There’s a cruel irony at the center of marketing leadership. The CMO is in charge of one of the most complex, long-horizon jobs in business. But everything they do is measured on a short-term performance system, using a shrinking budget, to boost company sales before their clock runs out. Perhaps CMO should stand for chief miracle officer. Or, like some companies, why not just eliminate the role altogether? Bad idea. Especially with the onset of AI. But more about that later.  According to Forrester’s 2025 report, “ The Representation and Tenure of Fortune 500 CMOs ,” only 49% of Fortune 500 top marketers hold the CMO title today, down from 55% just one year ago. Over one in five Fortune 500 companies changed their entire marketing leadership in the past 12 months. Average CMO tenure has dropped to 3.9 years, still the shortest average in the C-suite. Yet for some, the institutional response to a structurally failing model wasn’t to fix the model. It was to dissolve the role.…