HIVE9 Blog The Falling Tenure of the CMO: How to Help Turn the Numbers Around

Over the past few years, research has been showing a decline in the average tenure of a U.S. chief marketing officer. In fact, at 3.5 years—cites a new report from consulting firm Korn Ferry—the CMO’s tenure actually ranks as the shortest of all titles in the C-suite (CEO, CFO, CHRO, CMO and CIO/CTO). In comparison, the average for the CMO was 4.1 years in 2016. The report, which analyzes the top 1,000 U.S. companies (by revenue), notes in particular that CMOs in the technology industry are ranking the lowest on average, with a 3.0-year tenure. At the top were CMOs in the industrial sector, coming in at 4.0 years. Caren Fleit, leader in Korn Ferry’s global marketing officers practice, suggests the overall tenure problem could be tied to an organization’s deficiency in proving the true value of the CMO—i.e., “a lack of understanding of how powerful this role can really be in terms of driving business outcomes.”