Do You Want To Be A CMO? Here’s What You Need To Know
This content is based on Natalie Cunningham’s presentation “Your Path to CMO: The No Bullshit Guide” from the 2024 annual MKTG WMN Virtual Summit. To watch Natalie’s entire presentation and to view the rest of the Virtual Summit on demand, register for a two-week MKTG WMN trial or become a member here.
What does the path look like to becoming a CMO today?
“I always knew I wanted to work in marketing, with a long-term goal to be at the top of the marketing ladder: the big CMO title. I spent much of my career pushing for more responsibility, bigger titles, and getting there faster — especially over my male peers.”
There’s a glimmer of glamour associated with climbing the next rung of the proverbial corporate ladder. We all have our reasons for wanting to achieve the next level in our career, and that tingling curiosity is no different for a VP of Marketing with her eye on becoming a chief marketing officer (CMO).
Some want it for the prestige: the title, salary, and the stamp of success that comes with it. Some want to shake shit up and have a seat at the table in the boardroom. For others, it might be their idea of making it: THE dream job. Some are drawn to what they’ve seen from CMOs on podcasts, at conferences, as thought leaders, on stage, front and center.
Being a CMO does come with the occasional spotlight, but in reality, the limelight is a microscopic aspect of the day-to-day dealings that come with the job.
Anyone being honest will tell you the path to CMO and the role are not always glitter and gold paved roads, so what it’s really like to be the person in the top marketing seat?
Meet Natalie Cunningham, a 2X MarTech Scale-up CMO with more than 15 years experience, primarily SaaS-focused organizations with product and sales-led growth motions. She founded The Bolder Marketer in 2024 and provides fractional CMO and go-to-market consulting services to bold B2B SaaS brands.
Natalie uncovers the truth and shares her thoughts on what it takes to become a CMO today.
The CMO role isn’t for the faint of heart.
💡Did you know?
50% of Fortune 500 companies have a female in their CMO position as 2024. On average. the CMO tenure is about three years in a Fortune 500 company. On the flip side, only 10% of Fortune 500 companies have a female CEO, yet the average tenure for that role is more than double the tenure of a CMO.
It’s important to acknowledge that the CMO role has a higher representation of women but the lowest tenure of an executive position. And who the CMO typically reports to, the CEO, often has one of the lowest percentages of female representation with double the average tenure.
Statistically, it’s already harder to stick around longer in your role as CMO, especially as a woman or non-binary marketer!
Natalie Cunningham shares a hard truth: the CMO job is not one for the weak. It is one of the most challenging roles in an organization.
Why? You must learn to balance creativity and data, short-term and long-term outcomes, and internal and external perceptions.
Although it’s a hard job, there is a path for those who want to walk the road. Natalie shares her perspective on what women and nonbinary marketers need to get to the CMO seat.
Step 1. Shift your marketing mindset into a business one
To be CMO, first you’ll need to change your mind. Well, more like expand it.
Typically, the move to CMO happens after serving as a VP of Marketing. As VP, your primary responsibility is marketing strategy and execution.
But stepping into the CMO role isn’t just about adding new responsibilities. It’s about fundamentally shifting how you see yourself within the business. You’re no longer just responsible for marketing — you’re an officer of the business
This is the biggest and most critical distinction between a VP or other roles and a CMO. A VP of Marketing is accountable for marketing results, but a CMO has to think beyond that. You have to own your seat at the executive table, actively participating in decisions that impact the entire company.
And with that comes pressure and often broad accountability with narrow ownership and little control. You’re expected to demonstrate success while ensuring that every person on your team is seen and develops professionally.
Step 2: Get comfortable with numbers. Tap into your financial acumen
You’ve been told your entire marketing career how important it is to have business acumen. Well, as CMO, business acumen and even being a great business leader isn’t enough.
CMOs today must have strong financial acumen too. Why? Because CEOs and boards are looking for executives who understand how the entire business operates, not just their own department. They’re looking for a CMO who knows and understands their buyers; someone who is recognized as a thought leader in their space — or at least had some success in it.
That’s because as CMO, whatever the company goal is, you're responsible for helping achieve that goal.
This requires understanding the business financials beyond simply knowing how EBITDA, CAC, or cash flow work. CMOs need to go a layer deeper to know what the levers are within the business — not just marketing, across the business — that can be pulled to impact these numbers and why they’re important.
You already know why these metrics matter to your CFO, but understanding why they matter to the board and how strategic marketing decisions contribute to the overall company strategy is how to think like a CMO.
Natalie’s tips for developing business & financial acumen if you don’t already have it:
Find an FP&A or finance person at your company and ask them to walk you through key financial reports and learn to understand/interpret them on your own (this is building cross-functional relationships, too)
Take courses on business finance (💡 Natalie recommends starting with personal finance resources like Her First 100K before diving into corporate finance)
Learn how to build an investment strategy for marketing, not just manage a budget. The CMO isn’t just handed a number. They are responsible for making the case for marketing investments that drive business growth.
Step 3: Know your budget like the back of your hand
While we’re on the topic of numbers, as CMO you still have your marketing responsibilities to manage, and those include budget. If you walk into a new marketing leadership role and ask what the budget is, you've already lost half the battle.
Instead, ask what the goals are, to understand the current state of the business and market, and to build an investment strategy from current state to future state that will get approval from the necessary department within the business to secure the budget to get there.
Whether you need a budget increase or realize you want to change how the current budget is being spent, the CMO is responsible for asking for what’s needed and taking accountability for achieving the results the marketing department projects as their contribution to the business investment thesis.
Step 4: Be the go-to-market expert / glue within the organization
“Everyone that is a leader has an ability to impact those around them: other people’s performance, success, and careers. But as a CMO, you have an opportunity to impact not just your direct reports and not just your direct team, but the entire culture of performance across the business and to help them achieve 3X more than they would without your influence”
Whether your job description explicitly states it or not, as CMO you are responsible for ensuring every GTM function — sales, marketing, product, and customer success — is rowing in the same direction.
Misalignment across GTM teams is one of the biggest reasons marketing strategies fail. All the interest, differentiation, preference, and pipeline marketing creates means nothing if sales isn’t supported in closing deals. If product isn’t building for the market’s needs, if customer experience isn’t reinforcing brand promises, marketing alone can’t fix that.
A great product makes differentiation easier. A great sales team (espeically those strategically aligned with marketing and CX) will deliver increased win rates, making your pipeline goals more attainable. A CX team (kept in the loop by marketing) is going to provide the social proof you need to generate more opportunities.
Everything can work together beautifully but it’s your job as CMO to take ownership and ensure alignment.
Natalie’s tips for becoming the go-to-market glue:
Build strong relationships with sales and product leadership (work together to align on positioning, messaging, and differentiation or create a strategic narrative based on actual customer and employee insights — especially the ones spending time face-to-face with customers)
Ensuring customer experience (CX) teams have the tools and insights they need to take care of customers, keeping them happy and engaged (otherwise no one has a job!)
Take on a marketing metric tied to revenue impact within your current role
Is the CMO Role Right for You?
Ultimately, whether or not the CMO role is right for you is for you to answer.
But if this is top of mind for you, Natalie suggests a couple ways to start and assess if this direction aligns with your career goals:
1 ) Know your “why” and be prepared to lean into it
Do you want the role because you think the title is fancy or even just because it’s the next logical progression in your career? That’s okay, but it won’t be enough to make you successful and keep you happy in your role as CMO.
Finding and understanding her ‘why’ is what Natalie says worked for her. She admits, having initially desiring the CMO title for vanity reasons. However, it’s her love of marketing as a craft that’s kept her going when times have gotten tough. That fancy title was never going to keep her afloat the way her love of marketing has.
You must find your why, what you're passionate about and why a CMO path is right for you.
2) Double down on your non-negotiables
“I want to be a CMO, but I refuse to be a CMO in the tobacco industry. I refuse to be a CMO in the oil and gas industry because I feel strongly about climate change. For you, a non-negotiable could be company size. It might be things like remote work or return to office, but define those early. Don’t let those be defined for you as you go along your path.”
Most CEOs are looking for CMOs who can also truly embody being officers of the business — often in their specific business and/or funding model. Think: industry, scale, and even GTM motion type (sales or product-led motions, for example).
But what are you looking for? There are probably things you already know you want and don’t want. Industries you would love to join and others no one could pay you enough to support. Define these things now.
Do you want to be a CMO at a startup? A scale-up? Maybe a billion dollar company? Do you want to be at the helm of a PLG or SLG motion?
For example, you might discover that you want to be a CMO for scale-ups and in a model that is a mix of PLG and SLG but you've been more on the startup side of things.
“Build your network! Find people that are great at the things that you are not great at, and cling onto and learn from them”
If you’re not there yet, you still have time. Engage your community, find ways to build relationships with people in larger organizations, and consider expanding your cross-functional exposure by exploring roles with companies aligned to the model and path that you want for your CMO career to fill some of those exposure gaps. Even if horizontal to where you are now, this will be a strategic move for your career!
3) Embody the CMO you want to be
“As you grow up in your career, confidence is really important and often you will get promoted into roles because you’re confident and you’re good at communicating your success. That’s important as you become a CMO.”
Being CMO requires confidence, and we all know imposter syndrome hasn’t met a stranger. Practicing driving change, alignment, and influence, not just as you become a CMO, but as a marketer at any stage in your career will help build the confidence needed for the top marketing spot.
On the flip side, balancing your humility and confidence within any role will be monumental in your growth and will be of tremendous benefit once you become CMO.
One of the best ways to become the CMO you want to be is by learning from CMOs you admire. Review CMO job postings or people crushing it in the role and pinpoint the skills you have and lack. What was their career path, and how are they managing the role and responsibilities that come with it? What can you learn from them?
Be honest about what you’re great at today, map out what you can improve, what you haven't done, and what you know you can’t do. Figure out how to fill those gaps through your full-time work and supplement your skill gaps via your network/community and any side gigs or hustles.
No matter where you land, it's important to acknowledge that the role of CMO is hard. It's not a small job, it's not a simple job, and it's one that's constantly evolving. It can be glamorous and feel successful to climb the corporate ladder, but you better be prepared for what it takes to hang out at that top!
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