Featuring:
Ian Bruce, VP and Principal Analyst and Mike Proulx, VP and Research Director
Show Notes:
Every so often, discussions percolate within marketing circles about the fate of the CMO role. Yet reports of their dwindling tenure and presence obscure a nuanced and complex reality, say VP and Principal Analyst Ian Bruce and VP and Research Director Mike Proulx. They describe findings from their recent analysis of Fortune 500 companies this week on What It Means.
The episode starts with an explanation of how the analysis was conducted. The analysts looked at aggregate data for Fortune 500 CMOs and senior-most marketing leaders, then sliced the data by industry, business model, and gender. The analysis found that 63% of Fortune 500s have a CMO or senior marketing executive that reports directly to the CEO, and that the average CMO tenure is 4.1 years. But Bruce says those figures on their own are misleading.
“The lived experiences of CMOs depends entirely on what industry they’re in, what business model their company has — B2B, B2C2B, or B2C — and even whether they’re a man or a woman,” he explains.
The conversation then briefly detours into a reason for CMOs leaving their roles that’s often left out in popular narratives: They move up. Proulx cites Starbucks’s new CEO Brian Niccol as one of a number of CMOs to have made that leap. “When you have CEOs that have marketing acumen, I would argue that they make some of the best CEOs because they’re looking at their enterprises and how they go to market in a much more holistic way,” Proulx says.
The discussion then returns to differences in CMO representation and tenure by industry and business model. Bruce notes that while 91% of Fortune 500s in financial services and insurance have a CMO, just 21% of mining and energy firms do. There is considerable variation by business model as well: 84% of B2C Fortune 500s have a CMO, while just 48% of B2Bs do. The analysts discuss possible reasons behind those disparities and how they might shape CMOs’ day-to-day reality.
Later in the episode, Bruce discusses the divergent experiences of male and female CMOs. While 53% of Fortune 500 CMOs are women — a significantly higher share than occupy other C-suite positions — the average tenure of female CMOs is lower than their male peers’. (Though, again, data from specific industries tells a more nuanced story.)
The conversation touches on other interesting points along the way, such as alternate titles for heads of marketing and who, if not the CEO, they report to. Bruce and Proulx also discuss what tends to contribute to a long CMO tenure — most notably, a good relationship with the CEO and CFO. The episode ends with the analysts giving their key advice for CMOs to succeed, so stay tuned for that.
