It’s not at all unusual for senior execs to rarely get promoted, since there are so few roles to promote them into. Look how long Sheryl Sandberg has and will be COO of Facebook.
I don't ask this flippantly. Is it possible that he simply wasn't as good as he thought he was? In situations like this, I often find the company culture can suck, but I also often find that people overrate themselves and aren't willing to develop. I'd say my observations are about half-half.
You can compare the global direction he overlooked, vs. USA strategic direction staffed with trophy execs and given enormous marketing budget (which was measured close to $100m and possibly more in recent years,) vs. one he had, which was zero.
Aliexpress was created with explicit intention of barging into US market, yet it ended up with them making more money in Russia than in every other market combined.
