Much has been written about the disappearance of the Chief Marketing Officer. The latest data sets the stage: among the Fortune 500, only 36% of companies now use the title "Chief Marketing Officer," down from 49% a year earlier. That's roughly a quarter of the title's remaining footprint gone in twelve months.

Yet even as the title has fallen out of fashion, the function is more relevant than ever. Across consumer, retail, and luxury, brands of every category and stage are intensely focused on cultural relevance, taste, community building, and personalization at scale. Demand for marketing leadership has surged: in 2026, our firm has seen a 181% increase in demand for marketing talent, outpacing the prior three years combined.

Which raises the question: where have all the CMOs gone?

The New Marketing C-Suite

The answer varies by organization. Some companies are narrowing the function and entrusting brand and performance to SVP- or VP-level leaders, with titles like SVP, Marketing or VP, Brand & Performance. Others are expanding the CMO's remit to oversee additional functions such as sales, product, customer experience, or AI transformation. Amid this recalibration, many marketers are doing what marketers do: they’re rebranding.

The result is a new class of executives carrying marketing-adjacent C-suite titles, with words like Brand, Commercial, Customer, and Growth. This rise helps explain the CMO's decline while raising new questions, such as when to hire a Chief Commercial Officer versus a Chief Brand Officer or a traditional CMO. What are the differences between these roles?

Getting that answer right matters more and more as marketing executives mature into new areas of specialization and expertise. In this rapidly evolving talent landscape, successful hiring depends on scoping the role correctly, calibrating the talent pool, and equipping the leader with the authority and resources to deliver the expected results.

CMO vs. Chief Brand, Growth, Commercial, and Customer Officer

While these titles sometimes overlap, they aren’t interchangeable. Each one describes a different answer to the question of where growth will come from, and each draws on a different pool of candidates. Here's how they break down:

Chief Marketing Officer

The modern CMO owns the engine that builds demand: brand, creative, media, consumer insight, and increasingly the data, technology, and AI tools that power marketing. What has changed is the expectation. Today's CMO is measured on growth, as well as awareness, and is expected to speak the language of the P&L.

Fits when the core challenge is building brand and demand, and strong peers already own sales, eCommerce, and product.

Watch for a revenue target without the levers to hit it. If the CMO doesn't influence pricing, channels, or the digital storefront, their ability to deliver on the growth mandate will only extend to the variables they are able to influence.

Typically comes from brand, performance, or full-stack marketing.

Chief Brand Officer

The Chief Brand Officer is the steward of what the brand means: identity, creative direction, storytelling, cultural relevance, and often communications, collaborations, and the look and feel of product and stores. The role is most common in luxury, fashion, and beauty, where all elements must come together to create a cohesive and distinct brand experience.

Fits when a founder or creative leader is stepping back, when a heritage brand needs reinvigorating, or when performance marketing is handled well elsewhere.

Watch for blurred accountability. A CBO usually needs a strong operational partner, and a clearly defined relationship with merchandising and design before the hire, not after.

Can also come from merchandising or creative.

Chief Growth Officer

The Chief Growth Officer owns the enterprise growth agenda. Alongside marketing, that can include new categories, markets, and channels, innovation, partnerships, and sometimes M&A. The title took hold in packaged goods and has spread to PE-backed and high-growth consumer companies with ambitious value creation plans.

Fits when growth depends on coordinated bets across functions, and the CEO wants one leader to own the portfolio of those bets.

Watch for title inflation. A CGO without budget or authority over product and sales is a CMO with a bigger title, and the candidates it attracts will notice quickly.

Can also come from digital or corporate development/strategy.

Chief Commercial Officer

The Chief Commercial Officer owns revenue. The remit typically spans sales, wholesale and channel partnerships, eCommerce, pricing, and marketing, and sometimes merchandising. As the ways to reach and sell to customers multiply, and the lines between marketing, sales, and media channels blur, the case for a single leader owning the full path to revenue becomes increasingly clear.

Fits when channel complexity is the main constraint on growth, or when the business needs one owner for the top line.

Watch for brand becoming subordinate to revenue goals. Many CCOs come up through sales, so a strong brand partner is often essential.

Can also come from sales, eCommerce/digital, or general management.

Chief Customer Officer

The Chief Customer Officer unifies the total customer experience from end to end, owning the omnichannel experience, including CRM, loyalty, first-party data, personalization, and service, as well as brick-and-mortar stores.

Fits when retention, lifetime value, and first-party data are the biggest growth levers, as they are for many retailers and loyalty-driven brands. Most common in businesses over $1B in scale.

Watch for responsibility without authority. If the role can't direct stores, digital product, or service operations, it becomes a coordinator rather than an owner.

Can also come from stores, general management, or digital.

Key Takeaways

Even as the CMO title has fallen out of fashion, demand for modern marketing executives has never been higher. Many companies are asking marketing leaders to own more of the business, and the titles are catching up.

For CEOs, CHROs, and boards, that makes scoping the role the most important step in the search. CMO vs. Chief Commercial Officer? CMO vs. Chief Brand Officer? The right answers to these critical questions require a clear understanding of evolving titles and remit—what they own, what levers they control, and how success is measured—as well as where the talent exists.