LFG Insights: Enterprise Leadership in an Era of Transformation

Top Takeaways

• The CMO role is expanding from functional leadership into enterprise leadership.
  CMOs are now expected to contribute to decisions that shape customer experience, technology adoption, growth strategy, and brand trust across the enterprise.
  
  
• Enterprise expectations are rising faster than operating models are evolving.
  Many CMOs are accountable for broader business outcomes while still operating inside structures designed for a narrower marketing mandate.
  
  
• Orchestrating across the enterprise is becoming a defining leadership capability.
  CMOs are often positioned at the intersection of customer insight, brand, data, and growth, giving them a unique vantage point to help organizations navigate change.

The Leadership Pressure

The CMO role is expanding beyond functional leadership and into the center of enterprise leadership.

Across industries, leaders are navigating rapid shifts in customer behavior, technological capability, and competitive dynamics. Many of the questions these shifts create do not sit neatly within a single function. Customer experience, data strategy, brand trust, and long-term growth now span multiple parts of the organization.

Because marketing sits closest to the customer, these shifts often show up there first. CMOs frequently find themselves helping the enterprise interpret what is changing in the market and what those changes mean for business strategy. In many organizations, marketing has become an early warning system for broader shifts in customer behavior and market dynamics.

At the same time, the structures surrounding the role have not evolved at the same pace.

Many leaders describe a widening gap between what the enterprise now expects from marketing leadership and what the role was originally designed to support. CMOs are often asked to influence enterprise outcomes while still operating within models built for a more narrowly defined function.

In many organizations, this gap reflects a broader transition already underway. Companies are moving toward more integrated approaches to growth, customer experience, and technology, yet leadership roles and decision structures are still catching up. Marketing leaders often find themselves navigating this transition in real time.

Several leaders described this moment as a shift from advocacy to agency. Historically, CMOs were expected to advocate for the customer inside the organization. Today, many are being asked to go further — helping shape enterprise strategy, influence resource allocation, and participate directly in decisions that determine how organizations grow.

The result is a leadership environment where responsibility is broadening faster than the role itself has been redefined.

What Leaders Are Experiencing

In Virtuosi League Forums, Industry Roundtables, and ongoing dialogue with hundreds of CMOs and senior leaders, one message comes through clearly: the job is getting broader.

Marketing leaders describe spending more time participating in enterprise conversations that extend well beyond traditional marketing responsibilities. These discussions often involve customer strategy, digital transformation, organizational priorities, and growth decisions that require input from multiple functions.

Several common experiences are beginning to surface.

Enterprise expectations are expanding

CMOs are now asked to contribute to enterprise strategy and long-term growth planning.

Influence is often more important than authority

Many leaders operate without formal control over the teams responsible for delivering the outcomes they are accountable for.

Complexity is becoming a daily reality

The pace of technological change, market disruption, and customer expectations means leaders must make decisions with incomplete information.

Judgment is becoming a defining leadership skill

As the pace of change accelerates, leaders are expected to make informed decisions while balancing multiple competing priorities.

Several leaders also spoke candidly about the human side of the role. Expectations are expanding at the same time volatility is increasing. Many CMOs now find themselves responsible for driving growth, guiding transformation, supporting their teams, and helping their organizations navigate uncertainty — often without clear precedents to follow.

As a result, many CMOs say a growing portion of their time is now spent helping their organizations make sense of what is changing and what it means for the business.

This broader leadership mandate is also reflected in the evolving expectations surrounding the CMO role. Research from McKinsey & Company notes that marketing leaders are increasingly expected to align the C-suite around customer-centric growth.¹

Other research from Spencer Stuart highlights that the responsibilities associated with the role continue to expand as organizations expect marketing leadership to contribute to broader business transformation.²

Early Patterns Emerging

Across discussions with leaders, several patterns are beginning to take shape.

1. Marketing leadership is becoming a connector of enterprise insight

Marketing leaders sit at the intersection of customer insight, growth strategy, technology adoption, and brand trust. This vantage point often gives CMOs an early view into shifts that affect the broader enterprise.

Many leaders describe their role as helping the enterprise interpret how human behavior is shifting in the age of AI, digital acceleration, and cultural fragmentation. This perspective allows CMOs to help leadership teams understand not only what is happening in the market, but how those shifts should influence enterprise strategy and decision-making.

2. The gap between responsibility and authority is widening

Many leaders describe being accountable for enterprise outcomes without direct control over all of the teams required to deliver them.

Success often depends on the ability to influence peers, align cross-functional teams, and guide decision-making across the organization.

3. Enterprise alignment is becoming a leadership challenge

The challenge is rarely a lack of ideas. More often, it is aligning the organization around how decisions are made and how initiatives move forward across teams.

Leaders frequently find themselves acting as orchestrators, helping different parts of the organization move in the same direction even when priorities compete.

4. The pace of change is compressing decision cycles

Market signals now move faster than traditional planning processes.

Leaders are often required to make strategic decisions while information is still evolving, balancing speed with thoughtful judgment.

5. Leaders are being asked to create clarity

Transformation often requires leaders to help their organizations make sense of change without pretending it is simpler than it is.

CMOs increasingly find themselves translating complex signals into clear direction for their teams and peers.

6. The CMO role is still being negotiated in real time

Perhaps most notably, leaders consistently describe a role that is still being defined.

The responsibilities associated with marketing leadership continue to evolve as organizations rethink how customer insight, brand, data, and growth strategy connect at the enterprise level.

In many ways, the modern CMO role is being shaped while it is being performed, with leaders defining its boundaries through the decisions they make and the influence they build inside their organizations.

Leadership Signals to Watch

Several signals suggest where enterprise leadership expectations may continue to evolve.

• Organizations are looking for leaders who can help interpret change and guide enterprise decisions before the path forward is fully clear.
  
  
• The ability to align teams and priorities across functions is becoming a defining leadership capability.
  
  
• Leaders who create clarity during periods of uncertainty often earn greater influence across the organization.
  
  
• The integration of AI and data-driven decision making is accelerating the pace at which organizations must interpret and respond to change.
  
  
• Enterprise influence requires conviction. Leaders who soften their perspective to accommodate every stakeholder quickly lose the ability to shape direction.
  
  
• CMOs are well-positioned to help their organizations navigate uncertainty by interpreting what is changing and why it matters.

The question many CMOs are now confronting is not whether the role is changing, but how quickly they are prepared to grow into it. The opportunity now is to help shape how their organizations move forward.

The Leadership Foundation

As the scope of leadership expands, the capabilities required to navigate complexity become more important.

The Leadership Field Guide draws from the Six Pillars of Leadership, a leadership framework developed through Virtuosi LEAP, which serve as the foundation for navigating complex environments.

Several pillars are especially relevant in this moment.

• Understand the Landscape
  Enterprise leadership begins with situational awareness. CMOs are often among the first to see shifts in customer behavior, technological change, and market dynamics.
  

• Build Bridges
  As cross-functional collaboration becomes more critical, leaders must build environments where diverse teams can move quickly and learn together.
  

• Clear the Path
  Periods of rapid transformation require leaders who can help organizations adapt, learn, and maintain forward momentum.

These capabilities reflect the expanding role CMOs are playing as enterprise leaders, connecting market insight with organizational action.

As the Leadership Field Guide continues to unfold, these capabilities will come further into focus through the leadership questions, operating models, and decision frameworks that follow.

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Sources

¹ McKinsey & Company – The CMO’s Comeback: Aligning the C-Suite to Drive Customer-Centric Growth

² Spencer Stuart – CMO Tenure Study 2025: The Evolution of Marketing Leadership