If some marketing operations professionals are hesitant about moving up the ranks into management and ultimately the CMO role, one person who is convinced a career path is available is Debbie Qaqish, Principal and Chief Strategy Officer with the Pedowitz Group. At the recent MO Pros Summer Camp, she had told me: “I do think you’re going to see these multifaceted, multi-talented leaders of marketing ops step up to that CMO role. I absolutely do see that.” Her new book, “From Backroom to Boardroom” presents a research-based account of what strategic marketing operations leaders look like and how valuable they are to businesses. The strategic market operations leader, she writes “acts as a business leader, not a button pusher.” They are not siloed, they are cross-functional. They build teams, they engineer processes and they present themselves to the business as digital visionaries. Qaqish is enthusiastic about the possibility of strategic marketing operations leaders making the step to the C-level. “Because the use of technology to reinvent business is so much more of an imperative now than it’s ever been, I think that what we will see is these leaders of marketing ops step up into that CMO role.” Why we care. Marketing operations may not be at a crossroads quite yet, but the day is fast approaching when the best professionals will need to decide whether they are more comfortable as hands-on technicians or whether they’re ready to step up as strategic business leaders — and ultimately to the C-suite. If the future of marketing lies in strategic deployment of marketing technology, as we believe, then it makes a lot of sense to have the people who best understand the technology leading strategic discussions and making strategic decisions. Read more here. |