I know of a successful exec who was a less-than-stellar exec at Amazon, a terrible VP of Engineering at my current company (valued at 2.5 billion), and went on to be a CTO at his current company (valued at 1 billion).

He basically used his experience to catapult him into VP Engineering/CTO roles even though he isn't a good executive. A good example of success by association or faking it until you make it.