Being bold isn’t the only thing modern CMOs must do – they’re also required to put that courage to the test, as this year’s CMO50 list highlights.

For ABC director of audience and marketing, Leisa Bacon, modern CMO leadership is an art in influencing and working more collaboratively with other parts of the organisation as well as the increasingly diverse marketing function.

Over the last 12 months, Caroline Patrick has created a new brand to take the Radio Rentals Group into the NSW market. She says it’s been one of the most important – and arguably the most challenging – decisions she’s made so far at the South Australian-based retailer and household goods financier.

If there’s one thing holding marketing leaders back, it’s their inability to think of themselves as business owners, Mercer’s Cambell Holt claims.

One of the most important decisions Auto & General’s Jonathan Kerr has made in his 12 years with the group is to build an in-house department of marketing and digital experts.

​There are not many marketers who can take a brand disaster and turn into around into a brand success, and then be willing to be open and talk about it frankly.

Melanie De Souza, General manager, digital, marketing services and strategy for Visit Victoria, has a crystal ball. Instrumental in identifying China and India as key tourism targets moving in the future as far back as 2005 and 2012 respectively, today these countries represent Victoria’s largest inbound tourism markets.

To truly influence an organisation, you need to go wide in your understanding of the strategy, financials, operations and front line, Renee Davidson, general manager of marketing and digital at RACQ, says. This, in addition to the traditional areas of marketing, will help give marketers the breadth of understanding to drive meaningful change in an organisation.

If you want to get your CEO onside as a CMO, then you'd better start demonstrating how marketing makes an essential contribution to achieving enterprise objectives, World Vision Australia’s Teresa Sperti says.

Monash IVF Group's Everard Hunder is a big advocate of clearly articulating marketing’s financial impact to the business.

Establishing a completely new event in Australia, and the fast-paced change this requires is challenging enough, without it also being not for profit.

Over the past 12 months, Lenovo has been on a mission to boost customer centricity, creating a discrete global CX entity of 150 people dedicated to looking at customer journeys and finding ways to improve them.

Since taking up the CMO mantle at ANZ last July, Sweta Mehra has been striving to go well beyond commercialisation and focus on building capabilities that will future-proof the bank. These, she says, are rooted firmly in the financial services group’s purpose across three levels: Enterprise, divisions and marketing.

​Carlton and United Breweries (CUB) has undergone a stunning transformation in challenging trading times, and marketing has been central to this achievement.

Over the last two-and-a-half years, Yves Calmette has transformed World Wild Fund for Nature Australia’s marketing department into an internal content agency powerhouse. It’s a move aimed at supporting aggressive income growth targets. And it’s a strategy paying dividends.

“Marketing can be all pervasive today, so focus on what matters and where you can make a difference.”

Marketing at its best is an “alchemy of science and art”, Mars Wrigley Confectionery CMO, Alison Levins, believes.

“Consumers are not rational and never will be,” National Heart Foundation’s Chris Taylor says. “Connect on an emotional level and you’re half-way there.”

Over the last two years, Nicole Papoutsis has led the brand development of Genea Horizon, Australia’s first egg freezing clinic.

Anand Surujpal is on a mission: To shift the Patties Foods business from brand focused business to category-led superstar.

No matter how busy you get as a CMO, it’s vital you stay tuned into raw insights on your customers by spending time listening to calls, and getting on the front line, Bupa’s chief marketing and customer officer, Jane Power, advises.