Post by Marcio Arnecke

This whole “death of a CMO” conversation made me laugh. It’s as old as time and yet, here we are... Marketing keeps reinventing itself. Here's what I've actually noticed: titles just keep shifting. When was the last time you heard someone say "our CIO is driving the company"? Now it's CTOs, CPTOs, CCOs. Chief Customer Officer – which, by the way, is basically marketing with a broader remit. Titles are titles. What matters is what you're actually solving for. As a CMO, I'm responsible for marketing, yes. But also growth. BDRs. SDRs. Customer support at different points in time. CMOs who understand how the system works together are expanding their roles, not disappearing. The best CMOs today are operators first. Data-driven. AI-first mindset. Not just leading brand or a PMM org (though those things matter). The decisions I make touch how we reposition the company, what programs we run, who we're targeting, whether we're having the right conversations with customers. A good CMO is informed by the customer base, by market data, by what you're seeing internally. And at Apollo.io, marketing drives close to 100% of the leads going into sales. So the question isn't whether CMOs are needed. It's whether you're building a CMO who operates like a business leader or one who just runs campaigns. The former will always have a seat at the table.