MIT Sloan Management Review Article on CMO Success, Stage by Stage

For chief marketing officer success, focus on helping them attain the right skill set at the right corporate growth stage.

Chief marketing officer turnover has long been a challenge for companies. As a company matures, it can become clear that the CMO’s leadership skills and abilities no longer align with the organization’s needs — which could spell the end of the CMO’s tenure.

We interviewed 100 company leaders to understand how CMO roles and marketing functions should be organized at different stages of growth (from series A to IPO). What we found was surprising: The skills and abilities that make a CMO well suited to leading an early-stage company are quite different from those a company needs as it grows. We identified three key points at which organization-level marketing changes: Series A (the early stage), Series B-D (the developing stage), and Series E-IPO (the mature stage).

About the Author

Kimberly A. Whitler is the Frank M. Sands Sr. Associate Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business and the author of Positioning for Advantage: Techniques and Strategies to Grow Brand Value (Columbia Business School Publishing, 2021). Jonathan Metrick is a partner and chief growth officer at Sagard, an alternative asset management firm active in venture capital, private equity, private credit, real estate, and royalties.

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