If you help an executive publish an opinion piece, you need an editorial outlet suited to the argument and the readers it concerns. An opinion piece needs two things a guest article does not: an argument somebody could reasonably disagree with, and a reason it is running this month. Without both, it is a guest article being submitted to the wrong desk.
Find the submission page
Search by opportunity type for opinion, commentary and contributor submission pages. Trade publications and industry press run these more often than general outlets and are far more approachable.
Read the stated requirements, which are usually specific: word count, exclusivity, whether they accept submissions from vendors at all, and how long they take to respond.
Many publications explicitly decline commercial contributors for opinion sections. That is stated on the page and pitching anyway wastes the relationship.
Have an argument
This is where most attempts fail. A piece explaining a topic is not an opinion piece, however well written.
The test: could a competent person in your field disagree with your headline? If not, you have an explainer, and it belongs in a different section or a different publication.
Positions that work are ones you can support from experience: that a common practice is wrong, that a widely predicted change is not happening, that an industry standard measures the wrong thing. Positions that fail are the ones nobody contests.
Timeliness is a requirement, not a bonus
Editors run opinion because something happened: a regulation, a data release, an incident, a change everyone in the sector is discussing.
Search current coverage of your market by meaning to find events that give your argument a timely reason for publication. A well-argued piece with no reason to be published this month is a harder sell than a moderate piece with an obvious one.
That also means the window is short. This is not a placement type to plan a quarter ahead.
What you are giving up
Two things worth knowing before you commit.
Opinion sections usually allow a byline and an affiliation rather than links in the body, so the direct link value is small.
And a real position has a cost: some readers will disagree publicly, and a piece that could not offend anyone would not have been published. If your organization cannot tolerate that, this is not the right placement type.
What you get instead
Attribution as somebody with a view, which is what gets you invited to roundups, podcasts and panels afterward. Opinion placements compound into other opportunities more reliably than most link-focused work.
The pieces also persist and get cited, so a well-argued position remains part of the material answers are built from.
Qualifying the publication
Check that it runs opinion regularly with named contributors, that the audience is your buyer rather than your peers, and that it published recently. Link history shows whether it is growing or fading.
Before developing the submission, confirm the publication accepts opinion pieces and that your argument is timely. You can then write for its readers and editorial requirements.
See searching by opportunity type, finding a timely subject, or a lower-commitment alternative.