Hello, goodbye, CMO

Spencer Stuart just released their second study on CMO tenure. The news isn’t good – again. The tenure of Chief Marketing Officers at the top 100 consumer branded companies continued to decline. Over the past three years, time on the job dropped from 23.6 months to 23.2 months.

 

Greg Welch of executive search firm Spencer Stuart said he was surprised by this trend. “When we did our first survey three years ago, we really didn’t expect this to happen.”

 

Although this study focuses on CMOs at consumer companies, I’d bet the technology and B2B industries have a similar track record. Just think about all the CMOs, VPs and Directors of Marketing you know. It’s not uncommon to see them last two or three years - if that – before moving on.

 

Not very long ago, the typical CEO looked for a marcom-type person and/or someone with sales background. Often, the hiring of a marketing leader was a reactionary move, trying, for example, to compensate for decreased sales.

 

But the role of the CMO has changed dramatically. Enlightened tech industry and B2B CEOs now expect their marketing exec to be an active participant on their senior management team, be board-savvy, financially astute and able to work cross-functionally across the organization.

 

Spencer Stuart calls this profile “the new Super CMO.”

 

Whatever you call it, today’s CMO also must build and leverage partnerships. Want your company to be acquired? Think about who’s going to do the acquiring: your competitors. That’s why it’s important not to live in a vacuum; CMOs have to help build bridges across the industry while working closely with business development and channel groups to forge and deepen relationships.