The CRA is the new CRO: Why I’m becoming a Revenue Architect

In my experience, healthy, predictable revenue growth is never accidental. It’s not the result of a few heroic quarters or a handful of top performers carrying the number. Durable growth is built deliberately, through sound systems, disciplined operating rhythms, and thoughtful design.

For most of my career, the title Chief Revenue Officer implied ownership of a number — bookings, ARR, growth. The job was to motivate teams, inspect pipelines, and drive execution harder and faster each quarter.

For a long time, that playbook delivered. But today, it’s not delivering like it used to.

We learned this firsthand at Gong. We found that the legacy approach to building revenue teams — layering on headcount, increasing quotas, tinkering with pricing and packaging — no longer scales the way it once did. We had to explore an alternative approach to re-accelerating growth, and through that work, we discovered that fundamentally different ways of operating were needed to drive sustainable results.

Meanwhile, AI is reshaping how work gets done across every revenue function.

The scale of that shift is hard to overstate. The global AI market is already approaching $400 billion and is projected to grow nearly ninefold over the next decade. More than 80% of companies now say AI is a strategic priority. By 2030, AI is expected to contribute roughly $15 trillion to the global economy.

This isn’t incremental change. It’s a platform shift.

But here’s the paradox: while nearly everyone is investing in AI, very few organizations are actually capturing meaningful value from it.

Only about a quarter of companies have moved beyond pilots to scaled impact. Fewer than 1% consider themselves truly “AI mature,” meaning the technology is deeply embedded in how work gets done day to day.

The problem is an execution issue, and it starts with how we’ve designed our revenue tools, people, and organization. Most companies still struggle to connect contextual signals to daily workflows and outcomes. They can see what’s happening in their business, but they can’t systematically act on it. Insight exists, but it doesn’t translate into behavior.

That breakdown is where the old CRO playbook runs out of gas.

Revenue today isn’t something you simply “own.” It’s something you have to design.

That realization led me to evolve my functional role to Chief Revenue Architect.

Let me be clear: this isn’t a cosmetic title change. It’s not marketing language. And it’s not semantics.

It’s a recognition that the job itself has changed — and that I have to change with it.

If the role now requires designing systems, embedding AI into workflows, and architecting repeatable outcomes, then I can’t rely only on the skills that made me successful in the past. I have to deliberately develop new ones.

I’ve personally committed to building the competencies this new era demands: systems thinking, workflow design, operational strategy, and change leadership. Because you can’t architect outcomes if you don’t understand how the system actually works.

Titles don’t create impact. Capabilities do.

When I think about the word “architect,” I don’t think about authority. I think about responsibility.

An architect doesn’t stand on a job site telling builders to work faster. They design the blueprint. They decide how everything connects, where friction lives, how information flows, and how the structure holds up at scale.

That’s increasingly what revenue leadership looks like.

The job isn’t simply to push harder on the number each quarter. It’s to design the conditions where hitting the number becomes more predictable and repeatable.

At Gong, that means embedding contextual customer data directly into the workflows sellers live in every day. It means aligning incentives across teams, removing manual steps, and using AI to guide decisions in real time — not just report on them after the fact.

Because heroics don’t scale. Architecture does.

If this shift is real, it can’t stop with me.

It has to scale across the organization.

And this is where I think most companies are falling short.

Few institutions are truly architecting their success around role development, skill training, and how work actually gets done. They talk about AI transformation. They buy tools. They rename roles. But most never invest deeply in building the capabilities teams need to make those tools effective.

So we decided to build that muscle ourselves. We’re evolving our Customer Success team to be Revenue Architects (RAs).

And we created a 12-week Revenue Architect accreditation program that every one of our Revenue Architects goes through. It’s not a one-day workshop or a certification slide deck. It’s structured training, hands-on application, and a real capstone project where participants must design and deliver measurable outcomes.

We focus on skills like AI workflow design, operational consulting, and change leadership — the practical capabilities required to help customers transform how they work, not just adopt another piece of software.

Because you don’t become an architect by reading about it. You become one by building.

We’re entering one of the most disruptive periods revenue teams have ever seen. AI will automate many of the manual tasks we’ve historically hired people to do. It will compress sales cycles, reshape roles, and reward companies that can adapt quickly.

The risk of standing still is real. Many organizations launching AI initiatives are already experiencing stalled projects or financial losses because they haven’t redesigned processes, roles, and operating rhythms. Simply layering AI on top of old workflows doesn’t work.

The companies that win won’t be the ones who react the fastest. They’ll be the ones who intentionally design how revenue flows end to end.

They’ll architect their systems.

That’s what this role represents for me.

Not a new label.

A new standard for how we build.

And a commitment to designing growth — deliberately, thoughtfully, and at scale.