The Chief of Staff role is perhaps the trickiest hire for a chief executive to make.

The topic of innovation is squarely on the agenda of today’s corporate decision makers. This was in full display at the recent New York Times’ New Work Summit, where we joined a select group of business leaders, engineers and scientists, designers and futurists to discuss the challenges leaders face in transforming their organizations into engines of innovation.

We recently held a private dinner for 20 CMOs from some of San Francisco’s most disruptive companies in the hospitality, food, insurance, financial services and media sectors.

It is an exhilarating time to be in the automobile business, but it also is a time of ambiguity and uncertainty. That’s why CES feels much more like the future of the industry. Does that mean the Detroit Auto Show has outlived its usefulness?

Digital content enterprises are all about giving the market what it wants before the market knows it wants it. Quite simply, it’s a hits-driven business.

Archimedes famously said, “Give me a place to stand and I will move the world.” I’m frequently reminded of that quote these days, whether I’m working with legacy organizations transforming themselves to compete in today’s digital-powered world or with pure-play companies looking to keep their edge.

At our recent TechBunker dinner, we met with leaders from the biggest UK marketplaces and aggregators (Airbnb, Amazon, Bookatable, easyfundraising, eBay, Farfetch, MoneySuperMarket, Rightmove, Uber and Worldpay) to talk about how to effectively scale a pure play business.

For a generation, Procter & Gamble has been more than an icon of consumer packaged goods—it’s been the West Point of marketing, producing hundreds of CMOs across a range of industries.

There is a big push among traditional media companies to be “mobile first.” But before reaching that milestone, a company has to be fairly far along in digital transformation.

I work at a reasonably global firm. On occasion, my overseas colleagues call and ask, “Can you help get our client up to speed on what is happening with digital transformation in U.S. media?”