Following CMO and CIO's event on Engineering the New Customer Experience, we speak with IBM's vice-president of marketing and communication, Glen Thomas, on what CMOs need to consider when building better customer engagement, and the IT/marketing relationship

The CMO job specs vary widely between organisations and the maturity of a given organisation’s marketing function. So what makes a good CMO?

Getting to the heart of how customers behave through data and analytical insight has become a pre-requisite for CMOs looking to keep ahead of disruptive competitors and consumer expectations. As a result, building technology know-how, as well as the teams and operational capabilities to do this at scale, has become priority number one.

Gartner research analyst, Laura McLellan, lobbed a grenade into the executive trenches when she claimed the average CMO will control more technology spend than the CIO by 2017.

Marketing leaders who show accountability in terms of performance, market share and effectiveness of marketing programs are more likely to be trusted and gain influence with their executive counterparts.

Australian insurance broking group, Austbrokers, has appointed a new head of marketing as it looks to tackle additional business streams and personalise its customer approach.

Myer has appointed a new chief of marketing and merchandise among a host of new senior executive appointments.

Given Tableau positions itself as bringing the power of data to individuals, it’s not surprising its global CMO, Elissa Fink, is a great believer in data-driven marketing. What’s a little more unexpected is that she’s also an advocate for intuition and gut feel.

Media recognition apps vendor, Shazam, has appointed Patricia Parra as its first chief marketing officer as it looks to improve its user engagement globally and expand its product offering.

A new consultancy group’s report on the changing role of marketing has stressed the importance of courage, collaboration and commercial instinct if marketing leaders want to continue to be successful.

Marketing and technology are blurring and the relationship between CMO and CIO is increasingly vital to addressing the modern data and digital customer challenge, leading Australian marketers claim.

Online home improvement directory, hipages Group, has brought on a new chief marketing officer (CMO) and created a chief customer office role as part of plans to lift its brand presence and might in Australia.

One-to-one engagement has become a catchcry of the marketing community, but in reality many still haven’t worked out how to act at such a personalised level. A massive organisation like Telstra would once have been placed firmly in this group, but its CMO, Mark Buckman, believes the company’s heft is actually helping drive its one-to-one strategy and improve customer services and advocacy.

Liz Allen, a former Apple marketing executive, has seen the volatile relationship between CMOs and CIOs evolving over the years. CMOs were worshipped and CIOs despised at Apple, but Allen isn't taking sides: 'If you're at odds, your competition is going to win.'

Chief executive of Australia’s Taronga Zoo Cameron Kerr is a great believer in the power of people to transform brands as well as leadership. He discusses his rise from marketer to business leader

The challenges of striking a successful relationship between marketing and IT are well documented, and yet we’re still not sure of the best way to get there. There’s no getting away from the fact that these two leaders come from different backgrounds and have, until now, been speaking very different languages.

The CIO and CMO must align their teams and strategies to achieve business success, according to marketers and IT officials.

More than 100 marketing and technology leaders joined CMO for its first event in partnership with CIO magazine and ADMA, the Association for data-driven Marketing and Advertising, at Sydney's The Westin Hotel on 22 May. Here are our pictorial highlights from the day.

In our new series of insights into a key topic or issue for marketers, we ask three CMOs: What skill sets does today’s ideal marketing team need to have and why?

CMOs are increasingly setting the digital vision of their organisation, but will fail to introduce the real and holistic transformation needed to retain and serve customers without the CIO as a core partner.

While we’ve only seen a handful of chief marketing officers become CEOs to date, digital disruption and the rise of customer centricity as a core pillar of competitive advantage are paving the way for more to rise to the top job.