
·E107
#107 How CROs Think (+ What It Means for RevOps) - with Jeremy Donovan, Managing Director at Insight Partners
Episode Description
In this episode, we dive into exclusive data from Insight Partners’ latest survey of over 200 B2B SaaS CROs. Jeremy Donovan shares what differentiates top-performing revenue organizations from the average, covering everything from org structure and hiring traits to the surprising trends in outbound sales and AI adoption.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
CRO Scope & Focus: Why top-performing CROs focus strictly on New Logo and Expansion revenue rather than owning Marketing or Customer Success.
The Outbound SDR Surprise: Contrary to market trends, data shows high-growth companies are expanding their outbound teams—Jeremy explains why and when this works.
Hiring Top Talent: The hierarchy of intrinsic traits (Grit, Intelligence) vs. experience, and why "similar deal size" matters more than vertical experience.
RevOps Reporting Lines: Why 90% of top performers keep Sales Ops directly under the Sales Leader.
AI in 2026: shifting focus from top-of-funnel automation to mid- and bottom-funnel use cases like opportunity risk and expansion.
Jeremy Donovan on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremeydonovan/
Weflow: https://getweflow.com
RevOps Chat Community: https://getweflow.com/community
RevOps Resources: https://getweflow.com/revops
Janis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janiszech
Philipp on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philippstelzer
(00:00:00) Introduction and the Insight Partners CRO Survey(00:04:39) How broad should a CRO’s role be? (Commercial vs. Functional ownership)(00:09:24) Where Partnerships and RevOps sit in top-performing orgs(00:17:21) The surprising data on Outbound SDRs in 2025/2026(00:26:23) Hiring criteria: Grit, Intelligence, and the "Experience" trap(00:40:24) The shift of AI: From email writing to Deal Risk & Post-Sales(00:47:15) Book & Podcast recommendations