Why Don’t More Marketers Become CEOs?

The CEO role in an organisation has traditionally been occupied by the former CFO or COO but that may be changing, and for good reason as more marketers seek to impact business performance more holistically. 

The pathway to CEO often requires conscious career planning and a mix of formal education and experience. I spoke to four executives who’ve made the transition to CEO from marketing roles. Their journeys and experiences highlight there’s no tried and tested route to the top, but there is a lot marketers can do to prepare themselves for advancement.

Preparation and Culture creates Opportunity

Heather Nykolaychuk, now president of Budget Blinds in the US, plotted her ascent with one, three, and five-year plans. She began in finance and made a jump into product marketing, where P&L ownership gave her commercial accountability.

“In 2006, data was becoming very important to being a marketer… and I became much more of a strategist,” said Heather.

With subsequent brand marketing roles at Mattel she added a commercial lens and CMO opportunities followed eventually with a business that accepted her intention to one day migrate into a CEO role within the company. Heather believes finding the right culture is a critical factor in establishing a pathway.

Matching peer group education levels

Kristin Viccars is interim managing director at an international healthcare company and built his career through an education pathway.

His background in creative and digital marketing evolved into commercial leadership through an MBA, a Graduate Diploma in Business Law, and a Mark Ritson marketing course that helped him achieve national recognition as one of Australia’s top 50 CMOs.

“The qualifications helped me operate within an executive team who had all secured the requisite qualifications themselves within their own function. It put me on a level with them” said Kristin. 

“There was a direct correlation with my advancement. It gave me the ability to tell the story around where the funds were going and articulate the commercial benefit back to the business at all levels. I was suddenly given a lot more rope and trust.”

Burning ambition as a driving force

Mick Garnett, CEO of Wheelchair Sports NSW/ACT, feels his progression from marketing to leadership fell more to his burning ambitions than to academic pursuits. After marketing roles within Coca-Cola, Sara Lee and Frucor Suntory, he sought CEO positions where he could make a real impact.

“Leading a marketing team is very different from being responsible for a whole organisation… and in the case of my current role in a not for profit, leading a whole community – life members, volunteers and our athletes themselves,” Mick said.

He was told to “park the marketing competency” and elevate other areas of expertise: experience with HR, your commercial acumen and the ability to operationally deliver on a plan.

In his case, there are two attributes he developed as a marketer that built competency as a CEO. “One is behavioural and one’s operational,” he said. 

“So from a behavioral point of view, there's a contemplation that the marketing training gives you. It's a pause for thought with a long term horizon, so as a strategic marketer, you're thinking about what value your brand has in three to five years’ time. Then operationally, thinking as a brand manager but running all aspects of the organisation.”

Follow the money

Nicole McInnes, chief growth officer at Cranky Health – the company behind brands such as The Man Shake, The Lady Shake, Famous Nutrition and Nutrabalance – and is former CEO at CSIRO Wellbeing Diet and Weight Watchers, Oceania. 

Nicole followed a nascent social media trend in 2011 to land her first C-level role in a media publisher, citing her work as a senior marketer developing an ROI model between marketing and sales teams that impressed her soon to be new boss, a CEO who’d come from sales. Jumping from CMO to CEO took many more years but the same "follow the money" approach that had made her a proven ROI-driven CMO, was fundamental to her succession. 

“All the frustrations of not sharing the same risk profile or perspective with my CEO were gone, as I was the one making the final decision... But when the buck stops with you alone, the pressure can be hectic,” she said.

“Marketers are not going to be right for every CEO role. My superpower is really profitable growth with a direct link between marketing and sales. So it usually needs to be a company that is marketing-led.”

Nicole suggests that your likely best chance to get a CEO role is with your current employer who’ll know what they’re getting.

 “Marketing now has so many specialist variants within it and it’s rare to have breadth of experience across all of them and the love for numbers and analytics, which is what earns you more trust with the CFO and Board. Some marketers are too interested in what’s new, instead of the trading mindset needed to become a CEO and look at the business as a system – a system of time, money and people. You have to be able to assess that whole system and extract the most value from it at any given point, across functions, markets and time”

Expanding influence

Recent research from Analytic Partners reveals up to 60% of growth happens outside of what most marketing functions control. So the frustration for marketers is that often they struggle to influence distribution and pricing, strategy and product let alone have the agency to closely collaborate with other functions of the business to understand the impact of decisions and dependencies. All that can leave them ill-equipped for the ultimate leadership position. 

Seizing opportunities to expand responsibilities or acquiring the formal qualifications to extend your remit, both provide credible pathways out of marketing to CEO level roles. Either route requires highly developed emotional intelligence and relationship building skills. 

Mick added, “While I created a lot of change quickly, the first three organisations said, thank you but please never come back! And they were right! I needed to understand how the not for profit sector differed to the corporate world I was used to.” 

Marketing, it seems, can certainly teach the humility you need as a contemporary leader. 

Heather has the last word on that. “The challenge you face as a CEO with a CMO background is letting go and entrusting those decisions. It’s a comfort zone you can feel drawn towards until you realise, you made great hiring decisions.”