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CMOs: Where Do You Come From?
Marketing is a craft. You build your marketing chops one at a time, developing expertise that helps you get recognized. You’ll probably work in more than one industry and product domain. You’ll do your time, you’ll pay your dues, and rise to the C-suite. Right? Well, maybe…but two-thirds of CMOs in a recent survey didn’t come from the marketing craft. And no more than about 13% came from a sales background. So where do CMOs come from?
Kathy Ullrich, author of “Getting To The Top” (Silicon Valley Press, 2010), is a Silicon Valley headhunter who has been studying how people rise to the top of their professions. She recently surveyed hundreds of resumes in her database (she notes that these are skewed toward tech industries) to figure out where CMOs come from.
Ullrich’s research suggests that only about a third of CMOs and VPs of marketing emerge from a traditional marketing background (or “craft”). A quarter of them come from deep product and domain expertise—perhaps legal, banking, semiconductor, consumer goods, or services marketing. They know the customer incredibly well, and they know what to say to that customer that will click.
Fourteen percent have cross-functional experiences outside of marketing—in information technology or operations, for example. And 15% come from strategic or analytical roles, like management consulting and investment banking.
Ullrich’s conclusion: “Hiring for a marketing position involves finding a talented person capable of performing tasks with a scope beyond the position being filled.”
Perhaps the most interesting tidbit to come out of Ullrich’s survey of CMOs and VPs of marketing is where some of them went after achieving those roles: “I saw that many VP Marketing executives take on additional sales responsibility as VP Marketing and Sales, or expand P&L leadership as a business unit leader or CEO.”
It seems the successful long-term marketing career track involves marketing itself almost as a platform to be attained, so the CMO can relaunch to the next level of corporate leadership. (See "Door To Nowhere" for more about where CMOs are going.)
About Nick Corcodilos
Nick started headhunting in Silicon Valley in 1979. His contrarian "Ask The Headhunter" media properties feature his radical approach to winning jobs and to hiring great workers. On CMO.com, Nick shows you how to tackle the daunting obstacles that job hunters and managers face when trying to work together. Join Nick on the discussion board to talk shop and get an edge in the C-suite. In addition, his newest books, How to Work with Headhunters and How Can I Change Careers?, are available as PDFs.
