CMOs are an endangered species.
And marketers themselves are to blame.
Only 36% of Fortune 500 companies use the CMO title in 2026.
Down from 49% in 2025.
And 55% in 2024.
This does not mean companies have stopped believing in marketing.
Quite the opposite.
They are moving it under broader commercial leaders.
At UPS, marketing now sits under the Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer.
At Microsoft, the CMO moved into a broader commercial organisation.
CEOs are not abandoning marketing.
The opposite. They realised it is too important to sit in isolation.
And honestly, that makes total sense.
Corporate marketing has long struggled to prove its impact on revenue and growth. So teams built increasingly sophisticated ways to prove their value.
Complex attribution.
Marketing mix modelling.
Endless dashboards.
The measurement improved, but the connection to revenue did not.
Too often, metrics defended marketing’s narrative instead of serving the business.
Meanwhile, many CMOs controlled only one of marketing’s traditional 4Ps: promotion.
Product sat with the CPO or CTO (think of tech companies).
Pricing with strategy.
Distribution with sales.
The CMO was expected to deliver growth without controlling most of its levers.
No wonder some manufactured impressive metrics just to survive!
But that model was bound to break.
CEOs are now absorbing marketing into broader Commercial, Revenue or Operating functions, bringing the 4Ps under one chief.
The irony?
While large corporations may be retiring the title, high-growth challengers still recruit the people who held it.
WHOOP just hired former Nike global CMO Dirk-Jan van Hameren.
Food-Tech unicorn NotCo had hired former Burger King CMO Fernando Machado, who has since left and joined Chipotle as Chief Brand Officer (not CMO!)
In large corporations, marketing can become a political exercise.
At scale-ups, growth and top-line revenue is survival.
So,
the title may be endangered,
but great marketers who understand more than just promotion or manufactured metrics are definitely not.
Sources: Forrester CMO Tenure 2026 study; UPS, Microsoft, WHOOP and NotCo press releases.
