Who's responsible for marketing when there's no CMO

Who handles marketing when there's no CMO: we analyze verified data sources, event context, impact on the advertising market, and practical insights for brands and agencies.

The share of Fortune 500 companies with a chief marketing officer position declined from 49% to 36% over the year — This is Forrester research data from 2026. At the same time, only 52% of the largest corporations retained a marketing representative on the executive committee or with direct reporting to the CEO,whereas a year earlier there were 58%. Marketing as a function isn't going anywhere,however, the responsibility for it is redistributed among the roles of chief growth officer,Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Customer Officer — positions with broader mandates, covering the entire customer lifecycle and direct responsibility for revenue growth.

The paradox of the situation is that the marketing technology stack has only expanded over the same period: automation, data integration, AI tools for personalization and attribution. Yet the person who traditionally made decisions about purchasing and implementing these systems is disappearing from the organizational structure. For brands, the question is no longer whether a CMO is needed, but rather who will define the strategy for using marketing technologies and connect them to business results.

Who handles marketing when there's no CMO

Ralph Hamers, former CEO of ING and UBS, formulated a key thesis: the CEO is responsible for the brand, not the marketing team. A brand is not a logo or a campaign, but the experience of interacting with a company, shaped by strategy, investments, and operational decisions across the entire organization. This logic brings us back to an idea from Hewlett-Packard co-founder David Packard: marketing is too important to be left solely to the marketing department.

The CMO's authority has gradually eroded. Of the classic four Ps of marketing (Product, Price, Place, Promotion), marketing departments in most companies have retained only Promotion. Pricing has shifted to the sales department, distribution has moved to trade marketing or channel management, and product development has gone to product management. Now the erosion has reached the role itself: traditional CMO responsibilities are being distributed among positions accountable for overall commercial results.

Only 10% CEOs of Fortune 250 companies have marketing experience, and only 4% held the position, similar to a CMO.More than 70% CEOs of Fortune 100 came from operations or finance backgrounds.

Forrester analyst Ian Bruce interprets what's happening not as the abolition of marketing, but as its reinvention. Marketing responsibility is expanding into accountability for growth, encompassing the entire customer journey and reclaiming control over price, product, and channels. The challenge is that this expanded mandate requires a new skill set—and it's often unclear who possesses these competencies.

Who Can Lead Marketing with an Expanded Mandate

If marketing becomes a company-wide responsibility, one might expect the CEO to lead it. McKinsey data tells a different story: only 10% of CEOs at the largest companies have a marketing background, and 4% have ever held a CMO role. Most CEOs rose through operations or finance, which means deep expertise in process efficiency and margins, but often limited experience with customer experience and positioning.

On the other hand, CMOs themselves demonstrate a disconnect in understanding business priorities.A McKinsey CMO Growth Research Survey found that:In 2024 70% CEOs measured marketing effectiveness through revenue growth and margin — this is growth compared to 50% a year earlier. Among CMOs, the metric barely shifted:from 33% to 35%. The CEO asks:Did we grow and make money?A CMO is accountable for ROAS metrics,CAC, or customer acquisition cost, is a key metric in marketing that shows how much money a company spends to attract one new customer. This indicator helps businesses understand the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns and optimize their marketing budget.CLV, or Customer Lifetime Value, is a key metric that shows how much profit a company can expect to receive from a single customer throughout the entire duration of their relationship. For influencer marketing, this metric helps determine the real effectiveness of advertising campaigns and calculate the return on investment in blogger advertising.awareness, MQL.None of these metrics are inherently flawed,but the translation issue is: marketing metrics must translate into business results,for which the CEO is responsible.

Handing marketing over to a CEO without marketing experience is like firing the navigator during a race because the steering wheel is still in the driver's hands anyway. The solution isn't choosing between a CEO and a CMO, but closing the gap between them. If marketing is elevated to business accountability level, the CMO must make the same transition — from campaign management to growth management.

The Gap Between Metrics and Accountability Is Growing

79% CMOs claim they understand how their KPIs connect to business objectives. The metric looks promising until you ask the next question: what's the return? Only 30% organizations have a clear definition of marketing ROI. A gap of 49 percentage points between the perception of alignment and the actual ability to measure results.

A more alarming trend:the gap is widening.KPI alignment dropped from 88% to 79% over the year,clarity in defining marketing ROI — from 40% to 30%. Both indicators declined by approximately 10 percentage points.This is not a stable weakness,and the active erosion of marketing's ability to prove its value in business terms.

This very gap explains the structural changes in Fortune 500. When marketing cannot demonstrate its contribution to the metrics that boards understand, it's no surprise that responsibility shifts to the chief growth officer or chief commercial officer. But a title change alone doesn't create accountability. Reporting marketing to a CEO without marketing experience doesn't automatically solve the problem either. What needs to change is the capability itself: an expanded marketing mandate requires a leader who understands customers and brands but can connect them to revenue, margin, growth, and ultimately company value.

What this means for the Russian market and brands

In Russia, the structure of top management at large companies traditionally differs from the Western model: the CMO position is less common, and marketing more often reports to a chief commercial officer or directly to the CEO. The trend described in the Forrester study is not new for the Russian market—rather, it confirms established practice. But the problem of the gap between marketing metrics and business results is equally urgent.

Russian brands working with influencer advertising and media buying face the same translation challenge: blogger integrations are measured by reach, engagement, and clicks, but the CEO wants to see impact on sales and LTV. The lack of end-to-end analytics from reach to conversion makes marketing vulnerable during budget optimization cycles. Companies that have established a connection between social media activity, attribution, and CRM gain a competitive advantage in budget negotiations.

For brands planning influencer advertising, this means building measurability into the media plan from the start: UTM tags, promo codes, tracking landing pages, CRM integration. Ad labeling and regulatory compliance are the baseline; the goal is establishing a full chain from reach integration to transaction in your accounting system.

Marketing checklist: connecting marketing to business results

• Define three core business metrics owned by the CEO or board: revenue, margin, market share, LTV, churn rate. These are your ultimate reporting endpoints.
• Build an attribution chain from marketing activity to these metrics: identify which intermediate KPIs (leads, conversions, average order value) connect your campaign to revenue.
• Deploy end-to-end analytics: UTM tags, call tracking, ad platform integration with CRM and financial accounting systems. Without technical infrastructure, the connection remains theoretical.
• Translate marketing metrics into financial terms: not "CPM dropped by 15%," but "customer acquisition cost fell from 3200 to 2720 rubles while maintaining lead quality."
• Regularly align ROI definitions with your CFO: exactly what goes in the numerator and denominator, what payback horizon is acceptable, how long-term customer value is factored in.
• Conduct quarterly metric audits: which KPIs do you track, which ones actually drive CEO decisions, which exist only for internal control. Cut secondary metrics and strengthen the connection between key ones and business goals.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the reduction in CMO positions mean marketing is becoming less important?

No, quite the opposite: marketing is becoming so critical that its functions are being distributed across the entire commercial strategy. Responsibility is shifting to broader roles—chief growth officer, chief commercial officer—who own the entire customer journey and revenue growth, not just promotion activities.

How do you measure marketing ROI if most companies lack a clear definition?

Start by aligning your definition with the CFO: what counts as investment (media budget, salaries, technology), what constitutes returns (attributed customer revenue, profit margin, LTV), and what payback period is acceptable. Implement end-to-end analytics that connects campaigns to CRM transactions. ROI = (marketing-generated revenue − marketing spend) / marketing spend, but the key is getting all stakeholders to agree on your revenue attribution methodology.

Who should own marketing technology if the CMO disappears from the org chart?

Responsibility for martech selection and effectiveness should transfer to whoever owns the commercial outcome: chief growth officer, chief commercial officer, or directly the CEO. The critical shift: martech solutions need to be justified not by features and adoption rates, but by their impact on revenue, margin, and growth velocity. Technology becomes a tool for achieving business objectives, not an end in itself for the marketing department.