Scaling Without Losing Clarity: Lessons from High-Growth Brands
About the Author
Ashley Fina is the Co-CEO of Oxygen and former CEO of Michael C. Fina Recognition. She helps founders, executives, and high-growth companies build stronger teams through practical, people-first management training. Ashley has coached and advised more than 35 companies across industries and serves on multiple boards focused on business leadership and human capital development. Follow her on LinkedIn @AshleyFina.
Introduction
As companies scale, growth rarely breaks because people stop caring or trying. More often, it breaks because alignment starts to slip. Decisions slow down. Teams optimize locally. Managers struggle to translate strategy into day-to-day execution.
At Oxygen, this is the pattern we see over and over again. Founders have clarity in their heads — but without strong management systems, that clarity doesn’t consistently make it into how teams operate, prioritize, and execute. Marketing is often where those cracks show up first, but it’s rarely the root cause.
To explore how high-growth companies maintain clarity as they scale — and where they most often lose it — I sat down with Joe Yakuel, the founder and CEO of WITHIN. Known as a leading digital marketing agency for retail and consumer brands, WITHIN helps companies like The North Face, Ben & Jerry’s, and Foot Locker scale with speed and clarity by building marketing systems that grow the business without losing the brand.
Our conversation reinforced something I deeply believe: most scaling challenges aren’t marketing problems. They’re alignment problems — and alignment lives or dies in how managers are supported to execute.
Q: At Oxygen, we help founders build brands that scale without drifting away from their identity. What have you learned about maintaining clarity as a brand scales aggressively?
Joe: The biggest threat to brand clarity is misalignment. As companies grow, teams start optimizing for their own goals. Marketing wants growth. CX wants speed. Product wants features. All of that makes sense on its own, but without a shared goal, things start to feel disconnected fast.
The brands that scale well make clarity a focal point. Everyone knows who we’re talking to, what we stand for, and how that should come through at every touchpoint. That alignment keeps things tight even as the business grows.
Q: Founders often get pulled in every direction: growth, product, team. What’s one area of marketing you think they tend to under-prioritize that deserves more focus?
Joe: Post-purchase. Everyone’s chasing the next customer, but the real compounding happens after the first sale. What’s the unboxing experience like? How helpful is your support content? Are you using lifecycle marketing to build a relationship or just push discounts?
Founders tend to underestimate how much loyalty is shaped in that second phase. It’s the difference between a customer and an advocate. And advocates are where long-term growth really comes from.
Q: What’s your take on when to bring in agency partners and what the internal team needs to have figured out first?
Joe: Too many teams bring in an agency hoping for clarity, when what they really need is alignment. Like I mentioned earlier, if your internal team isn’t clear on goals, audience, and what success looks like, no agency is going to fix that.
The best time to bring in a partner is when you’re clear on where you’re going but need help getting there faster, with more focus, and with people who’ve done it before. That’s when agencies add real value.
Conclusion
What stood out most in this conversation is how closely Joe’s perspective mirrors what we see every day at Oxygen. Growth doesn’t break because teams lack talent. It breaks when managers aren’t given the clarity, context, and systems they need to make good decisions consistently.
Marketing, customer experience, and product execution all reflect the same underlying truth: alignment isn’t accidental. It’s built — one manager, one decision, one system at a time.
That’s where real scale happens.