And if the team isn’t very big, those ICs report into a Director. Otherwise their may be an Associate Director in between.
I would phrase it as "things other people can't or won't".
Jim Cramer wrote a book in which he described how someone told him he could have a job if he would just "go in that office over there and fire that guy". He did.
* director of safety and security
* director of global resiliency
* senior manager of global intelligence
* manager of global intelligence center (GIC)
* contractor who worked as an intelligence analyst
* senior manager
None of these are what I'd consider an executive, as titles go, at major tech companies. The highest ranking title (director) is solidly middle-management.
The majority of promotions to management or senior management levels that I've seen in SV (including when I worked at eBay) were the result of knowing someone with the power to make it happen for you.
4ish years to promote up, especially the first two level levels. Velocity isn't all that crazy.
I tried to sell something last week, and assumed that it would be a 30 second affair of "snap photo, set reserve price, done". No, no. We can't have things be this simple... Have fun clicking through a massive list of options and settings... By the time you've got to the end of that form you wish you just took the item to the dump!