Allen Shardelow | Senior Partner | Heidrick & Struggles | mail me |
The Chief Marketing Officer role has transformed – but most organisations are still hiring as if it hasn’t. Artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones, social media, influencers and shifting customer expectations have transformed the way growth is achieved. Yet many organisations continue to misunderstand the evolution of the role.
The CMO Barometer 2026 makes this shift hard to question. Across 805 marketing leaders globally, 68% identify AI as the defining priority for the year ahead. This figure far outpaces brand building at 17% and personalisation at 8%. The role has already moved. However, many organisations continue to hire for an old brief. They expand the role on paper, yet often fail to enable it in reality.
The organisational gap
What sits behind that headline is even more revealing. Budgets are not expanding to match ambition. Thirty-eight percent of CMOs expect them to remain flat, while 30% anticipate cuts. Marketing must deliver transformation, efficiency and growth. It must also achieve these outcomes under increasingly constrained budgets. Consequently, the disparity becomes obvious.
Marketing is no longer a contained function. It spans a variety of areas. These areas now need coordination to operate as one system. The CMO must connect them, turn data into direction, and ensure customer insight informs decisions at the highest level of the business.
In practice, CMOs often have limited access to data, partial budget control and inconsistent influence. Organisations frequently give them responsibility without authority. As a result, their options remain constrained. This limitation often leads to missed opportunities and slower business growth.
The Barometer suggests this challenge reflects a lack of organisational support rather than capability. Aligning roles with reality becomes essential if organisations expect CMOs to deliver meaningful transformation.
AI and the functional CMO
AI may dominate the role in the future. However, its importance is functional rather than conceptual. More than half of CMOs identify efficiency integration into business processes as their primary application. Therefore, this shift demands a different kind of leader.
Modern CMOs must be technically fluent, commercially credible and able to operate with authority at the board level. They must analyse data and implement technology that enhances campaigns. They must also understand what AI can realistically deliver.
These capabilities are no longer specialist skills. They are now expected. At the same time, the role still requires sound judgement, creativity and the ability to lead through uncertainty. Aligning roles with reality means recognising that these capabilities now define successful marketing leadership.
Leadership in a South African context
CMOs face these challenges globally. However, they are even more pronounced in a South African context. Consumer-facing sectors are navigating constrained economic conditions alongside rapid digital change. Growth is harder to achieve. Meanwhile, organisations expect marketing to deliver greater precision. There is little margin for error. As a result, leadership capability becomes paramount.
Organisations that match the role to market reality and appoint leaders who can navigate complexity will benefit most. In contrast, those who ignore this evolution risk repeating past mistakes. These CMOs understand their customers as well as they understand the numbers. They connect brand investment to commercial outcomes. They also influence decisions beyond the marketing function.
Expanding the scope of the role without adapting the conditions that support it remains a consistent challenge. Closing the gap requires a clearer definition of the role. It also requires a more deliberate approach to enabling it. Aligning roles with reality should sit at the centre of this effort.
In conclusion
The conversation is moving beyond who can lead marketing. Instead, it is focusing on who can translate complexity into growth.
Assessment methods are adapting in response. We recently launched Heidrick Immersive, an AI-enabled leadership assessment platform. It uses simulations of strategic inflection points, market shifts, technological disruption and critical stakeholder decisions.
These simulations observe how leaders think and decide under pressure. The platform produces behavioural insights into decision making, adaptability and team dynamics. Organisations can then apply these insights to hiring decisions that increasingly carry commercial weight.
Organisations that hire against the brief as it stands today will see the difference in commercial performance. They must also build the conditions that allow that brief to function. In contrast, organisations that hire against an outdated description will continue to get outdated results.
