Why is mid-tier CMO tenure collapsing to a three-year low?
Average mid-tier CMO tenure fell below 18 months, from 31 months three years ago. Three operators are running marketing without a seated leader this quarter. Exit interviews and trade coverage repeat the same pattern. Boards demand short-term acquisition numbers, marketing leaders argue for brand and retention investment, and the impasse ends in a departure. Leader-tier operators show no equivalent turnover.
| 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avg tenure | 31 | 26 | 21 | 17 |
Every leadership reset restarts brand position, agencies, media strategy and CRM roadmaps. The engine that builds value stops while the spend continues. That is brand capital leaking on a schedule. It explains a measurable share of the leader/laggard gap, because the leaders’ advantage is partly just continuity. The EVA lens reads CMO turnover as a governance failure priced as a marketing failure.
Revolving-door marketing guarantees random acts of marketing. These companies leak brand capital weekly. They are exactly where a structured value system lands hardest, because the board problem is the real vacancy: no commercial link between marketing and what the company is worth. The role being hired for is the system more than the person.