Chief Marketing Officer
A marketing leader who owns the pipeline.
For growing companies where new business still depends on the owner's network, and marketing produces activity rather than opportunities.
The result it owns
Qualified pipeline from marketing, and what each opportunity costs.
Agreed before the work starts, reviewed regularly.
You probably need this seat if
New business still depends on who the owner knows.
- Most new customers still come through the owner's network or through referrals.
- Marketing spend keeps growing, and nobody can say which part of it produces opportunities.
- Sales and marketing blame each other for the quality of the leads.
- The company says something different on the website, in sales decks and in the market.
- You want to enter a new market or segment, and nobody owns how buyers will hear about you.
What the seat decides
Decision rights, written down before day one.
- The marketing plan and budget, inside the direction you set.
- Positioning and the message, together with whoever owns sales.
- Which channels get money, and which stop.
- What counts as a qualified opportunity, agreed with sales.
- Agencies and freelancers: who works for you, and on what.
- The shape of the marketing team and its priorities.
What stays with you is written on the first page, before day one. A seat that decides nothing is advice with a bigger invoice.
The first 90 days (Example)
What happens in the first quarter.
| When | What happens | What you can show |
|---|---|---|
| Weeks 1 to 2: Listen | Conversations with you, sales, a few customers and the agencies you use. | A one-page read of where opportunities really come from |
| Weeks 3 to 4: Map | Spend by channel against the opportunities it produced. What sales calls a good lead, and what marketing actually sends. | A shared definition of a qualified opportunity, and the first three decisions that move from you to the seat |
| Weeks 5 to 8: First result | One message and one channel tested against that definition, and a weekly pipeline view that sales and marketing read together. One visible result by week six. | The definition in use, and spend moved away from what does not produce |
| Weeks 9 to 13: Hand to rhythm | The team runs the weekly pipeline rhythm with the leader out of the room. | The first review: the result against the plan |
The exact goals are agreed with you before the seat starts.
AI in this seat
Research, drafts and reporting may go to AI. The judgment on the message stays here.
The leader in this seat usually uses AI for research, content drafts and reporting, and checks everything before it reaches a customer or the market. The brand, the budget and anything the leader answers for personally stay with a person.
Questions companies ask
Before the first conversation.
- Why not a full-time Chief Marketing Officer?
- Sometimes that is the right answer, and we will tell you. A full-time leader makes sense when the seat needs five days a week and the company can carry the cost. Many seats need one experienced leader for one or two days a week, especially when the need is tied to one task, such as a new market, a turnaround or a funding round. Often it is also the step before a full-time hire: the fractional leader builds the function, and when it needs five days, helps you hire the person who takes it over.
- Why not an agency?
- An agency delivers campaigns. This seat owns what the campaigns are for: the pipeline, and what it costs.
- What if the result does not move?
- We look at it together regularly. If it does not move, we help to change what needs changing, including the seat itself.
- What do we decide first?
- Which decisions move from you to the seat, in writing, before day one.
Talk to us
Tell us what is not moving, and what result the seat should own.
One of us replies within two working days.