Leaders in Diversity

If there’s one thing CMO’s inaugural CMO50 list showcases about Australia’s marketing leaders, it’s that they have a desire to take charge of change, and are willing to extend their knowledge, teams and transform their organisations to make it happen.

The CMO50 is an annual list recognising those who are taking the leading role in developing new ways of thinking within marketing and the wider company using the core assets of data, technology, customer experience and creativity.

One of the first things that became apparent was just how diverse the title ‘CMO’ has become. In fact, two out of five on the list have roles that extend outside the traditional borders of marketing, encompassing ecommerce, CRM, customer service and loyalty, IT and technology, strategy, media, editorial and sales.

“There’s no one, other than the CEO, with such a generalist view,” commented one judge and former Qantas CMO, Tim McColl Jones, during the judges’ meeting. “It goes to show just how much the role of marketing has changed,” said fellow judge and former STW Group COO, Chris Savage.

Thought leadership was another common thread across the CMO50 ranks, and judges commented on how many are trying new things to orchestrate better marketing programs, covering everything from startup partnerships and mobile and social product innovations, through to co-creation and data-driven customer initiatives.

Here are a few other facts about our CMO50 list:

• More than 80 per cent are members of the executive team; of the nine that aren’t, all sit on their business unit’s or organisation’s local or global brand council.
• Average tenure across the 50 CMOs this year is 3.5 years, although there are significant discrepancies in tenure across individuals represented, with several holding executive-level roles only created in the last 2-3 years.
• The majority of CMOs who have been with their organisation for at least two years have seen their roles change, or have been regularly promoted.

Definition of marketing

Defining what modern marketing success looks like was an early challenge in building our CMO50 list. While our emphasis this year was on innovation and transformation, there was plenty of debate across the judging table as to how this is then executed and forms the basis of new strategies and customer experience improvements. As a result, judges were looking for instances where CMOs had exercised change and restructure teams and strategies to better support their customer-led approach.

And while we put plenty of attention on data and technology initiatives, it’s vital CMOs keep an eye on creativity. For our judges, creativity is not just as a means to a campaign end, but a sustained, customer-led thread that runs through the modern marketing function.

Arno Lenior, former Samsung CMO and CMO50 judge, viewed creativity as about taking an idea and executing it, while Zuni’s co-founder and managing director, Mike Zeederberg, applauded the bravery of many CMOs on the list around creativity and taking risks. Marketing leadership consultant and former Nestle CMO, David Morgan, also saw a link between strategy and creativity.

The top 10

This year’s top 10 CMOs stand out for the breadth of responsibility they’ve taken on not just as marketers, but business leaders.

Judges pointed out those with more strategic, cross-functional relevance – and most of the top 10 – sit within large, Australian-headquartered companies with both scale and resources to orchestrate strategic change. For example, seven of our top 10 CMOs work for either ASX-listed or privately owned Australian organisation.

Equally, it was clear those in A/NZ-based organisations had a wider ability to effect more impactful business change, and were rewarded with an executive seat and influence in areas well outside their own function.

So how did they get there? When you look closer at our top 10 for 2015, backgrounds and career history are quite significant. The majority have worked outside of Australia, either starting their careers in the UK, US or Asia-Pacific, or relocating in order to build out their business experience before taking up their current positions. Most have also taken on roles outside the traditional marketing boundaries, stretching into HR and talent management, M&A activity, technology strategy, customer operations and data management. And most will tell you diversity of thought in their own teams is crucial.

Many of the top 10 have also been promoted to executive-level roles, gained more cross-functional responsibility or became the first to hold their newly created positions in the last two years. Suncorp’s Mark Reinke, for example, was elevated to the executive table two years ago. Renee McGowan at Mercer was appointed its first chief customer officer two years ago, uniting marketing and customer operations into one function. And just this year, Aussie Home Loans’ Richard Burns took on the combined role of technology and customer experience leader, a position that sees IT and marketing teams all working for the one boss.

Whatever readers make of the CMO50 this year, what has become evident through this initiative is that the role of CMO is an ever-moving feast.