “upskilling” — maybe a course, a book, or a certificate — and boom, you’re C-suite material.

Bullshit.

You don’t become a peer to the CEO by padding your LinkedIn profile. You get there by living in the roles your peers have faced — carrying quotas, running P&Ls, owning value narratives, and surviving the market consequences.

From Intent to Impact

True pricing leadership starts by demonstrating you understand the business — not just financially, but strategically. It means starting with “why” and finishing with a path-to-value story that every peer in the room applauds. The great challenge of a pricing leader is having both strategic vision and operational line-of-sight, realistic from both perspectives. That’s what earns a voice at the table.

The Personas Worth Aspiring To

The roles to model aren’t caricatures — they’re forged in cross-functional, high-stakes experience:

The Sherpa – guides the climb toward strategic goals, shares the burden, and keeps the team on a sustainable path — the way Tenzing Norgay helped Sir Edmund Hillary scale Everest together.

The Connective Tissue – links strategy, execution, and market reality — and like any good muscle group, is willing to tear and repair to get stronger.

The International Diplomat – fluent in Sales, Finance, Marketing, and Operations, and able to navigate wildly different priorities without losing the plot.

The career path to pricing leadership probably includes exiting the pricing world for a while — running a cross-functional program, taking a sales role, or starting something entrepreneurial — to live in your peers’ skin.

Why Authority Matters

While there’s rarely a “Chief Pricing Officer,” someone in the C-suite must have own — alone — the final word on pricing strategy and policy. Without that, “pricing for growth” gets dumped on a pricing team with no authority to ask “growth of what?” or to set a coherent course (this was discussed in last week’s article).

That’s not just a leadership failure from the top — it’s a failure within pricing to demand clarity before acting. And yes, consultants are just as guilty because they are often all too eager to fulfill one of the pricing stereotypes themselves.

The Discipline

True pricing leadership also includes structured setting and execution of prices, measuring results, and feeding those learnings back into the next decision. Simple in concept, non-trivial in practice — and the difference between pricing as a strategic lever or a corporate afterthought.

A Possibly Self-Serving Example

Look at the Board of Directors at ChiefPricingOfficer.com. Not one started in pricing. Every single one carries deep, cross-functional scars from roles across industries and functions.

That’s not coincidence. That’s what it takes to be seen — and respected — as a pricing leader.