A new generation of ambitious marketers are determined to succeed with their predecessors failed, by reaching those by sought-after CEO and MD roles, writes Alex Brownsell.

Last week, well over a dozen or so UK-based senior marketers jetted off together to the Austrian Alps – not in search of the perfect piste, but rather in pursuit of a transformational experience to supercharge their careers.

The group – including the likes of John Lewis marketing director Craig Inglis, Santander UK CMO Keith Moor and Sainsbury’s top marketer Sarah Warby – make up this year’s Fellowship Programme intake at career development organisation The Marketing Academy.

The scheme sees The Marketing Academy partner with business consultancy McKinsey & Company to help leading CMOs take the next, and arguably most daunting, step of their career into the boardroom.

While marketers across the world may have long harboured hopes to reach C-Suite within their organisation, the marketing function has long been dismissed as the “colouring-in” department. Critics have viewed it as big on pointless creativity, but little on business rigour.

However, in the wake of the global recession, and the rising importance of the customer to all brands, there is an “awakening” of ambition among senior marketers that the top jobs are within reach, reckons Sherilyn Shackell, founder of The Marketing Academy, which also recently launched in Australia.

Era of customer

“The marketing function is just growing. Companies are becoming aware of its importance as a voice in the boardroom and, because of that focus on all things customer, the skill-set of the CMO is by definition starting to broaden. There is a deeper understanding,” says Shackell.

“The really good CMOs coming through now have got their eyes on bigger and greater things, and more ambition is being unleashed. Ten years ago the step on the ladder was through finance; it went through a phase of being about operations. Now we are in the era of customer.”

Part of the reason for the success of The Marketing Academy’s programmes, claims Shackell, is the lack of marketing-specific detail in “generic” MBA courses at business schools. Most MBAs do not take into account the differences of working with creative talent compared to managing a supply chain, she says.

For some, including Marks & Spencer’s global brand and marketing director Rob Weston (pictured, above), a leading attraction is the possibility to receive one-to-one mentoring from those who have already reached the boardroom – former Marks & Spencer boss Sir Stuart Rose and Coventry Building Society CEO Mark Parsons are among the Fellowship Mentors.

Career map

More important than this, though, is the potential to draw up a “career map” for life beyond the marketing department, says Weston. Citing examples such as new Tesco CEO Dave Lewis, formerly a marketer at Unilever, and his own boss at M&S, Marc Bolland, Weston is convinced opportunities are opening up for marketers at the highest level.

“There is probably a way to go to see the marketing role as much of a shoe-in as the finance director but, in a boardroom, it would be remiss not to have any marketing or customer balance,” says Weston.

“I would like a clarification of my career map, or at least the steps I need to take. It’s going to be useful to plan my career step by step. I’d also like my eyes opened to all the opportunities and issues, and a really well-rounded view of what I need to do to succeed.”

Mark Phibbs, VP marketing EMEA at Adobe, agrees that programmes such as the one organised by The Marketing Academy help CMOs to take a much-needed detailed look at their long-term aspirations.

“I love marketing, I love the strategy side of it, but my next move is probably becoming a CEO or getting a board position,” says Phibbs. “I’d like to find the company where, longer term, I might get that opportunity.

“The ambition has not always been there because, historically, marketers have not controlled the data involving the consumer. Today they do. They have a better pulse on the data than anyone else [in the business]; 10 years ago that wasn’t the case.”

Management skills

One of The Marketing Academy’s 2013 Fellowship intake, Jeff Dodds (above), a former Virgin Media and Honda marketer, recently made that step up, becoming CEO of telecommunications business Tele2 in the Netherlands.

Dodds started the Fellowship programme fully aware that he would soon be leaving his CMO role at Virgin Media, meaning conversations about progression to CEO-level were “very real” for him. “My motivation was about learning what it would take to make the step up, and speaking to someone who had already done it,” he says.

Despite being offered “exciting” senior marketing roles in other sectors, Dodds was attracted by the prospect of taking on broader responsibilities within the telco industry he was “already familiar with”. “That step felt more right,” he adds.

So which skills are most important when taking that leap into general and matrix management roles? Well, according to Dodds, “commercially-minded” CMOs need not worry too much about inadequacies when taking up a board-level position.

“Most businesses are making the customer more central to what they do, and modern-day CMOs aren’t just focused on advertising. If they are commercially-minded, then the step up is not that great. They are used to having the right conversations,” says Dodds.

“The difficult part is dealing with a situation when there is no consensus. On paper it may not seem so, but that is the biggest step. There was always someone there before, the CEO or the COO, someone to challenge your point of view. Suddenly there is no one. Sometimes businesses are crying out for a decision, no matter if it is not the most brilliant decision.”

Eyes open

The most important factor for marketers with C-Suite aspirations to remember, however, it to be open-minded to opportunities to expand their expertise across functions and territories.

International experience is becoming a “critical part of the skillset”, according to Weston. Phibbs agrees that anyone who hopes to become an international CEO must think about getting regional or global experience.

Shackell says it is important marketers consider ways to avoid a “linear” career progression: “So many people go into marketing as a definitive career route. If they stay on a linear marketing path, and don’t take secondments into other functions, then they will never have exposure to other parts of the business.

“Everyone focuses on their day to day job and, historically, departments and functions have been very siloed, but that is changing. The bigger that the CMO role becomes, in terms of its influence and breadth, the more likely marketing is going to be a more appealing career choice.”

And that would be good news for everyone in the industry.