As Mike Daum, CMO at Golden 1 Credit Union, told us: “I now have to understand what our third‑party partners are doing with AI — not just from a capability standpoint, but from a brand reputation perspective. That’s an entirely new layer of responsibility.” The Impact Of AI On CMO Responsibilities This figure shows how the chief marketing officer role changes with AI adoption.

According to Mike Gerrish, chief marketing and experience officer at BCBS of Kansas, “You’d better be making or saving money or show a quantifiable result.” His former CFO counterpart Ann Shelton adds, “Without providing support for how these expenditures are contributing to the growth of our business, customer satisfaction, and/or operational efficiencies, a CFO views this as increasing the cost to our customer without the corresponding benefits.”

The executive assistant (EA) to the chief marketing officer is a trusted partner who helps the CMO stay focused and effective. The role goes beyond traditional administrative support by proactively anticipating needs, filtering information and requests, and driving follow-through across executive workflows.

“It’s key to understand marketing processes, and to spend time on the ground with marketers to understand what the data really means and where to find it,” said Paul Gallavardin, chief data officer at Autodistribution. Evolve a collaborative mindset. Instead of fighting for ownership, define what technology innovation means for your own team. “To accelerate our digital transformation a couple of years ago, the executive committee decided to merge marketing and IT functions.

The role and responsibilities of the B2B chief marketing officer (CMO) are evolving. To thrive in the dynamic world of B2B marketing, the CMO must have a clear understanding of their leadership position and duties, both at the C-suite level and with their direct reports. They must grasp market dynamics and transform them into effective strategies to achieve their marketing objectives.

The rest hold a range of titles, including chief commercial officer, chief growth officer, and chief customer officer. This signals that expectations for marketing leaders are changing and marketing functions are being combined with other business functions, both markers of role instability. Changes In Marketing Executive Leadership By Industry, 2025 To 2026 This is a bar chart illustrating the percent turnover of CMOs and marketing leaders by industry, from 2025 to 2026.

Chief executive officer, 19%; chief operating officer, 11%; chief information officer, 11%; chief marketing officer, 9%; chief technology officer, 9%; chief AI officer, 8%; chief data and analytics officer, 7%; chief information security officer, 7%; chief data officer, 6%; chief innovation officer, 5%; chief data scientist, 3%; chief product officer, 3%; chief sales officer, 1%; none of these, 1%.

Marketers obsess over personalization: 96% of US B2C marketing executives in Forrester’s Q2 2025 CMO Pulse Survey said consumer personalization initiatives are important to their organization.

A peer quote from a B2B technology chief marketing officer highlights how shifting to strategic planning freed up 35% capacity and improved ROI. Figure 4 Strategic Acquisitions As A Growth Lever This figure shows Scenario E for strategic acquisitions. It addresses the challenge of achieving aggressive growth targets through M&A while avoiding common integration pitfalls.

Data related to CMO recessionary concerns was derived from two separate surveys and was not focused on the Fortune 500. Forrester’s Q2 2025 B2B CMO Sentiment Survey was fielded online to 101 B2B chief marketing officers or equivalents in April 2025. Respondents were given one free Forrester report for their completion of the survey; partial responses were accepted.