Forbes has released its annual Top Entrepreneurial CMO’s list, with women making up more than 60% of those listed, including Goldman Sachs’ Fiona Carter, Lego’s Julia Goldin and Amazon’s Claudine Cheever.
It is the third annual list produced by Forbes, which describes the 50 marketing leaders as “senior executives transforming world’s biggest global brands”. The cohort were shortlisted from hundreds of nominees, before being chosen by their peers, marketing leaders, agency heads and previous CMO alumni.
Key findings from the report include that 62% of the CMOs recognised on the list are women, while 32% of the marketers who have made it onto this year’s are list people of colour.
The list incorporates chief marketers from across multiple categories including airlines, alcoholic beverages, beauty and pharmaceutical companies, with chief marketers from Delta, Molson Coors, Pfizer, Coca-Cola, Gucci and Visa all taking a top spot.
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“A great CMO focuses on what matters most, on what creates and captures demand, and on how to best allocate limited resources to unlimited opportunities so the business grows,” said Forbes CMO Network managing director, Seth Matlins.
“But the entrepreneurial CMO takes a different path to the common ends of profitable, sustainable growth.
“The entrepreneurial CMO is one whose approach to driving business growth is neither beholden to the status quo nor disrupting it for disruption’s sake, and they are transforming their brands, businesses, and sometimes culture itself, as a result.”
Overall, marketers from B2C categories comprised 70% of the 2024 list, with leaders from B2B brands making up the rest. No direct to consumer brand leaders were recognised; a departure from recent years.
Most companies represented by the CMOs recognised in the list were companies with US headquarters, with 20% among the list headquartered internationally.
In addition, over 90% of the market brands were considered to be global, or companies where there products and services are available internationally.
Image: Goldman Sachs chief marketing officer Fiona Carter
