The word is that the CMO job title is eroding fast. Forrester data says the share of Fortune 500 companies employing a dedicated CMO dropped from 49% to 36% in just a year. But the function hasn't vanished - it has been folded into Chief Revenue Officer, Chief Growth Officer, or Chief Commercial Officer structures.

The natural instinct for marketing leaders is a scramble to prove relevance, but they're swimming against a choppy tide and those familiar armbands aren't fit for purpose. In situations like this, I'm always reminded of a core operating principle that feels counter-intuitive until you really think about it - slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.

This certainly isn't an argument for moving at a snail’s pace, but rather a suggestion to pause, take a breath, and read the terrain before darting off. When you take the time to build a solid plan of action upfront, the need to course-correct later becomes far less likely.

The job title may be endangered, but the function isn't

A deeper look at the data offers a more encouraging picture than the eye-catching headlines suggest. CROs, CGOs, and CCOs are taking on expanded remits that unify marketing, sales, and customer success.

While taking a secondary seat in these broader structures might feel like a demotion in the short term, or another rung on the career ladder to traverse, it represents a strategic opportunity in the long run, because boards are clearly rewarding full-lifecycle commercial ownership.

Rather than viewing these reporting lines as a setback, senior marketers should treat them as a high-grade executive apprenticeship, a launchpad for learning board-level operations from the inside out.

Sharpening your boardroom dexterity

Marketing tends to hit a credibility gate at the board level, which is difficult to unlock with only tactical competence. Executive leadership remains overwhelmingly skewed toward finance and operations backgrounds, making it hard to execute your way past institutional cynicism.

This is where political dexterity and language matter:

  • The fast (and wrong) move: Simply repeating marketing's case in vanity metrics that board members are predisposed to tune out - and expecting a different outcome.

  • The smooth (and right) move: Speaking the precise financial language the C-suite trusts - pipeline velocity, CAC payback periods, net revenue retention, and contribution margins.

So, instead of saying, "we delivered X leads this quarter", the statement gets reframed to, "we directly sourced £Y of pipeline, with a Z% reduction in time to SAL status".

Marketing leaders also need to engineer visibility in the internal forums where finance and operations leaders build their credibility, rather than relying solely on scheduled reviews where key stakeholders hold unhelpful preconceptions about effectiveness.

AI roll-out is a test of strategic restraint

Nowhere is the pressure to move fast more dangerous, or the need for smooth execution more critical, than in the rush towards AI adoption.

Gartner research shows that while AI quickens execution, speed is not a substitute for strategy. Interestingly, labour’s share of marketing budgets has risen year-on-year (from 21.9% to 24.5%) alongside AI adoption. The inference is that automation has made sharp human judgment more valuable than ever.

That said, many organisations appear to be sprinting with their shoelaces tied together. Gartner reports that while CMOs currently allocate an average of 15.3% of their budgets to AI, only 30% report their firms are mature enough to scale it effectively.

The remaining 70% are running ahead of their own readiness, accumulating hidden costs through tool sprawl, ungoverned shadow workloads, and unmonitored consumption models, with wasted AI investment being as high as 72%.

This is ultimately where discipline really pays off. Marketers who've prioritised data governance, clear use cases, and security before scaling reported meaningfully higher AI budget allocations a year later (21.3% vs. the 15.3% average). Essentially, by moving deliberately, they earned executive trust and secured greater headroom to expand.

Playing the long(er) game

Senior marketers who embrace a seat under an open-minded Chief Commercial, Revenue, or Growth Officer have a chance to learn ropes from inside the tent.

Given that average CMO tenures continue to shrink, taking a more considered, strategic path to the top is smart career sequencing as opposed to passivity.

It means assessing the landscape before making a move, establishing governance before scaling, and earning genuine sponsorship across the executive team.

I get it - marketing leaders under intense pressure have every incentive to sprint, but the fastest movers are likely to be the ones who only have to make the journey once.