Chief Marketing Officer Tenure Remains Steady at 45 Months

CHICAGO — The average tenure for chief marketing officers of leading U.S. consumer brand companies stayed at 45 months in 2013, remarkably, the same as the 2012 average, according to the latest CMO tenure study by executive search consulting firm Spencer Stuart. While turnover seems to have stabilized in the past year, average CMO tenure is now more than 21 months longer than in 2004 when Spencer Stuart began tracking CMO tenure. Data for the 10^th annual CMO tenure study was based on an analysis of tenure of CMOs of the top 100 advertised brands.

“This is actually great news for the marketing profession. The fact that CMO tenure has been on the rise for the past seven years and has become relatively constant supports our belief that CMOs have truly become deeply rooted in management teams and are leading the charge for how their organizations interact with today’s customers,” said Greg Welch, a consultant in the Spencer Stuart Marketing Officer Practice, who initiated the firm’s first tenure study in 2004. “The responsibility for driving revenue growth clearly now rests with the CMO and serving as the “owner of the consumer voice” inside the company is actually a great place from which to lead.”

Looking ahead, the scope of the already demanding CMO role is only going to increase, according to Tom Seclow, who leads Spencer Stuart’s Marketing Officer Practice. “The influence of digital, which includes everything from mobile to social media, will require marketers to widen their range of responsibilities and assemble teams that can deliver on both the creative and analytical sides of the business.”

As in past years of the study, CMO tenure varies widely across industries. Tenure is shortest in the automotive, communications/media and restaurant sectors, averaging between 27 to 31 months. CMOs in technology companies, meanwhile, continue to enjoy the longest tenure, averaging 64 months — more than 1.5 years longer on average than CMOs overall. Average tenure is 56 months for CMOs of leading financial services firms and 52 months for consumer company CMOs.

Like CMO tenure, average CEO tenure remained consistent between 2012 and 2013 at 85 months.