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Drew Neisser is the founder of CMO Huddles and a globally recognized authority on B2B marketing. He’s an AdAge columnist, LinkedIn TopVoice, leading CMO coach, podcast host & friend of penguins everywhere.
The CMOs who beat the tenure odds make marketing indispensable, build relationships that survive change, and develop leaders who can eventually succeed them.
CMO tenure has become a remarkably efficient source of alarming headlines. The data gives us good reason to pay attention.
The Findem x CMO Huddles 2026 CMO Tenure Study found that median tenure fell 35 percent, from 4.0 years among CMOs who started in 2010 to 2.6 years among those who started in 2022. We stopped the historical analysis at 2022 because more recent cohorts have not had enough time to complete their tenures.
A separate analysis of more than 13,000 current U.S. CMOs found a median current-role tenure of 36 months, compared with 51 months for CEOs. Company context matters, too. Current CMOs at public companies average 4.0 years in role, compared with 2.6 years at VC-backed companies. At companies with more than 10,000 employees, median current-role tenure reaches 41 months, versus 31 months at companies with 501 to 1,000 employees.
The natural response is to ask how CMOs can stay longer. That is the wrong goal.
Tenure is not the goal. Choice is.
A successful CMO should earn the choice to stay and compound their impact, adapt when leadership or strategy changes, or leave on their own terms with the marketing function stronger than they found it.
After hundreds of conversations with CMOs, including several who have beaten the tenure odds, I see three forms of durability that create that choice.
Marketing, like business, is a team sport. Durable CMOs connect marketing’s performance to outcomes shared with sales, finance, product, and the CEO.
Denise Persson has served as Snowflake’s CMO since May 2016. For her first seven years in the role, she partnered with CRO Chris Degnan while reporting to at least three different CEOs. They shared a definition of success and presented sales and marketing as one revenue team.
Degnan left Snowflake in 2023, but Persson remains CMO. She has held on to her seat by never taking her eye off the prize: driving revenue. Their experience demonstrates how shared accountability can become a source of organizational durability.
Ellina Shinnick, who has had a long run as CMO of HUB International, offers another example. Her team embedded marketing in weekly regional sales leadership meetings and added marketing leads to the sales pipeline dashboard. The result was a threefold improvement in conversion.
As Ellina put it, marketing and sales need “an actual partnership, not some sort of fly-by relationship.” Marketing became part of the sales rhythm rather than a function that periodically appeared to report activities. That kind of integration is difficult to unwind because it produces value every week. Her HUB example shows what happens when marketing repeatedly earns its seat.
Business results matter, but results alone rarely carry a CMO through a change in CEO, ownership, or strategy. Durable CMOs build trust across the organization before they need it.
Kathy Button Bell served as Emerson’s CMO for more than two decades, working with the same CEO throughout. She described him as her creative partner, and their mutual trust helped the company maintain a consistent point of view for years.
Kathy also made employees a primary marketing audience. Emerson continually acquired and divested businesses, which meant the company and its workforce were always changing. Marketing became a center for simplifying complexity, strengthening the culture, and helping employees understand where the organization was going. Kathy became, in her words, “part of the fabric” of the company. Her story illustrates the staying power that comes from serving the organization internally and externally.
Narine Galstian spent nearly 11 years as CMO of SADA through a major divestiture, global expansion, an acquisition, and a companywide rebrand. She remained closely aligned with cross-functional leaders throughout the year rather than waiting for quarterly reviews to demonstrate marketing’s value.
Her advice captures another essential quality of durable leadership: “Learning is never done.” The role stayed compelling because she kept learning, adapting, and helping the company navigate its next transformation. Narine’s experience shows how a CMO can turn change from a threat into a reason to remain relevant.
The final test of a CMO’s leadership is whether the organization can succeed without them.
Among CMOs appointed in partial-year 2026, 60 percent were first-time CMOs, while only 19 percent were promoted internally. That gap suggests many companies are creating opportunities for new leaders without building enough succession options inside their own marketing organizations.
Great CMOs develop future CMOs. They give their direct reports meaningful operating experience, exposure to the executive team, ownership of consequential decisions, and the coaching required to lead beyond their current remit.
Succession planning also gives the sitting CMO more freedom. Many accomplished CMOs reach the three-year mark and decide they are ready for a new challenge. Leaders with strong benches can manage that transition thoughtfully, help select or prepare their successor, and sometimes remain as an advisor. They leave because they choose to, with their reputation and team intact.
CMOs and employers should therefore ask three questions:
Long tenure without impact is no victory. Short tenure is not automatically a failure. The real measure is whether the CMO has built enough value, trust, and leadership depth to retain agency over what happens next.
That is how CMOs beat the odds. They earn the right to choose.