The Most Dangerous Job in Business

So what's it going to take to get the CMO off the endangered-species list? Perhaps a clearer definition of the position and what's expected--which is a job for the CEO. After all, no company could welcome such regular turnover in a top management position; among other things, it's inefficient. Indeed, over the past two years, three-quarters of marketing departments have been reorganized, according to a recent Forrester Research report. As Katherine Stone, who survived five CMOs during seven years as director of experiential marketing for Coca-Cola, recently lamented on the blog Brand Autopsy, "Usually, the new CMO gets rid of everything the prior guy championed.... A lot of things get thrown away, which wastes time and money." Argues the CMO Council's Neale-May: "CEOs and their boards are having a tough time figuring out what they want."

Or maybe they aren't. Maybe the CMO post should be acknowledged simply as the "fall guy" job in the C-suite. If the numbers turn down and CEOs need to make changes, the first instinct certainly won't be to step aside themselves. Getting rid of the CFO might spook Wall Street, while changing a COO or CIO could disrupt operations. Dumping the CMO seems easy in comparison.

So the best way to keep your job, as Klein admits, is to make sure business keeps growing: "We look at lots of diagnostics to measure the health of the brand," he says. "But clearly there is no better tonic than top-line sales." While every senior exec faces a tension between long-term performance and short-term expectations, for CMOs, the scrutiny is especially intense.

As for ousted CMOs like Kerri Martin, there's an upside in all this: plenty of openings. And, as she puts it, "when it works, it's the most fun job in the world." Just don't count on it lasting too long.

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