For 14 years, we’ve held an annual, closed-door gathering of senior marketers, broader business leaders and academic professors at The Kellogg School of Management in partnership with McKinsey & Co. The off-the-record nature of the Kellogg Marketing Leadership Summit creates space for candor, offering a rare look into what’s top of mind for senior marketing leaders — and the CEOs and board members who work with them.
This year’s gathering made one thing clear: maximizing the CMO’s impact in the age of disruption and AI requires a new framework and a new leadership commitment to support it. Enter the 5 Cs of modern marketing (commerciality, courage, creativity, curiosity and community) — all of which are critical enablers that CEOs and boards must champion to ensure marketing fulfills its role as a true driver of business growth.
1. Commerciality
Marketing is too often misunderstood as a cost-line purely concerned with brand building. In reality, it is a critical business function accountable for performance.
In our recent article Marketing Has a Marketing Problem, we outlined the need for marketers to operate as business enablers who are key to the success of enterprise performance, not just storytellers and brand-builders (without minimizing the importance of both).
Gaining this visibility begins at the top. CEOs and boards need to ensure that they are holding their marketing teams accountable to commercial goals and engaging them as enablers of business goals. Treating the CMO as a business partner ensures accountability to those goals and a platform for marketing leaders to drive growth more holistically.
But this isn’t always clear cut or easy. A numerical attribution number may give a data-based sense of reassurance but is rarely exact. Connected to this, at our 2024 Summit, a common topic participants raised was the often-strained relationship between CEOs and CMOs. So, this year, we brought together a CEO/CMO duo that is clicking on all cylinders to share their insights on what good looks like. Since Kevin Hochman and George Felix arrived three years ago as CEO of Brinker International and CMO of Chili’s (owned by Brinker) respectively, shares are up 487%. Hochman has publicly credited marketing as a key growth driver and positioned Felix as a commercial enabler. Equally, Felix engages as a business driver, adding, “Marketing’s job is to get people into seats. Operations’ job is to bring them back.”
The strongest CMOs are deeply attuned to the customer. So, positioning marketers as the voice of the customer can be a significant enabler to this commercial accountability and position (and motivate) them to drive business performance and KPIs with shared intent.
2. Courage
Growth demands risk—and risk-taking demands executive support.
To continue to grow a brand and business, marketers must be encouraged and have coverage to take risks and be courageous. Finding new ways to engage and connect with consumers requires the space to do things differently and try things out.
But like any leadership trait, courage must be cultivated. Supportive CEOs and boards are key to creating environments where CMOs, along with other functional leaders, can take such risks. Deena LaMarque Piquion from Xerox shared how her title of “Chief Growth and Disruption Officer” buttresses her platform to drive intentional progress in role. Giving leaders permission to disrupt and drive change can be a powerful enabler. We also heard this from Second City Vice President of Creative Strategy, Innovation and Business Development Kelly Leonard, who emphasized that putting yourself out there and mitigating your inhibitions requires practice, ideally in a safe and supportive environment.
Marketers should be proactive about being courageous. Taking risks even when things are going well is crucial to sustainable growth. Samir Bhutada, Head of Digital Transformation at Coca Cola, referenced CMOs rebranding as “Change Maker Officers.” Equally, Minjae Ormes, VP and Head of Consumer Marketing at LinkedIn, emphasized her “belief that change and growth are the only constants in work and life.” She shared how she “chooses to lead with curiosity and courage to move ideas, people, businesses and society forward.”
A specific example of out-of-the-box thinking and boldness was brought to life by Raja Rajamannar, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for Mastercard, who explained the “Where To Settle” platform Mastercard developed to support refugees in finding crucial resources and information on arrival in Poland – a program that made societal impact while also driving the business forward.
Boards and CEOs can play a critical role in institutionalizing courage into culture, creating environments where risk taking is encouraged and celebrated and where a CMO’s mandate includes not just execution but ongoing experimentation and evolution.
3. Creativity
AI can analyze. Creativity differentiates.
Even in the age of AI and algorithms, creativity remains the magic ingredient of the marketing sauce. In high-performance environments, it can often be the first thing sacrificed to deadlines and data dashboards. But savvy CEOs know that creativity isn’t a nice to have, but a vital, strategic advantage.
John Kounios, Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Drexel University, spoke about the importance of making space for creativity and the magic that not looking directly at the problem can play in helping to generate “eureka moments” that provide surprising solutions and ideas. This underscores the need for both CEOs and boards to openly ensure space for creativity and reflection to nurture novel pathways for driving the business. They should also cultivate a culture that is open to change. Lara Krug, CMO of the Kansas City Chiefs, acknowledged that when you’ve done something one way for a long time you become more risk averse. A creative and ambitious thinker, Kurg has played a key role in positioning the Chiefs as “The World’s Team” (no small ambitions here) and as part of this, she’s launched an entertainment studio and a Hallmark Channel movie, offering a valuable platform for engaging new fans through scripted and non-scripted stories.
Another example that brought the value of creativity and fresh thinking to life was from panelist Samantha Maltin, Chief Marketing & Brand Officer for ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Maltin is evolving the more traditional approach that has helped make St. Jude one of the most loved and trusted brands in the U.S., by spearheading a campaign that used AI to bring patients’ colorful artwork to life in both physical and digital spaces. This willingness to “shake things up” has led to outsized support from not only donors, but from the marketing community at large.
4.Curiosity
The best marketers ask the right questions—and then use the answers to develop better ideas.
If courage drives change, then curiosity makes it possible. The best marketing leaders are often the most curious people in any room. They think broadly across the business and draw insights and ideas from the outside world (which also then leads into the power of community). They read widely, listen carefully, and make connections others might miss. Having a CEO and board that prioritize the space needed for such broad learning can be a huge enabler to fuel creativity and fresh thinking.
There are many resources for these learnings. Panelist Heather Malenshek, CMO of Land O’ Lakes, spoke of the value she finds in “reverse mentoring” or learning from younger leaders as well as from meeting-free Fridays (which they’ve deemed “Focus Fridays”) to allow more time to learn and think. Another speaker referenced how she makes time to learn from experts, finding time in the calendars of those from whom she aspires to learn. This has proved even more important in a landscape where data literacy and digital understanding is no longer a nice-to-have but a must-have.
Boards and CEOs can stimulate curiosity by investing in development opportunities that spark inquisitiveness, going beyond skills-based trainings and allowing more active spaces/time for learning, dialogues and exploration.
5. Community
Connection is more than comfort; it’s a catalyst for creativity and change. For these reasons, it is needed more than ever today.
Like all leaders, CMOs today are navigating massive shifts—AI transformation and cultural fragmentation to name just two. They are expected to drive growth, take risks and be brand stewards. To these ends, community matters more than ever. Whether it’s off-the-record gatherings like this particular Summit or informal peer gatherings, CMOs need space to hear each other, share and uncover new ideas, share best practices and recharge. Substantive conversations and insight sharing are ways to spark their own curiosity and creativity as well as find new ways to drive growth.
CEOs and boards who encourage their CMOs to stay connected—not just within the organization but across the industry—will reap the benefits of a leader who is more resilient, creative and purposeful.
What Makes a Great CMO Today?
In the Egon Zehnder model of assessing top marketing talent, we begin with broader executive leadership competencies as a foundational must have. As we delve into what differentiates good from great CMOs, increasingly the 5 Cs rise to the surface. We examine how the leader cultivates continuous curiosity, how they create capacity to innovate within themselves and promote it within their teams, how they find the courage and appropriate risk management to take big bets, and how they inspire others within the creative story-telling ecosystem and broader marketing community.
But they can’t do it alone. The organizations that will stand out are those where CEOs and boards don’t just hire a strong CMO, they create the conditions for that marketing leader to help the entire enterprise thrive. Understanding how your CMO relates to these 5Cs can kickstart the flywheel to maximize their impact.
Want to be part of the 2026 Kellogg Marketing Leadership Summit? Request an invitation.
