The X-Mentor Impact Report
Issue #27 - The Business Impact of The X-Mentor
Overview
The X-Mentor can genuinely help sharpen your leadership edge.
The X-Mentor is a Substack publication by veteran strategist Greg Parrott that explores trends and topics related to the business impact of design. Its mission is to demonstrate how converging CX and UX journeys can be managed with the same rigor as other strategic business investments.
Each issue blends insights from experience design, innovation, and leadership to exemplify how delivering customer value drives measurable business outcomes and, when effectively applied, leads to revenue growth.
Launched in the early 2020s, The X-Mentor has quickly become an authoritative resource for business professionals, reaching over 1 million readers monthly across multiple digital channels and is read by a diverse audience of design, strategy, and business leaders who are focused on driving customer and business impact.
Greg Parrott has earned a trusted reputation for connecting exceptional experience design to real business results. The X-Mentor reveals how every human experience ends in an emotion—and how emotion is the #1 driver of business outcomes, making it a vital guide for leaders focused on smarter decisions, profitability, and growth.
Key Themes and Content
Design as a Strategic Driver: A core theme is leveraging “Good Design” to drive business results. The X-Mentor often highlights how both business leaders and design teams are underutilizing design’s full potential, and it offers guidance on improving design’s impact on financial performance. In other words, design isn’t treated as just aesthetics. Rather, it’s presented as a strategic asset for growth.
Leadership and Communication: The X-Mentor reveals a strategic leadership gap in design. Interviews and articles delve into the lack of good design strategy in organizations and what to do about it. Recurring lessons focus on the importance of communication. Specifically, The X-Mentor encourages design professionals to speak the language of business when championing ideas. By framing design decisions in terms executives understand (e.g. ROI, Revenue, Cost, Profitability, Customer Lifetime Value, Net Revenue Retention), The X-Mentor helps readers become more persuasive, strategic leaders.
Expert Interviews & Case Studies: A standout feature is the X-Interviews series. In-depth conversations with renowned experts in UX & CX, business strategy, and executive leadership yield firsthand insights and concrete examples that bring the publication’s points to life. Readers hear from figures like Jared Spool on the costs of neglecting UX strategy (he warns of the “cost of guessing” instead of using research), or Bart Fanelli (former CRO, Outsystems, VP Global Field Success, Splunk) on how integrating design with go-to-market teams can fuel explosive growth. In fact, one case shows how aligning design and sales via a “Nirvana loop” helped Splunk boost annual revenue beyond $1.5 billion. These interviews explore how organizations can shape customer perceptions by reducing friction and helping them reach key goals faster.
Emerging Trends and Innovation: The X-Mentor stays forward-looking, exploring how AI and digital innovation intersect with strategy, and how to leverage real-time data and insights for decision-making. This ensures subscribers are not only learning timeless leadership principles but also staying ahead of the curve on current transformations.
Unique Perspectives
The X-Mentor champions a holistic mindset—integrating creative design thinking and intuition with business metrics and strategic frameworks to deliver lasting impact.
Greg Parrott introduces new concepts like “X-Economics” and proprietary services like Experience Performance Management (XPM) that turn CX improvements into measurable business value. This perspective motivates readers to treat experiences as economic assets—I.e., Manage Experiences like a Business.
Testimonials
“I have history with Greg Parrott—with decades, by now, of experience and discussions—we partnered earlier in development of unique propositions of digital journey-making and brand storytelling—then, interlaid in a complex array of integrated brand strategy and marketing, and built design services.
What’s emerged, in the evolution of these conversations, is a unique visionary expertise, the interlacement of UX and CX—and AI—into arrays of pathways to think about people, how they explore, navigate and understand information. It’s a journey—but of course, what is the story of that journey, who’s telling it, how’s it feel, how does the journeyer get that, and who cares? And most critically, strategically and tactically—how does this measure as a value—as a business consideration? That nexus is where Greg’s value is—his X-Mentor Substack—a journey, with answers.”
Tim Girvin, Founder and Principal, GIRVIN | Strategic Branding & Design
“Today, experts exist in nearly every field—some grounded in theory, others in real-world experience. So, who should we trust? The answer is clear: listen to those who’ve done the work. The X-Mentor is built around this principle, featuring curated insights from industry veterans. Real people. Real interviews. Real experience. All practice, no theory.”
Bart Fanelli, CEO and Founder, Skillibrium
Greg Parrott's observations highlight crucial gaps in corporate mission metrics. The X-Mentor offers thought leadership to help businesses effectively measure and drive success by focusing on their genuine impact on customers, employees, and society.
André Mota | Senior Manager, CX Strategy & Optimization, Outsystems
Conclusion
The X-Mentor is a high-impact, thought-provoking publication that sits at the nexus of design, strategy, and leadership. The X-Mentor combines vision with practical insight—offering expert guidance on customer experience, organizational culture, and business strategy. Greg Parrott’s accessible writing makes complex ideas actionable for busy decision-makers. If you aim to sharpen your leadership edge, The X-Mentor belongs on your reading list.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Greg Parrott, founder of The X-Mentor, combines proven enterprise discipline with agile startup innovation to unlock transformative customer experiences. With over 20 years advising global leaders like Microsoft and IBM, Greg brings The X-Mentor to organizations of all sizes—empowering executives, teams, and individuals to turn customer experience into real, measurable growth.
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Learn more at: Greg Parrott | XM Consulting