The average tenure of CMOs at Fortune 500 companies was less than that of most other common C-suite roles, and 34% of those corporations didn’t even have an enterprise marketing leader. Yet according to Richard Sanderson, leader of Spencer Stuart’s Marketing, Sales & Communications Officer Practice in North America, neither statistic should worry marketing professionals.
The executive search and advisory firm’s CMO Tenure Study 2025, which looked at Fortune 500 marketing leaders as of June 30, 2024, put the average Fortune 500 CMO’s tenure at 4.3 years. That’s more than a half-year shorter than the 4.9-year average stint of C-suite executives overall.
Some might assume that these numbers mean CMOs are the executives most likely to get the boot at the first sign of trouble. Not so, Sanderson says. “I am at pains to emphasize that short tenure does not equal career failure. You could actually argue that short tenure is a mark of success, given that the majority of those leaving are going on to better roles.”
Nearly two-thirds (65%) of the Fortune 500 CMOs who left their job in 2024 either moved to a lateral or better position at another company or were promoted—10%, in fact, became CEOs. “Increasingly it feels the CMO role is a platform role to bigger and better things,” Sanderson says.
There’s also disparity in CMO tenure lengths among market sectors. Healthcare CMOs had the longest average tenure, consumer industry CMOs the shortest—and “it’s marketing officers in consumer industries who are most likely to move onto bigger roles,” Sanderson notes. A key reason is that they’re more apt to have P&L and related responsibilities, whereas the “marketing role in healthcare typically has less strategic responsibility.”
What’s in a Title?
The percentage of Fortune 500 firms with a CMO or the equivalent fell from 71% in 2023 to 66% last year. As with CMO tenure, though, there is disparity among industries. Whereas 80% of Fortune 500 tech companies had a marketing leader, that dropped to just 51% of industrial businesses, many of which simply don’t need a CMO, Sanderson says.
Corporate structure also helps determine whether a company will have an enterprise marketing executive. The report points out that in early 2024 Starbucks decentralized its organization, having regional execs take on marketing strategy rather than relying on a brand-wide CMO—and then, less than a year later, it did bring marketing back to the C-suite with the hiring of a global chief brand officer.
Starbucks’ move illustrates another trend: corporate marketing leaders with titles other than chief marketing officer. A third of the Fortune 500 marketing leaders did not have “chief” in their title—a firm’s top marketing executive might be the SVP of marketing, for instance. Another 11% did not have “marketing” in their title but rather words such as “commercial,” “brand,” or “customer.” And 16% of the executives had dual-function titles, such as chief marketing and revenue officer.
“What we have seen over the past few years is a proliferation of titles across all role scopes,” Sanderson explains. “We do see some anchoring by industry: Chief Revenue Officer has become much more common among technology industries, Chief Customer Officer has become more common in retail.” This broader scope provides more opportunities for marketing executives to grow into more expansive senior roles such as CEO. “The evolution of the role is one of the most exciting things to happen to marketing leaders,” he adds.
Diversity at the Top – A Mixed Bag
Another significant change during the past few years has been gender diversity. Five years ago 41% of Fortune 500 enterprise marketing executives were women; last year 53% were, with the report declaring “the CMO role has officially become a female-focused function.” Neither the report nor Sanderson could pinpoint the reasons for the shift, however.
Nor could they explain why historically underrepresented ethnic and racial groups were not benefiting from a similar trend. Members of underrepresented groups accounted for just 12% of Fortune 500 chief marketers. “The role has not made much progress among them,” Sanderson admits.