CMOs are moving deeper into the data layer — not by choice, but because marketing performance now depends on it. The Gist Marketing now runs on data infrastructure. Real-time personalization and AI engagement require unified, continuously accessible customer data. Fragmented systems create costly CX failures. Disconnected CRM, CDP and analytics environments lead to broken attribution, mistimed messaging and inconsistent customer experiences. CMOs are becoming data stakeholders. Modern marketing leaders increasingly influence identity resolution, governance and integration decisions because performance depends on them. For years, marketing leaders focused primarily on campaigns, messaging and brand positioning while data infrastructure remained largely under the control of IT and engineering teams. That separation is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.…