The Work Behind Visibility: What Deborah Farone Learned About Growth, Power, and the Skills Women Are Not Taught

There is a point in many careers where the rules quietly change.

Early on, performance is enough. Doing the work well leads to recognition, opportunity, and progression. Expertise compounds, credibility builds, and advancement feels like a natural extension of effort. But over time, something less visible begins to take over. The people who continue to rise are not always the most technically capable. They are the ones who understand how to extend their influence beyond the work itself.

For many women, that shift is not clearly defined. It is rarely taught directly, and often framed in ways that feel unnatural or misaligned. The expectation to “build a practice” or “develop business” appears without a clear roadmap, and the language around it can feel transactional, even performative.

Deborah Farone has spent her career inside that transition point.

As the former Chief Marketing Officer of Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Debevoise & Plimpton, and now CEO of Farone Advisors LLC, she has worked alongside some of the most established professionals in law and professional services. Her vantage point has been unusually close to how influence is actually built, not in theory, but in practice. What she observed over time is that the gap between expertise and advancement is not accidental. It is structural, cultural, and often unspoken.

Her work today is centered on making that gap visible and, more importantly, navigable.

A Career Built Inside Institutions That Resist Change

Deborah did not begin her career with a clear path into legal marketing or professional services. Like many graduates, she entered the workforce with a general direction rather than a defined trajectory. Her early work in public relations at Ketchum provided exposure to communication strategy and client service, but it was her transition into in-house roles that shaped her long-term perspective.

At Towers Watson, she began working more directly with consultants and global teams, gaining insight into how large organizations think about growth, positioning, and client relationships. The move into law firms came at a time when the industry itself was still hesitant to embrace marketing in any structured way.

Law firms, by nature, are conservative institutions. Their business models rely heavily on precedent, risk mitigation, and individual expertise. The idea of actively marketing services or building a brand was, for many, uncomfortable. Deborah entered that environment not only as a marketer, but as someone tasked with expanding what was considered acceptable.

Her tenure at Cravath, one of the most prestigious firms in the world, placed her at the center of that evolution. Over fourteen years, she built and expanded marketing, business development, and communications functions in a setting that was not naturally inclined toward them.

This required more than technical skill. It required an understanding of how to introduce change within systems that are designed to resist it.

An Industry That Produces Talent but Limits Advancement

The legal profession offers a clear example of a broader pattern.

Women now graduate from law school in equal or greater numbers than men. Entry into the profession is no longer the barrier it once was. Yet at the highest levels, particularly in equity partnership and firm leadership, representation remains disproportionately low.

Deborah points to a combination of structural and behavioral factors that contribute to this gap. Compensation systems often reward individual origination of business rather than collaboration. Leadership roles are still predominantly held by men, which affects both visibility and access to informal networks. The profession’s reliance on precedent means that without visible examples of women in top roles, progression pathways remain unclear.

These factors are not unique to law. They exist in varying forms across professional services, corporate environments, and entrepreneurship.

What is often overlooked, however, is the role that business development plays in navigating these systems.

The Skill That Sits Beneath Advancement

In Deborah’s view, the ability to generate business is one of the most important and least understood skills in a professional career.

It is also one of the least explicitly taught.

Many professionals reach mid-career having built strong technical expertise but little experience in developing clients or creating opportunities. The expectation to do so appears later, often without guidance, and is frequently framed in language that feels disconnected from how they naturally operate.

Deborah challenges the idea that business development is an inherent trait. She describes it as a muscle that develops through repeated use, becoming more natural over time with practice.

This framing shifts the conversation. Instead of viewing business development as something reserved for a particular personality type, it becomes a capability that can be built deliberately.

The implications are significant. Without this skill, professionals remain dependent on existing structures for advancement. With it, they gain a degree of autonomy over their trajectory.

A Different Model of Growth

One of the most consistent patterns Deborah identified through her research is that successful women do not approach business development in uniform ways.

In her forthcoming book, Breaking Ground, she draws on interviews with more than sixty women who have built strong, independent practices. Their approaches vary widely, but they share a common principle. Each has found a method that aligns with her own interests, strengths, and way of engaging with others.

This might take the form of hosting clients at cultural events, organizing small gatherings around shared interests, or creating spaces for conversation that do not revolve around transactions. The specifics are less important than the underlying alignment.

When business development is connected to something the individual genuinely enjoys, it becomes sustainable. It is repeated more often, executed with more ease, and experienced differently by the people involved.

This stands in contrast to more traditional models that emphasize volume, scripts, or rigid processes. Those approaches can produce results, but they often create resistance, particularly among those who do not see themselves reflected in them.

Reframing Sales Without Changing the Outcome

Language plays a significant role in how business development is perceived.

Terms such as sales, closing, and pipeline management carry connotations that can feel misaligned with relationship-driven professionals. Deborah does not dismiss the importance of these activities, but she reframes how they are approached.

Rather than focusing on securing outcomes, she emphasizes understanding and supporting the client. One example she highlights is the shift from asking for business directly to asking how one can support the other person’s needs.

This subtle change alters the dynamic of the interaction. It places the focus on the client’s situation rather than the provider’s objective, creating space for a different kind of conversation.

The effectiveness of this approach is tied to trust, which Deborah breaks down into three components: expertise, authenticity, and empathy. Each plays a distinct role. Expertise establishes credibility. Authenticity signals alignment between words and actions. Empathy demonstrates an understanding of the client’s context.

When these elements are present, the relationship becomes less transactional and more collaborative. Over time, this leads to stronger and more durable connections.

The Transition to Independence

After decades within established institutions, Deborah made the decision to leave and build her own advisory practice.

The transition was not driven by dissatisfaction but by a recognition that her experience could be applied in a different way. She had been advising clients informally for years and saw an opportunity to formalize that work.

The move also represented a shift in how she engaged with the market. Within a firm, visibility is often mediated by the organization. As an independent advisor, she would need to rely on her own network, reputation, and positioning.

In her case, the transition was supported by an existing reputation and a clear area of focus. She had spent years building relationships and developing a point of view that clients already valued.

Not everyone enters entrepreneurship with those advantages. Deborah is direct about this and emphasizes the importance of thinking about independence before it becomes necessary. Professionals should consider what they would offer, who their clients would be, and how they would differentiate themselves if they needed to operate on their own.

This type of preparation is often overlooked, but it reflects a broader theme in her work. Career growth requires intentionality, not just effort.

What Differentiation Actually Looks Like

In crowded markets, differentiation is frequently discussed but rarely defined in practical terms.

Deborah approaches it less as a branding exercise and more as a function of delivery. While positioning and messaging are important, the experience a client has during an engagement ultimately shapes perception.

She focuses on creating what she describes as a “wow factor,” not in the sense of spectacle, but in exceeding expectations in ways that are meaningful to the client. This might involve going deeper into a problem, providing more clarity than expected, or offering insights that extend beyond the immediate scope of work.

The emphasis is on value rather than comparison. Instead of focusing on competitors, she directs attention to how her work can be more useful to the client.

This orientation simplifies decision-making. It reduces the noise created by external benchmarks and keeps the focus on the relationship itself.

How She Thinks About Work and Decision-Making

Deborah’s approach to work is shaped by a combination of structure and adaptability.

She places a strong emphasis on strategy, particularly in defining a clear niche. Before engaging in tactics such as speaking, writing, or networking, she encourages professionals to identify how they want to be known. This provides a framework for deciding where to invest time and energy.

At the same time, she recognizes the constraints that many professionals face. Time is limited, particularly for those balancing demanding roles with personal responsibilities. Her guidance is to select a small number of activities that align with one’s strengths rather than attempting to do everything.

Learning is another consistent theme. As an independent advisor, she has found that staying current requires deliberate effort. This includes engaging with new technologies, following industry developments, and maintaining exposure to different perspectives.

Connection, both professional and personal, is treated as equally important. The shift from structured environments to independent work can introduce isolation, which affects both performance and well-being. Deborah addresses this by scheduling regular interactions and maintaining relationships outside of work.

Her approach reflects a broader understanding of sustainability. High performance over time requires not only capability but also balance and awareness.

A More Realistic View of Growth

The narrative around career growth often emphasizes ambition, resilience, and drive. These elements are important, but they do not fully capture the complexity of how advancement occurs.

Deborah’s perspective introduces a more grounded view. Growth is influenced by systems, behaviors, and skills that are not always visible. It requires an understanding of how to operate within existing structures while also developing the ability to create new opportunities.

Business development sits at the center of this dynamic. It is both a practical skill and a strategic lever. It affects how professionals are perceived, how they are compensated, and how they progress.

For women in particular, developing this capability can shift the balance of control. It reduces reliance on existing hierarchies and creates space for different forms of leadership.

Closing Reflection

There is a tendency to view career progression as a function of time and effort. In many cases, it is neither.

It is shaped by a set of decisions about how one engages with work, relationships, and opportunity. Some of these decisions are explicit. Others are made by default, through inaction or lack of awareness.

Deborah’s work brings attention to one of the most consequential of these decisions. Whether or not to develop the ability to generate business.

It is not a comfortable skill for many. It requires visibility, initiative, and a willingness to operate outside familiar boundaries. But it also changes what is possible.

Not immediately, and not without effort, but in ways that accumulate over time.