Senior marketing leadership has rarely been in higher demand. Brands of every size and stage are chasing the same things — cultural relevance, fandom, personalization, differentiation — and they need leaders who can deliver growth while traditional channels splinter and multiply underneath them. Our firm has seen a 181% spike in demand for VP - C-level marketers in 2026 after years of steady growth.
At the same time, hiring for the CMO position has never been more difficult. The role itself is fracturing, with the Chief Marketing Officer title giving way to Chief Brand, Growth, Commercial, and Customer Officers, and a growing number of Fortune 500 companies dropping the enterprise CMO. Turnover is climbing, too – a recent survey found the median tenure of marketing chiefs has shrunk by more than a third since 2010.
The result is a talent market where many companies are chasing executives who are hard to pin down, costly to recruit, and quick to move on. But there is a better way.
When a marketing executive doesn’t work out, the problem usually starts long before the hire: stakeholders who aren’t aligned on what the business needs, a title or job spec that isn't calibrated to the talent pool, or a mandate without the levers to deliver. Even a great marketer will fail in the wrong role.
That means the outcome is largely decided at the outset, before the search kicks off. Here are four steps we work through with clients to get it right:
Establish the business need and context
This step sounds obvious. Every executive role should solve a clearly identified business need. And yet research published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science found that 54% of CMO roles are poorly designed — the expectations placed on the leader don't match the levers or the metrics they're given.
Misalignment can sink any executive hire, but it often hits marketing leaders hardest. Their roles are tied closely to fast-changing consumers and technology, which makes them among the most dynamic in the C-suite. The right marketing hire must deliver immediate impact and stay relevant as the company evolves, sometimes quickly.
While companies can't predict the future, they can establish a durable foundation for the marketing hire by getting clear on the existing business needs, resources, and reporting structure, and ensuring the CEO, board, and the entire executive team are aligned. Before hiring a marketing executive, stakeholders should be able to answer the following seven questions:
- What is the biggest constraint on growth? Cultural relevance, awareness, channel execution, retention, lifetime value, a new category or market? A clear answer points the search in the right direction.
- Who owns the vision? This matters most in founder, designer, and brand-led businesses, where a common point of friction is whose job it is to set the vision versus amplify and execute it.
- Where does revenue accountability sit? A leader who carries a revenue target needs authority over the levers that drive it.
- Who already owns the adjacent territory? A strong founder-creative, head of sales, or chief digital officer shapes the need. The new leader should complement the team's strengths, not duplicate them.
- Who owns the customer data and technology? Personalization, loyalty, and AI-driven marketing all run on data. Be clear about whether the marketing leader owns that stack.
- Who is the target customer? The answer may shape who belongs in the candidate pool.
- What does success look like in 12 and 24 months? Agree on expectations before the search, not after the hire.
Match the scope and title to the talent pool you want
Scoping and titling the role correctly is what connects the business need to the right pool of executives. The title itself is a signal to the market: it strongly influences who picks up the phone.
So what separates a Chief Marketing Officer from a Chief Growth Officer, or a Chief Commercial Officer from a Chief Customer Officer? The following chart offers a simplified view of today's landscape (we go deeper in Beyond the CMO: Choosing the Right Title for Your Next Marketing Leader):
Marketing Leadership Titles: Scope, Ownership, and Metrics
| Title | The question it answers | Typically owns | Measured on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chief Marketing Officer | How do we build brand and demand? | Brand, creative, media, consumer insights, content, communications, partnerships, sometimes performance marketing | Brand health, awareness, demand, relevance |
| Chief Brand Officer | How does the consumer experience the brand? | Identity, creative direction, storytelling, communications, sometimes product and design | Brand equity, cultural relevance |
| Chief Growth Officer | Where will our next stage of growth come from? | New channels and markets, innovation, partnerships, sometimes M&A | Revenue growth, new-business contribution |
| Chief Commercial Officer | How do we grow the top line across every channel and revenue stream? | Marketing, sales, stores, eCommerce, wholesale, pricing, sometimes merchandising | Revenue, channel performance |
| Chief Customer Officer | How do we win and keep the customer? | CRM, loyalty, first-party data, personalization, analytics, stores, service | Retention, lifetime value, customer experience |
Seniority needs the same calibration. Leveling too high or too low is one of the most common problems we see when clients come to us after an internal search has stalled. Two rules of thumb:
- Don’t undersell a big job. A role that oversees several functions and needs real leadership authority isn’t a VP role. The more the leader oversees, the more senior the title should be.
- Don’t oversell a more narrow one. Where a founder or creative director owns the brand vision and voice, a true CMO will often feel boxed in. A S/VP or "Head of" title better fits an outside hire who will need time to earn trust.
Map the talent landscape
Senior marketers move across industries more readily than most executives. Companies often value a leader's understanding of the customer over category knowledge, and the qualities that matter most travel well.
Therefore, we often encourage companies to think beyond their category and competitors – where the most obvious profiles exist – and consider candidates from adjacent industries who can bring a fresh perspective and sharpen competitive edge. As a general overview:
Where to Find the Right Marketing Leader for Your Business Needs
| If the business needs | Look for marketers from |
|---|---|
| Innovation and go-to-market commercial instinct | Beauty, CPG |
| Personalization, loyalty, and an emotional customer connection | Hospitality, travel, luxury |
| Content at scale that builds affinity and drives sales | Entertainment, publishing, sports |
| Brand-world building and storytelling that tie product closely to brand | Luxury, fashion |
| Traffic driven by partnerships, promotions, and activations | Retail |
| Fluency in frontier channels (live selling, agentic commerce) | Hire for mindset* |
*These channels are evolving so quickly that few senior leaders will have deep expertise in them yet. Look instead for someone curious, with a track record of reading where consumer attention is going next — not simply chasing the latest trend.
Decide whether to use a search firm
Internal searches have clear merits. They usually cost less. They can move faster when the team taps its own network. And they can benefit from direct access to the hiring manager and a deep feel for the company’s culture. But they have limits: a smaller talent pool, less talent market context, and — in the era of AI-written résumés — a deluge of candidates who look good on paper but may not actually fit the role.
A retained search firm cuts through that noise and reaches beyond the company's own network. It’s especially valuable when the talent pool itself is evolving, as senior marketing is now. A good partner brings:
- Consultative guidance. Even with a clear view of the business need and the target talent, internal teams can struggle to scope, title, and set competitive compensation for a role this fluid. A search partner brings real-time market insight and keeps the search calibrated as it unfolds.
- Credibility and access. The best senior marketers are in demand and often weighing multiple opportunities. A good search firm's relationships and reputation reach candidates a company may not be able to engage directly — with the credibility to explain why this opportunity deserves their attention.
- Referrals and references. Deep, trusted networks surface candidates through referrals, and they offer candid, first-hand perspective on finalists that goes beyond the references a candidate provides.
Key Takeaways
The marketing function matters more than ever, even as it’s becoming harder to define.
Before launching a search for a marketing executive, companies need to do the hard thinking up front: agree on the mandate, give the leader the authority to deliver it, and spend time evaluating candidates in the right talent pool. A strong foundation sets the hire up for lasting success.
- Deeply align around business needs and expectations. Name the growth constraint, who owns the vision, and where revenue accountability sits.
- Choose the title for the talent you want. CMO, Chief Brand, Growth, Commercial, or Customer Officer — each answers a different question and draws a different pool. Make sure the authority matches the title.
- Cast a wider net. The best marketing leader for your business may come from another industry. For emerging channels, hire for curiosity and instinct over a résumé that doesn't exist yet.
- Consider a search firm. Even the initial conversation can provide market context and clarity. If you are planning your next senior marketing hire, drop us a line. We would love to help.