Are Fortune 500 CMOs on the chopping block?

Marketing leadership sits in a precarious position, present in only 71% of Fortune 500 firms yet plagued by 4-year tenures and high turnover.

Companies value CMOs enough to create the role but not enough to nurture stability, revealing a fundamental disconnect between marketing's perceived importance and its actual strategic integration.

So what?

• CMOs are disposable. With an average tenure of just 4.2 years and a 9% turnover rate, it's one of the most volatile roles in the C-suite.
• Companies are replacing CMOs with “growth” titles. Marketing leadership is being merged into Chief Growth Officers (CGOs), Chief Revenue Officers (CROs), or even Chief Customer Officers (CCOs), diluting the role’s influence.
• Executives don’t trust internal marketing talent. 42% of CMOs are externally hired, and nearly half come from different industries. Companies want outsiders to “fix” marketing, not insiders to lead it.
• Marketing is seen as tactical, not strategic. Unlike CFOs or COOs, CMOs aren’t viewed as long-term, core decision-makers. They’re often reactionary hires based on short-term growth struggles.

What's next?

We keep saying marketing is the “growth engine,” but let’s be real, most CEOs don’t buy it. If they did, CMOs wouldn’t be losing influence while CFOs and COOs stay firmly entrenched.

The biggest lie in America's C-suite? That “marketing drives business strategy.” In reality, marketing is seen as a function, not a force. A department that executes, not one that leads. That’s why it’s getting merged, downgraded, or outright eliminated beyond promotions activity.

Counterpoint

The companies winning right now? They’re the ones treating brand, direct response, sales, and revenue as interconnected systems, not just throwing a CMO at their problems and hoping for the best.

The CMO instability crisis isn't about marketing's value but about CEO failure to properly position and empower the function!

Consider that companies often bring in external talent not for fresh perspectives but because they lack structured marketing leadership development. This represents a systemic organizational design failure, not individual CMO shortcomings.

The CMO role isn't declining—it's dispersing. Companies aren't eliminating marketing leadership but distributing it across revenue, growth, and customer functions. This evolution demands we stop measuring marketing influence by title alone.

Why do CEOs perpetuate a system where marketing remains simultaneously essential yet marginalized? Until this fundamental contradiction is resolved, the CMO revolving door will continue regardless of individual performance.

Marketing needs a rebrand. Otherwise, it risks becoming just another line item CEOs cut when times get tough.

Source & inspiration: WSJ, CEO Brief newsletter by Alan Murray (President, WSJ Leadership Institute)