CMO Leadership Positions

I’ve been in the room when FMCG boards reviewed the final shortlist for a CMO role. Over the last 12 months, something remarkable has happened in those rooms: the most debated profiles aren’t traditional brand marketers from legacy CPG houses, they’re growth leaders from tech. Leaders from Spotify, Uber, TikTok, Amazon, Klarna. They’re not coming in with 20 years of experience managing heritage brands across grocery channels. But they’re fluent in another language altogether: data-led storytelling, performance-driven growth loops, real-time consumer signals, and omni-channel acquisition that doesn’t require above-the-line muscle. And suddenly, for global consumer companies that have struggled to keep up with how consumers discover and engage with brands, this “outsider” language is exactly what they’re craving. -76% of consumers now expect brands to anticipate their needs and behaviors, not just respond to them. (Salesforce, State of the Connected Customer, 2023) - Personalization and real-time relevance aren’t just “digital priorities”, they’re growth levers. -And for Gen Z consumers, brand loyalty is no longer built in-store or through TV spots. It’s earned through value-driven storytelling, digital community engagement, and consistent online presence across formats. The traditional FMCG CMO was a master of category management, retail activation, and brand architecture. That role still matters. But the emerging CMO, the one most in demand today looks a little different: → They think in funnels, not channels. → They test, learn, and optimize daily. → They’re equally comfortable briefing creators for TikTok as they are building full-funnel attribution models. → They manage marketing like a product team: agile, cross-functional, data-literate. I’ve seen this play out firsthand in executive search mandates. The world of consumer goods has changed and the skill sets needed at the top are evolving too.It’s no longer just about knowing the category. So, if you’re leading a consumer brand and hiring for its future, here’s my question: Are you searching for someone who knows your brand’s history? Or someone who can build its future? Let’s talk. #FMCG #MarketingLeadership #ExecutiveSearch #DigitalTransformation #ConsumerGoods #CMO #Hiring #FutureOfMarketing

The CMO isn’t becoming obsolete. But with AI agents, the old version of the job is. For the first time, CMOs will operate above execution and focus on what actually compounds advantage: strategy, judgment, and learning speed. Marketing leadership itself is being redesigned. I explore the future of the CMO as the Architect, and what changes in practice:  - From Approver to Architect. The role moves from approving output to designing leverage. - Five core responsibilities of the Architect CMO: growth, learning, brand, revenue, and talent (including agents).   - Agents run the “busy middle.” They continuously test, iterate, and coordinate. - The new CMO operating model. The advantage goes to CMOs with the fastest learning cycles.  - 3 layers matter: leadership → team design → execution. Each builds on the one before it. This is part 1 of a 3-part series on the Future of Marketing. I’ll cover how marketing teams will evolve and how CMOs should adopt AI agents next. 

Marketing job titles might be getting messy but what they really reveal is how much the definition of senior marketing roles has changed. A decade ago, “Head of Marketing” or “CMO” was shorthand for strategy-only. Set the vision. Approve the budget. Direct the team. The doing happened elsewhere. That’s not the case anymore. Leaner teams (and leaner budgets) mean senior marketers are closer to execution than ever before.... Digital-first channels demand speed, personality, and authenticity that can’t just be delegated. Organisations want more bang for their buck. And whether you’re in a start-up or a global brand, leaders are expected to show up. Whether it's on LinkedIn, on stage, on podcasts, in articles. That’s not an optional extra. It’s part of the job. Which might explain why so many job specs read like a mash-up of brand, growth, content, product, and performance marketing. They’re trying to capture a new kind of leader: one who can set strategy and model execution. The strategist-who-also-does. The boardroom voice who still knows the weeds. The leader who can embody the brand, not just approve it. (The kind of marketer who has existed in the scale-up space for a long time 👀) That’s a big shift from the “boardroom-only” marketer of old. And it means if you’re chasing leadership because you want to escape the weeds… you might be disappointed. Because modern marketing leadership is both. The strategy and the doing. The vision and the visibility. The title might look the same. But the role has evolved. Anyone else seeing this? --- 💋A perspective from inside the scale-up trenches hashtag hashtag #MarketingInTheMud

In a recent discussion with Priscilla Ng, Prudential plc’s Group Chief Customer and Marketing Officer, we delved into Prudential’s shift towards customer-centricity. This conversation underscored the seamless integration of digital innovation and the essential human touch in the insurance sector.   Here are five key insights from our discussion applicable across industries:   🔹Strategic Integration of AI and Human Insight: Prudential is not just using AI to streamline processes; they are using it to significantly enhance personalization and customer service. From simplifying underwriting to transforming service at customer touchpoints like call centers, AI is proving to be transformative. How can other industries use AI not merely for efficiency but as a catalyst for customer connection?   🔹Empowering Employees: In the journey of digital transformation, the role of technology is as crucial as the people behind it. Priscilla emphasized the importance of equipping over 15,000 employees with the necessary mindset, skills, and tools to excel in a digitally evolving landscape. What strategies can companies implement to ensure their teams thrive amidst technological change?   🔹Balanced Approach to Digital and Human Interaction: Despite extensive technological integration, the human element remains critical at Prudential. Their approach ensures that digital enhancements support rather than replace human interactions, thereby strengthening customer relationships. How can businesses maintain this balance to enhance, not undermine, human connections?   🔹Navigating Challenges in Transformation: Adapting to digital transformation comes with challenges, from aligning large teams with new strategies to continuously adapting to emerging technologies. Priscilla shared that a steadfast focus on customer-centricity is essential for navigating these challenges. How can other organizations keep their focus on customer needs while managing transformation complexities?   🔹Continuous Learning and Adaptation: A crucial aspect of Prudential’s transformation is fostering an environment of continuous learning and adaptation. This involves training in new technologies and developing a deeper understanding of customer needs and behaviors. How can continuous learning be structured to keep pace with rapid technological advancements and evolving customer expectations?   This dialogue is part of McKinsey’s ongoing series exploring how leaders steer their companies through transformations. Stay tuned for more insights shaping today’s business landscape. Full interview: https://lnkd.in/gtjphW2s   #Leadership #DigitalTransformation #CustomerCentricity #InsuranceIndustry #AI

We’ve entered a phase where most brands believe building an in-house AI team is the answer. I believe that’s the wrong first move. Because the real leap happens when your people become AI-enabled—not when you hand off the work to a “team of data scientists”. Here’s the shift I’m urging CMOs, VPs of Marketing & Growth leaders to embrace: 1/ Train your people first. Your marketers, creatives, analysts—give them AI fluency so they amplify their current skill-set. 2/ Studies show that staff who use AI as a collaborator produce ideas on par with full human teams, and get there faster. 3/ Audit your workflows, then retrofit AI. It’s not about plugging in a platform and expecting transformation. The magic happens when you redesign the workflow around human + AI. 4/ Stop viewing AI as a replacement. View it as a force multiplier. When brands invest heavily in tools but ignore upskilling staff, they face a talent mismatch and stalled transformation. 5/ Embed AI into your daily operations. When you shift from “let’s try AI” to “we do AI”, scale becomes possible. Hiring an AI team gets you technology. Training your team gets you leverage. If you lead such an organisation and feel like you’ve bought the AI ticket - but your team still runs at old speed - let’s talk. At ALTRD, we train your existing team to do 5× more in half the time, and weave AI into their workflow so performance shifts, not just the tech stack.

“My CEO ordered me to never use the word ‘brand’ again,” lamented a CMO from a $75mil SaaS brand. “Then he told me to only spend money on things that drive revenue,” the CMO shared. Ah, yes, the double whammy. Everyone in the huddle sympathized with a “been there” nod. I silently stewed. A productive rant to follow. Should CMOs stop using the word “brand?” Yes. It’s toxic. Time to move on, and this is from the guy whose latest book subhead reads, “12 Steps to Building Unbeatable B2B Brands.” If you must venture into brand-like language, use the word “reputation.” It’s much easier to grasp. Even CFOs can understand the difference between a good reputation and a poor one. Does that mean I can have budget items for reputation building? No, unless you want that part to be cut faster than you can say “brand.” If possible, avoid sharing spending buckets beyond people, programs, and tech. If you, like many CMOs, divide your budget into demandgen or growth marketing and everything else, your CFO will assume that everything else is unmeasurable and possibly wasteful. Choose your budget-bucket labels carefully. Events, for example, can drive new logos, accelerate late-stage deals, help with expansion, and reduce churn. If events are funded from your “growth marketing” budget, then that’s how they will be measured, and that may limit this invaluable channel. What about the “only spending on revenue drivers” directive? Live with it. All marketing drives revenue (there, I said it!). It’s just a matter of timeframe and targets. Unless you’re selling an impulse item (Of course, I would buy another penguin hat if it showed up in my Instagram feed), you operate in the world of considered purchases and buyer journeys. Different marketing activities impact different parts of your target at different times in different ways. Let’s take Analyst Relations. It can take 12-18 months to build a quadrant-shifting relationship with an analyst. When that higher rating or new category of your own making suddenly arrives, you’ll be rewarded with higher consideration and close rates. That’s revenue too. Just a bit slower. Could we shift this conversation altogether? Yes. Please. Let’s start at the end and work backward. Right now, every B2B brand has a win rate. If you, for example, compete against three better-known brands, your win rate is likely lower than that of the top three. What would it take to improve your win rate? Most likely, it is a combination of product changes, pricing, positioning, CX, and promotion, including analyst relations. Lead that conversation. The second conversational shift is to pricing power. Conduct a thorough analysis of the discounting required to close deals. Understand how much discounting impacts profit margins. Find out the last time you took a price increase. Reputational strength equals pricing power and higher close rates. Work with your CFO to build the model. Marketing does drive revenue. But it's not about SQLs.

I recently redesigned the marketing operating model for a $350 Millon B2B software company — and it reminded me just how context-specific org design really is. One of the most strategic (and overlooked) decisions a CMO makes is how to design the marketing organization. It’s tempting to replicate what worked in your last company. But in B2B software, there’s no one-size-fits-all. What worked for a $20M PLG business may not suit a $100M enterprise SaaS platform. 1. Design for business outcomes, not headcount. Start with goals: new segments, enterprise expansion, category leadership. Org design should mirror business intent — not legacy structures. 2. Build capabilities before filling roles. Ask: Do we have strong demand gen, lifecycle, product marketing, content, partner marketing, ops, and analytics? Capabilities come first — roles come second. 3. Structure around your go-to-market motion. If your growth lever is partners, embed partner marketing early. If it’s PLG, prioritize lifecycle and in-product activation. For enterprise, double down on ABM, field marketing, and enablement. 4. Where should Product Marketing sit? There’s no single right answer: In product-led orgs, it makes sense to sit within product to shape narrative from the roadmap. In sales-led orgs, it’s more effective aligned to revenue to sharpen messaging and enablement- drive pipeline velocity. What matters more is the evolution toward GTM solution marketing — cross-functional teams that bridge product, sales, and marketing to tell customer-centric value stories. 5. Build for agility, not bureaucracy. Your org should flex across geos, customer types, and growth motions — without needing to reorganize every time strategy shifts. 6. Invest early in Marketing Ops, Data & Analytics. This is your engine room. From attribution modeling and lead routing to campaign performance, experimentation, and forecasting — high-performing orgs are built on strong ops and data infrastructure. Ops is not a support function. It's a strategic growth capability. 7. Culture, collaboration, and clarity are non-negotiables. No structure works without trust across sales, product, and marketing. Shared KPIs, aligned planning, and a performance mindset are critical. Bottom line: Design for outcomes. Build capabilities. Leverage data. Stay context-aware. Your next marketing org shouldn't look like your last one — it should reflect the business you're building. #B2BMarketing #MarketingLeadership #CMOInsights #MarketingOps #MarketingAnalytics #ProductMarketing #GTMStrategy #MarketingOrgDesign #SaaSGrowth #B2BSoftware #GrowthLeadership #ModernMarketing

CEO: So, we're just gonna keep running the same old ads? CMO: That strategy's about to hit a wall in 2025. CEO: Why? Our ROAS is decent. CMO: 90% of brands are struggling to scale on Meta. We're in that boat. CEO: But we're still growing... CMO: At what cost? We're trapped in the discount death spiral. CEO: Ouch. What's the escape plan? CMO: Building a creator community. CEO: Isn't that just another expense? CMO: Not if you do it right. Check these numbers from a $100M+ brand: CEO: I'm listening. CMO: $339K revenue generated. $996K in earned media value. 2,247 posts created. 128K clicks. 70.8M impressions. 1.6M engagements. CEO: Those are some spicy meatballs. What's the catch? CMO: Total cost: $281K. It literally paid for itself. CEO: No way. What's the secret sauce? CMO: One effort delivers seeding, affiliate, and UGC benefits. Tagged content and organic reach become free. Opens up a new top-of-funnel channel. CEO: But we need results now. CMO: This builds brand equity while driving revenue. It's not just another cost center. CEO: So we stop paying UGC agencies $500 per ad? CMO: Exactly. We build a community that generates content AND revenue. CEO: This feels like a paradigm shift. CMO: The brands that survive 2025 will be the ones who make this shift. CEO: Alright, I'm sold. Where do we start? CMO: First step: stop thinking of creators as a line item expense. CEO: And start thinking of them as...? CMO: The core of our new growth engine.

CMO: this company has no idea what real performance marketing is CEO: wtf do you mean? we're some of the best performance marketers in the world! CMO: we're wholly dependent on buying transactions that day. if things aren't working that day, revenue falls like a rock. there's no resilient base of revenue supporting the business CEO: What other option is there? we don’t have a Kim kardashian or a Selena Gomez as a founder. A huge organic base of revenue isn’t in the cards for us. volatility acquiring customers comes with the territory CMO: hrmm. any brand can have a huge resilient base of new customer acquisition revenue that doesn't immediately drop like a rock if our ads stopped serving CEO: again, we don’t have a massive influencer posting all the time for free. are you going to go on some rant about “brand marketing” like the last CMO? I thought i hired a performance marketing oriented CMO? CMO: you did CEO: so what ARE you saying then? CMO: what we're doing is not real performance marketing. real performance marketing is about balance CEO: balance of what? CMO: Real performance marketing utilizes our precious ad dollars to drive BOTH short term revenue AND the long-term, resilient base of revenue that comes from from branded organic search, organic social referral, and direct traffic. We need BOTH revenue types to build a fast growing, highly profitable brand. CEO: but we get more branded search when we spend more on DR or run a sale CMO: that's why we strip out that noise to get to the true resilient baseline: the revenue that still comes in after we turn off ads and discounts. At my past company, we learned that was one of the main drivers of our strong EBITDA multiple when we were acquired CEO: it still sounds like brand marketing to me. regardless, we're too small to do brand marketing CMO: call it what you want, but how can you say you’re too small to spend money (distribution and content) to drive increases in your highest margin, most resilient revenue type? CEO: what do you mean? CMO: resilient baseline revenue has a revenue / session generally 2x higher than from click-based paid revenue, and a contribution margin that’s even higher CEO: hmm. Say more CMO: you’re saying is that it’s too early to do the version of brand marketing that comes to mind when you think of Mad Men—the type that’s expensive, unmeasurable, and unable to be connected to any actual revenue impact. CEO: exactly CMO: the type of marketing that only happens when someone in the company sticks their neck out and says “we need to do this!” when someone asks why, they say “BECAUSE WE NEED TO DO THIS!” CEO: YES. isn’t that what you meant? CMO: nope. real performance marketing isn't about taking 'leaps of faith. it looks just like what you're used to. we just have to evolve the way we define and measure success...but hey look at the time, gotta head to my next 1:1. we'll talk tomorrow CEO: WHAT? you can't leave right now! that's just mean

If you’re a SaaS founder, this CMO stat should make you uncomfortable. The average CMO lasts 18–24 months. In established companies, it’s over four years. That gap matters. And it’s rarely a talent issue. It’s a systems one. CMOs are usually hired at a moment of pressure: • growth has stalled • CAC is rising • investors are uneasy That’s understandable. But the real constraints are often upstream: • unclear ICPs • pricing or packaging misalignment • sales inefficiencies • product–market tension • revenue targets that don’t match reality Marketing ends up carrying symptoms for problems it didn’t create. Then comes the expectation: “Build a durable growth engine — and show revenue in 90 days.” All while holding the CMO accountable without real influence over: • pricing • sales execution • RevOps • the product roadmap That’s accountability without authority. Add founder-led growth that’s hit its ceiling, skeptical buyers, and boards expecting marketing to fill strategic gaps — and when progress doesn’t appear fast enough? The CMO is replaced. Not the assumptions. Not the model. Not the math. High CMO turnover in SaaS doesn’t mean the role is broken. It usually means expectations weren’t sequenced and time horizons weren’t realistic. Replacing CMOs rarely fixes growth. Fixing the system does. What helped you catch this before it became expensive?