Mike Montiero posted the first chapter of his new book, What Is A Designer? on Medium:

I’ve also seen my share of studios where the designer wasn’t given the opportunity to sell their own work, which is amazingly shortsighted. Selling your work directly to clients is extremely important. Not only should you be able to explain why you made the decisions you did, but you’ll get first-hand feedback on where the work needs to go next.

This right here. I’ve worked at several shops where I did all the hard work and then had some brainless AE–no, wait, let’s call them what they were, project managers–go in and fuck everything up trying to sell it to the client, and then come back and fuck up explaining what the client actually asked for. This was a theme in Baltimore; most of the shops I was at were terrified of the designers poaching clients. It did nothing for my career and contributed to a sense of powerlessness. All designers should be present in the pitch meetings, period. This was why I moonlighted tirelessly for 20 years, sometimes to the irritation of my salaried bosses, because it was the only way I was going to get that experience myself, and they didn’t trust me with “their” clients. Fuck that shit. If you work in a shop that won’t take you to the presentation, get the hell out.