It’s time to lead the next era of intelligent growth

As Chief Marketing Officer, I’ve lived through the evolution of marketing technology (martech) — from hopeful pilots and expensive tool stacks to the promising dawn of AI-powered marketing transformation. The opportunity is now. And the mandate is clear: Marketing must stop being viewed as a cost center, and become a growth engine.

Why this matters now

Over the past decade, organizations have invested billions in martech, expecting automation, personalization, and better customer understanding. Yet many remain stuck: marketing tools are fragmented, data is siloed, and ROI is often unmeasured or unclear. Even among leaders, few can articulate the full value of their martech stack. Too often, we fall back on vanity metrics rather than tying investments to revenue, customer lifetime value, or operational efficiency.

What I believe CMOs must do — from experience

Here are the steps I see as essential, based on what I’ve seen work (and what I’ve learned the hard way):

Focus area	Action & mind-shift
Elevate martech to the executive agenda	Martech cannot live in IT or under a silo. As CMO, I need to bring marketing tech discussions to the executive table — aligning martech investment with enterprise strategy, governance, and cross-functional ownership (IT, product, finance, data).
Simplify the stack, amplify impact	Rather than piling new tools on top of old ones, we should rationalize what we have, retire redundant systems, and invest in AI or agentic systems that orchestrate data, workflows, personalization, and campaign decisioning end to end.
Measure like a growth engine	Every martech investment must be tied to clear metrics: revenue uplift, speed to market, customer engagement, operational efficiency, and total cost of ownership (TCO). Pilot projects with clear hypotheses help prove value early.
Build marketing talent for an AI era	Tools are only as good as the people using them. Upskilling marketers on new platforms, data analysis, AI-augmented workflows, and aligning incentives is key. We must treat capability development as continuous, not a one-time project.
Lead change with conviction and humility	Transformation doesn’t happen overnight. As CMO, I must model both confidence and openness: confident in the vision and strategy, humble in acknowledging gaps and learning along the way.

The CMO’s new frontier

We are at a turning point. AI gives us a rare second chance to fix the mistakes of the past — to move beyond fragmented stacks, disconnected data, and low measurement fidelity — and to reimagine marketing as a dynamic, intelligent system embedded deeply into every customer journey.

To fellow executives: this is not just a marketing transformation. This is enterprise transformation. And we have the power to lead it.

Closing challenge for the C-suite:

• Ask yourself: is your martech conversation still about tools, or growth?

• Can your marketing organization deliver both agility and measurement?

• Are you investing in people as much as tech?

If not, now is the time to recalibrate.