From functional leader to leading the enterprise

Last night was another opportunity to hear first hand from the CEO of one of the UK’s leading companies.  The Marketing Society #CEOConversations have provided audiences with Sir Ian Cheshire (ex Kingfisher, now Debenhams), Dave Lewis of Tesco and, last night, Paul Geddes of Direct Line.  Hosting was Martin Glen, CEO of the FA and President of the Society.   
 

As current president of The Marketing Society Martin Glenn’s focus has been to explore the career path from CMO to CEO – helping senior marketers to evaluate their own potential journey and elevating the discipline of marketing in the C-suite in the process.  It’s a journey he has travelled, and one that is still relatively unusual - only  a handful of CMOs have done so.  The fact that they all seemed to have trained at FMCG or retail companies is something that is, partially, explained below. 
 

Anyway it’s a noble cause and there was much to listen to and much to learn.  
 

1. It’s all about decision making

In Paul Geddes’ view, much of being a CEO comes down to decision making.  It’s about balancing short term vs long term decisions.  Cost vs value decisions.  And trying to keep what’s good for the customer centre stage in the process. It is of course possible to do the right thing on both counts sometimes.  Geddes cited the example of the enormous pressures simply modernizing their systems puts on businesses in financial services.  It’s a de facto requirement, he acknowledged, but would only get them to where they should be.  His advice was to charge a separate group of people with looking at the future and how to counter external challenges, such as the rapid innovation happening in FinTech.  So the decision there is not to do one rather than the other, but to find a way of doing both.
 

2. It’s all about the numbers stupid

Whilst many of the disciplines and techniques that one learns in marketing – knowing your target audience, identify the message most likely to engage them – are the same when you move to leading the enterprise.  It’s just the audience that change.  Shareholders, investors, analysts and your own staff hove into view, but can be treated as you would any other target market.  What changes is the focus on the numbers, the money that actually drives the company forward on a day to day, week to week basis.  It’s one of the reasons perhaps that people who have had big marketing jobs in retail brands find it easier to make the move – they are used to looking on an almost minute by minute basis on what is selling, what is not and making adjustments to shift in the right direction. The language also changes of course; balance sheets, corporate finance and risk terminology replaces marketing and sales speak. 
 

3. Many routes one goal

Geddes clearly had ambition from the start, putting up his hand to ask for additional responsibility from an early age.  In his words ‘Ask for extra’.  As a result he admits he was probably ‘a piece of work’ in his early 30’s.  But the path he painted was interesting.  In his view you either have to do the same job in different industries to progress, or different jobs in the same industry.  Staying in one role in one business and hoping that someone will pick you out of the crowd is not the route to success.  As others have said, dress for the role that you want, not the role that you have.  So evincing the interests, financial acumen and behavior of a CEO before you get there is critical.  The other key attribute is that ambition.  You have to prove that you are capable of other stuff beyond marketing.  Ideally something that moves you from ‘money spender’ to ‘money maker’.  Finally he warned, you’ll be interviewed and hired by a Chairman – and they’ll want to have seen that you can perform on bad days as well as good. 
 

4. Focus on the business

Above all, Geddes’ recommendation was to have your hands very closely on driving ‘the business’.  Make the existing CEO feel that you have ‘got their back’, that you are right there behind them with your fingers on the pulse of what’s happening, with hard metrics on performance and a view on how you can flex to respond to market situations.  Once you’ve earned your wings in this area you can move into the more strategic role of new markets and new propositions.  Unfortunately, Geddes warned that in this context, strategic projects and long term brand equity building initiatives can be poo-pooed in favour of driving sales tomorrow.  This is ultimately the battle for marketers, and one that it is perhaps worth reminding the CEO however.  In the research conducted by Omobono in partnership with The Marketing Society in 2015, the Marketing function had a far wider scope of objectives than any other department.  Whilst many others (sales, customer service, HR) might concern themselves with lead generation, cross selling or attracting talent in the short term, no other department is concerned with building the organisation’s long term value drivers; brand awareness and competitive  differentiation.  Whilst short term decision making and quarterly reporting of course have their place, I believe that marketing must balance that with the long term health of the company. If that’s not critical to the CEO, what is?  

 

5. Stay curious.  

This final tip was from Martin Glenn himself.  The world is changing as we speak.  Technology shifts on a daily basis. You can feel, as you get more senior and therefore, to put it plainly, older, that you are not at the leading edge of digital change.  But experience is highly valuable, as long as you are prepared to explore new concepts.  Geddes admitted that he was not necessarily up to speed with every new technology.  But his view was that the essential principles, of direct marketing, for example still apply.  It’s just the channels that have changed.  The truth is that most CEO’s are in their 50’s.  Most are white males of course too – but that’s another story.  The role does need a level of experience, call it perspective, that is critical in bigger companies and that most people simply do not have until they reach their mid to late 30’s.  Staying curious on the journey is more likely to ensure that it ends up in the ultimate C-suite chair.