This is the fourth article in our six-part series analyzing over 100 Elite B2C Marketing Executives at high-growth, consumer-focused U.S. tech companies to better understand the skills, experience, attributes, and backgrounds that separate them from the rest. We dispel myths, share interesting findings, discuss key takeaways, and explore if predictive indicators exist to identify who will be the most successful marketers. (Our methodology can be found at the end of this article.)
Our first three articles sharing high-level findings can be found here.
Ever wonder how the country’s most elite marketing executives made it to where they are today, and what experiences propelled them along their career path?
When analyzing the careers of over 100 Elite B2C Marketing Executives at high-growth, consumer-focused U.S. tech companies, we unpack this question and examine what early career experiences may have had an impact on these marketers’ success. We share key findings and surprising insights into which elements are critical in an elite marketers background, and which are not. We even dig deeper to discover if certain experiences can predict success. Our key takeaways and detailed findings can be found below:
Only 46% of the top 100+ B2C marketing executives at high-growth, consumer-focused U.S. tech companies actually started their careers in Marketing. This indicates more than half, 54%, started out in something altogether different. Of those who did not start off in Marketing, 32% started off in Banking, 20% in Strategy Consulting, and 45% started off in a variety of different fields including engineering, business development, and even law. Marketers do not need to start out in Marketing to eventually become an elite marketing leader.
In our last article, we noted that over a third (38%) of our elite marketing executives spent more than 25% of their careers in non-marketing roles. So marketing leaders at the top B2C companies in the country can achieve that level of success not only when starting their career outside of marketing, but also if they spent a significant time outside of marketing anytime during their career as well.
We often get mixed opinions from our clients as to whether they value a marketer that has focused on marketing from the start or one that also has experience in other functions as well. The data shows there are multiple paths to becoming an elite marketing executive, and less specific patterns emerged than we hypothesized. We believe the key is to understand the goals and objectives you have for your marketing leader, and evaluate each candidate’s experiences (marketing or not) against what it will take to achieve those desired outcomes. For marketers still early in their careers with more experience outside of marketing than within it, we urge hiring managers not to discount them as future elite marketing leaders, even if they have taken some significant detours along the way.
Of the top marketers in our study that specialize in Brand and Communications, 47% started their careers at a marketing agency or a CPG brand. Surprisingly, none of the marketers in our study that specialize in Performance Marketing started their careers at a CPG brand, and only one began their career at a marketing agency.
For those specializing in performance marketing, 45% started their careers in banking or consulting. Yet only 16% of marketers that started their careers in banking or consulting ended up becoming specialists in Brand and Communications.
So what makes these two backgrounds produce such different marketers? While there are performance marketing agencies, many are focused predominantly on branding. And, if you consider most CPG brands are sold through wholesalers and retailers and require marketing efforts more heavily focused on brand awareness rather than direct marketing to drive online sales, it’s not surprising so many of our brand and comms marketers (and so few of our performance marketers) come from these backgrounds.
Since quantitative skills are paramount for both banking and consulting jobs, it’s not surprising that those that found their way to becoming marketing leaders tend to do so with a performance marketing specialty.
For fast-growing B2C tech companies looking for a leader with one of these two types of specialized skills sets, candidate search strategies could start out with a more focused search by correlating their particular need with either a marketing agency/CPG or banking/consulting background.
3. Fewer top marketers are coming from CPG and Agency backgrounds than ever before, and more are coming from banking and consulting.
While top marketers with a CPG or agency background make up 24% of our entire top marketer list, they only account for 13% of our younger marketers (under 15 years experience), but over-index at 36% of our older generation (with 20 years or more of experience). As companies grow beyond a certain level of maturity and scale becomes less about turning the paid marketing dials (and more about market share or brand affinity), the deep brand expertise and customer insights gained through a CPG and agency background may become more desirable. Perhaps we are simply seeing a mismatch of skills to growth stage, as our top marketers list in this study comes from fast-growing, VC-backed B2C companies, often still largely reliant on growth through paid channels.
Interestingly, top marketers with a banking or consulting background (both highly quantitative functions) reflect the opposite trend, and over-index in the younger cohort at 33%. Since we found in our third and second article that more marketers are coming from performance marketing backgrounds and graduating with quantitative degrees, we see yet another data point towards a shifting trend towards top marketers with deep quantitative backgrounds.
Note that roughly half of the elite marketing leaders in our study come from a non-specialized, general marketing background, and these marketers make up roughly half of our younger generation of elite marketers with under 15 years of experience as well. They are also becoming increasingly focused on performance and quantitative approaches.
A surprising 85% of top marketers who started out in banking or consulting went to one of the top 25 universities in the United States (72% of those starting in banking, and 91% of top marketers who started in Consulting). Compare this to only 49% of our entire list of elite marketing leaders, and an elite education for this unique subset of marketers emerges as an important element to starting on this uber-successful career path.
We’ve noted that marketers who started in consulting or business follow the trend of being more quantitative, are becoming more prominent in our younger generation of leaders, and are even more likely to end up at a unicorn. As young aspiring leaders begin the first leg of their journey by determining where to get an education, if they want to someday be part of this elite group of top marketers, an education at a top 25 school statistically helps considerably and perhaps is where they should start.
While we always encourage B2C business leaders, hiring managers, and recruiters to assess the core objectives you want your marketing leader to achieve, and map them to the unique experience and skill set that will result in the highest likelihood of success, we can’t ignore the changing overall trends we continue to uncover in our top B2C marketing leader study. Marketing as part of their skillset will always remain critical, but early experiences outside of marketing, and a tendency towards performance and quantitative approaches are becoming ever more prominent (and thus likely effective) in our most elite marketing leaders.
As hiring managers assess the experience and needs of their next marketing leader, they should be giving equal or more consideration to those that fit this “new” profile. While in our last article we note that each company is different and therefore may have different priority needs, for companies who need branding or product marketing most to uplevel their efforts, their new hire should reflect those same skill sets. But in these situations consider the supporting senior-level talent on your team, and ensure you also have your performance, quantitative and business-focused bases covered.
We continue to hope the insights and trends uncovered in our analysis will help hiring managers to understand the skills, experience, attributes, and backgrounds of the top marketing leaders in tech – and how to find their next great marketing leader. We will continue to deep dive into the subject next reviewing women vs men top marketers. You can view our previous articles below:
If you are interested in our next articles in this series, please follow RevelOne on LinkedIn.
Methodology
We identified the most senior marketing leaders at over 100 of the highest growth tech companies in the US.
How we determined the companies: The fastest growing tech startups included in our study had to meet several key requirements. Companies had to be funded by a top tier VC (see list below), be a consumer focused business, have an employee count between 100 and 5000, and have been identified as a “unicorn” ($1 billion or greater valuation) or be a “successful, high growth company” in one of the following publications: CB Insights and Fast Company 50 Future Unicorns, CNBC Disruptor 50 Companies, Forbes 25: Next Billion Dollar Startups, Forbes Midas List, or raised $50 million or more in funding within the last 3 years per Crunchbase.
How we identified the marketing leader: The most senior marketing leader within each company was identified based on title. They had to be in a marketing role, must be located in the US, and must have a CMO, VP, SVP, EVP, Head of, Sr Director, or Director title.
How we conducted the analysis: Crunchbase was utilized for public company status, funding VCs and funding amounts. Company and marketers’ linkedin profiles were analyzed to determine company employee count, consumer focus, most senior marketers in an organization, location, titles, education, gender, work experience, years of experience, current role details, and career focus.
List of Top Tier VCs: Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer V Partners, Founders Fund, GGV Capital, Institutional Venture Partners, Greylock Partners, Battery Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Norwest Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Spark Capital, Lightspeed Venture partners
List of Top 28 Universities: Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, University of Chicago, MIT, Duke, UPenn, Wharton, Brown, UC Berkeley, Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern, Cornell, Cal Tech, Johns Hopkins, UVA, Dartmouth, NYU, Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Vanderbilt, Wash University, Michigan.
About RevelOne
RevelOne is a leading marketing advisory and recruiting firm. We do 300+ searches a year in Marketing and Go-to-Market roles from C-level on down for some of the most recognized names in tech. For custom org design, role scoping, and retained search, contact us.
This is the third article in our six-part series analyzing over 100 Elite B2C Marketing Executives at high-growth, consumer-focused U.S. tech companies to better understand the skills, experience, attributes, and backgrounds that separate them from the rest. We dispel myths, share interesting findings, discuss key takeaways, and explore if predictive indicators exist to identify who will be the most successful marketers. (Our methodology can be found at the end of this article.)
Our first two articles can be found here.
Ask any seasoned marketing executive, or check your favorite marketing industry publication, and you’re likely to find an opinion on what marketing expertise or specializations are in highest demand in the market, and which ones make up the best marketers and marketing leaders.
But what marketing backgrounds and specialization do actually define the most talented marketers, and can we even predict those who will be successful B2C marketing leaders based on these criteria?
As part of our six-part series analyzing over 100 Elite B2C Marketing Executives at high-growth, consumer-focused U.S. tech companies, we continue our analysis and dig into the marketing experience and marketing expertise of our top marketers, to further uncover what defines a top marketing executive. We examine their time spent in marketing vs non-marketing roles, their expertise in a certain marketing discipline (e.g. brand or product), and critical nuances that may be inferred as they relate to these criteria.
We have summarized our top findings first with more detail and insights into their implications below.
More on our findings in detail below.
1. Marketers don’t need to spend their entire careers in marketing to be an elite B2C marketing leader.
Over a third (38%) of our elite marketing executives spent 25% or more of their careers in non-marketing roles. This might come as a surprise to some as it stands to reason that more marketing depth and understanding, should lead to a better marketing leader. But, as we’ve noted in another article, some marketing leaders aren’t just great marketers, but great business and financial leaders as well. Considering that the non-marketing roles our marketers spent time in were predominantly banking and consulting positions, it is understandable how these financial and business roles could contribute to a well-rounded business and marketing leader.
It is also interesting to note that men are more likely to have spent a good portion of their careers in non-marketing roles than women, 43% of men vs 33% of women. MBAs provide general business and financial know-how much like a hands-on role in banking or consulting, so it’s interesting to note that 43% of women in our study earned an MBA vs. 30% of the men. Perhaps these experiences balance each other out. But keep in mind we learned in our first article that marketers do not need an MBA to be an elite marketer. Nor do they need experience in banking or consulting.
Some companies want their marketing leader to have lived and breathed marketing since the start of their careers. From our experience working with some of the most exciting tech companies in the world, extensive experience in marketing is indeed important. But as our experience tells us and the data supports, time outside of marketing can also be beneficial. So, while B2C tech companies should always ensure their marketing leader has extensive marketing chops, they should not discount a candidate that has spent time in other roles. They should welcome the additional relevant experience other roles can bring.
2. Marketers can have a specialty and still become an elite overall marketing leader, and the vast majority of these are performance marketing and brand/communications specialists.
About half of the elite marketers in our study (49%) specialized in a specific discipline of marketing including product, product marketing, brand/comm marketing, CRM/retention, or performance marketing, for much of their marketing careers. This proves that just because a marketer is specialized in a certain subset of marketing, does not mean that they can’t become the overall marketing leader for a fast-growing B2C organization.
But the particular area they specialized in matters. A shocking 73% of top marketers who specialized in a specific marketing discipline come from one of only two areas: performance marketing or brand/communications. Conversely, only 1 of our top 100 elite B2C marketers comes from a predominantly CRM/retention background. Does brand/comms or performance marketing experience make you more capable as a marketing leader than experience in other marketing disciplines? In our experiences working with high growth, VC-backed B2C tech companies, a company’s success (or next phase of growth) often comes on the shoulders of a strong brand/comms presence, or highly effective performance marketing channels – so in some ways, that answer is yes.
As a whole, the top marketers in our study are split almost evenly (49% and 51%) between those that spent much of their careers focused on a single marketing discipline, and those whose marketing experience was more general. We encourage every company to align their unique business model and requirements to the particular expertise and experience of any marketing leader they are evaluating. The data suggests that starting this evaluation by focusing on your Brand/Comms and Performance marketing needs first, however, may yield the best results. After all, these are typically the most important disciplines a fast-growing start-up could use in their leader, but don’t discount other disciplines including CRM/retention experts. After all, every company relies on its own model for success, and if CRM is the backbone, then a CRM-focused leader may be the best choice.
3. Elite Marketers who specialized in brand/comms during their careers stay longer at companies than any other type of marketer. Performance marketers are the least likely to ‘stick around’.
Only a quarter (25%) of our B2C marketing leaders have been at three or more companies for more than 4 years. However, a significantly higher 42% of our elite marketers who specialized specifically in brand/comms during their careers have been at three or more companies for more than 4 years, and 63% of brand/comms specialists have never been at a company for less than 18 months (compared to only 34% of all other marketers). The data implies that brand/comms specialized marketers are uniquely more likely to remain at companies for longer stints.
Consider then that performance marketers are 2x more likely than any other marketers to have been at 3 or more companies for less than 18 months each, and we begin to see a differentiating longevity pattern emerge among our elite B2C marketers.
Perhaps it is the relationship-focused nature of a brand/comms specialist or the work itself that increases their likelihood to stay in roles longer. A brand can take time to develop, and its reputation can take years to build. Brand/comms marketers are also typically good at building relationships, the specialty itself requires building rapport across departments, media and analyst relations, and connecting with both clients/customers and internal stakeholders on a deeper level – which takes time.
While brand/comms specialized marketing leaders may, in general, be more inclined to ‘stick around,’ every marketer is different and this nuance should not be generalized to all. Growing B2C companies should evaluate each candidate’s loyalty level based on their unique career backgrounds, and companies will be best served choosing a marketing leader with the specialty, or generalization, that aligns best with their business. But, if it happens to be a brand/comms specialist, you might rest a little easier that they will likely still be there after the dust settles.
4. Marketers who did not specialize in a particular marketing discipline are more likely to have an MBA than those who did specialize.
While 38% of all the top marketers in our study have an MBA, marketers who did not specialize in a specific marketing discipline like brand/comms, product, or performance, are the most likely to have an MBA at 45%. Perhaps this group is already predisposed to view marketing from a more general or even business-focused perspective, making an MBA a likely extension of their more varied interests.
Of the marketers who did specialize in a specific marketing discipline like brand/comms, product or performance marketing, only 29% have an MBA (compared to the 45% for generalist marketers noted above). Our marketers who focused on brand/comms have one of the lowest rates of having an MBA at 26%, and surprisingly performance marketing specialists at only 28%.
We note from our first article that a marketer does not need to have an MBA in order to be an elite marketing leader. While we encourage companies to consider the data, many still have a preference for their marketing leaders to have a business degree. In these cases, they can expect general marketers who did not specialize in a specific marketing discipline to be more likely to fit their requirements
5. The younger generation of top marketers are coming from performance marketing backgrounds more than ever before.
Top marketers who specialize in performance marketing make up more than half of our youngest generation of elite marketers – they are a whopping 3X more likely than any other group to have less than 10 years of total experience. Consider the top marketers who specialize in product or product marketing are almost twice as likely to have more than 21 years of total experience (62% vs 37% respectively) and we begin to see a difference in marketing skillsets between our younger and older generations of marketing leaders.
In our second article, we noted that more elite marketing leaders are graduating with a quantitative degree than ever before – 37% of all of the elite marketers in our study had a quantitative degree, while a surprising 55% of all elite marketers with under 11 years of experience have one. As performance marketers typically focus on the quantitative side of marketing, the data continues to support the idea that our youngest, upcoming generation of marketing leaders are bringing with them a more quantitative skillset than ever before.
Doing over 300 successful marketing and Go-To-Market searches a year, we have seen firsthand this shift towards performance/quantitative focus when it comes to talent. While a brand/comms or product marketing-focused leader may be the best fit for a company’s growth model and thus marketing leadership, we strongly encourage hiring managers and recruiters to thoroughly vet the overall business and quantitative skills and experience of all of their potential leaders.
Because every company’s road to success is different, we encourage B2C business leaders, hiring managers and recruiters to align the requirements and specialties of their potential marketing leaders with the unique requirements and nuances of their business. For example, one B2C ecommerce company might be a large marketplace where huge SKU counts require innovative, technical and automated solutions, making a product specialist or performance marketer an ideal fit. While another may be trying to break into an already congested market and need a strong brand/comms presence to rise above the pack.
We work with our clients to truly understand their unique business needs and challenges, and develop a marketing leader profile that will best help them grow. The findings in this article should help refine the nuances of that hiring strategy, dispel myths about what marketing specialties are required or undesired, and keep companies ahead of the curve regarding the types of marketers (and skills) that may be the future of our most elite B2C marketing leaders.
In our next article, we explore the career experiences of our elite B2C marketing leaders.
Our full article series includes:
If you are interested in our next articles in this series, please follow RevelOne on LinkedIn.
Methodology
We identified the most senior marketing leaders at over 100 of the highest growth tech companies in the US.
How we determined the companies:
The fastest-growing tech startups included in our study had to meet several key requirements. Companies had to be funded by a top tier VC (see list below), be a consumer-focused business, have an employee count between 100 and 5000, and have been identified as a “unicorn” ($1 billion or greater valuation) or be a “successful, high growth company” in one of the following publications: CB Insights and Fast Company 50 Future Unicorns, CNBC Disruptor 50 Companies, Forbes 25: Next Billion Dollar Startups, Forbes Midas List, or raised $50 million or more in funding within the last 3 years per Crunchbase.
How we identified the marketing leader: The most senior marketing leader within each company was identified based on title. They had to be in a marketing role, must be located in the US, and must have a CMO, VP, SVP, EVP, Head of, Sr Director, or Director title.
How we conducted the analysis: Crunchbased was utilized for public company status, funding VCs, and funding amounts. Company and marketers’ LinkedIn profiles were analyzed to determine company employee count, consumer focus, most senior marketers in an organization, location, titles, education, gender, work experience, years of experience, current role details, and career focus.
List of Top Tier VCs: Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer V Partners, Founders Fund, GGV Capital, Institutional Venture Partners, Greylock Partners, Battery Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Norwest Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Spark Capital, Lightspeed Venture partners
List of Top 28 Universities: Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, University of Chicago, MIT, Duke, UPenn, Wharton, Brown, UC Berkeley, Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern, Cornell, Cal Tech, Johns Hopkins, UVA, Dartmouth, NYU, Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Vanderbilt, Wash University, Michigan.
About RevelOne
RevelOne is a leading marketing advisory and recruiting firm. We do 300+ searches a year in Marketing and Go-to-Market roles from C-level on down for some of the most recognized names in tech. For custom org design, role scoping, and retained search, contact us.
This is the second article in our six-part series analyzing over 100 Elite B2C Marketing Executives at high-growth, consumer-focused U.S. tech companies to better understand the skills, experience, attributes, and backgrounds that separate them from the rest. We dispel myths, share interesting findings, discuss key takeaways, and explore if predictive indicators exist to identify who will be the most successful marketers. (Our methodology can be found at the end of this article.)
Our first article sharing high-level findings can be found here.
Since 2010, the percentage of people in the US who earned a bachelor’s degree jumped from 30% to 36%. Those majoring in key quantitative studies increased from 12% to 14%. And the percentage of people in the U.S. aged 25-29 with a master’s degree increased from roughly 5.5% to 9.5%.
Most people would agree that higher education is increasingly important for finding a job, along with working in your select field. But can a person’s unique educational background indicate their likelihood to succeed as a top marketing executive at a high-growth consumer startup, or even predict their success?
We turn to the data and our analyses of over 100 elite B2C marketing executives and dig deeper into the formal education of top marketers to examine how education correlates with the careers of elite marketing leaders at high-growth tech startups. We examined several key factors such as types of universities attended, earning an MBA, types of degrees, and even how the educational experience of elite marketers may be changing over time. We share our findings below.
1. Graduating from a top university or having an MBA are not required to be a successful marketer
As part of our first article in this series, we noted that the top 28 universities in the U.S. produced 49% of the Elite Marketers in our study. That is a lot considering they are only 28 schools among thousands. But, 51% of our top marketers did not attend a top university, clarifying that a top school is not required to be an elite marketer.
The data also suggests that an MBA is not required to be an elite marketer at a fast-growing tech company – only 38% of them have an MBA. While some of the most evolved tech companies still target marketers with a prestigious university on their resume, or that desired additional business degree, the data speaks for itself. From a talent acquisition perspective, for fast-growing tech companies looking for their next marketing leader, a top school and an MBA, is not something that should be required for success.
2. Top Marketers with a Quantitative Degree are More Likely to Be ‘Performance’ Marketers, and Less Likely to Work at an Agency or in CPG
Of the Top Marketers in our study whose professional careers focused on Performance Marketing, 67% had a quantitative degree (e.g. Mathematics, Economics, Finance, Statistics, or Computer Science). Of our top marketers who are Brand/Communication specialists or general marketers, only 26% had one of these quantitative degrees. Whether a quantitative degree provides the knowledge for a performance and data-driven approach, or marketers with a quantitative degree were already predisposed to turn to the data in their marketing career, we cannot say. But it doesn’t come as a surprise that having strong quant skills (from your degree or other experiences) appears to be a critical factor in setting yourself up for success in a performance marketing role.
Our data also suggests that a quantitative degree may predict where a future top marketer starts their career. Top marketers with a quant degree are 3.5x more likely to get a job in consulting, but less than ½ as likely to take a position at a marketing agency or CPG brand.
Note that 33% of top performance marketers in our study did not have a quantitative degree, thus this degree should not be required when hiring a performance-driven marketing leader.
3. Elite Marketers Who Graduated from a Top 28 University Are More Likely to Have Majored in Quantitative Studies and More Likely to Earn an MBA
Of the elite B2C marketers in our study who graduated from one of the country’s top universities, 57% of them went on to earn an MBA – well over half. Of those who did not attend a top university, only 19% went on to earn an MBA – not even a quarter. Perhaps marketers from a top university believe more strongly in the power of an MBA. Or, perhaps peer influence plays a role — with so many peers getting (or planning on getting) an MBA, it seems the logical course of action for them to get one as well.
There’s a marked difference in our top university graduates for quantitative degrees as well. A substantial 45% of top marketers who went to a top school earned a quantitative degree (e.g. Mathematics, Economics, Finance, Statistics or Computer Science). Of those top marketers who did not attend a top 28 university, only 28% of them chose a quantitative field. This further implies that our top university graduates are clearly making different choices.
Our first finding reveals having an MBA is not required to be a successful marketer. Similarly, since only 37% of our top marketers have a quantitative degree, that’s not required to be a successful marketer either. But, for those employers who still lean towards these two things as “requirements,” they will be more likely to find both in marketers from a top university.
4. Top Marketers with a Quantitative Degree are More Likely to be Men
Men make up 63% of the top marketers with a quantitative degree, while women only account for 37%. You have likely encountered the recent movement encouraging more women to study and work in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) where they are underrepresented. The data reflects this same underrepresentation in our elite marketers from an educational standpoint.
However, women make up 56% of the Elite Marketers in our study, so while women may skew away from quantitative fields today, it clearly does not impede their ability to ‘represent’ when it comes to leading marketing for high-growth, consumer startups.
5. Top Marketers with an MBA are Less likely to Move Jobs Frequently
Among our MBA grads, 59% have been at 3 or fewer companies in the last 10 years. Of our top marketers without an MBA, 42% have been at 3 or fewer companies in the last 10 years. When earning your MBA as a professional, the company you work for sometimes sponsors your degree in exchange for a commitment, and perhaps this promotes longer tenures. Or perhaps it is as simple as those without an MBA are more inclined to move companies in an effort to further their careers vs investing in an advanced degree.
Regardless, for fast-growing companies looking for their next marketing leader to stick around, they should first look at each candidate’s employment history directly for red flags like multiple short stints under 18 months. But all things being equal, the data suggests that top marketers with an MBA will usually be less likely to leave quickly.
6. Fewer Elite Marketers are coming from Top Schools or Earning Their MBAs, but More are Graduating with a Quantitative Degree
Among the top marketers in our study with over 26 years experience (the oldest generation among our elite marketers), an overwhelming 65% of them attended one of the top 28 schools in the country. Of our remaining top marketers with 6 to 25 years experience, only 45% are graduates from top universities, including 46% within our youngest cohort – 6 to 10 years experience. The data suggests that a top university education is becoming less common in top marketers at fast-growing tech companies than it once was.
Our data also shows that only 27% of top marketers with 6-10 years of experience have an MBA and only 29% of those with 11-15 years. Compare that to 43% of those with 16 years or more experience, and you’ll notice there is clearly a difference between generations. Is it possible that the younger generation just hasn’t yet earned an MBA but still plans on it? We think not. Most MBA students fall between 5-9 years of professional experience6, so if they haven’t already gotten an MBA by the time they hit 11 years experience, they probably won’t.
Lastly, 37% of all of the elite marketers in our study had a quantitative degree, while a staggering 55% of all elite marketers with under 11 years of experience have one. As a leading executive search firm for some of the fastest-growing tech companies in the country, we are seeing more and more companies turn to Performance and Growth Marketers to lead their marketing efforts, leaning more heavily into the science of marketing, since marketing channels are increasingly more measurable.
Considering the upcoming generation of marketing leaders are increasingly quantitative, coming from universities without top names, and less inclined to earn an MBA, hiring managers and recruiters should be sure their hiring tactics are reflecting the times.
As the educational diversity of our top marketers suggests, there is no single academic path that will predict success in elite marketers at high-growth, consumer-focused tech companies. However, every role requires its own unique set of skills and experience, which hiring managers and recruiters need to meticulously define.
Perhaps certain educational indicators above may assist in finding the perfect match for any given role, or even help the young and aspiring marketing leaders of tomorrow, develop their own academic roadmaps today. Education alone however cannot identify or predict a successful marketing leader. In upcoming articles, we explore more areas including career experience, functional expertise, and even gender for implications into how fast-growing tech companies can find and hire their next great marketing leader.
Our Full Article Series Includes:
If you are interested in our next articles in this series, please follow RevelOne on LinkedIn.
Methodology
We identified the most senior marketing leaders at over 100 of the highest growth tech companies in the US.
How we determined the companies: The fastest-growing tech startups included in our study had to meet several key requirements. Companies had to be funded by a top tier VC (see list below), be a consumer-focused business, have an employee count between 100 and 5000, and have been identified as a “unicorn” ($1 billion or greater valuation) or be a “successful, high growth company” in one of the following publications: CB Insights and Fast Company 50 Future Unicorns, CNBC Disruptor 50 Companies, Forbes 25: Next Billion-Dollar Startups, Forbes Midas List, or raised $50 million or more in funding within the last 3 years per Crunchbase.
How we identified the marketing leader: The most senior marketing leader within each company was identified based on title. They had to be in a marketing role, must be located in the US, and must have a CMO, VP, SVP, EVP, Head of, Sr Director, or Director title.
How we conducted the analysis: Crunchbased was utilized for public company status, funding VCs and funding amounts. Company and marketers’ linkedin profiles were analyzed to determine company employee count, consumer focus, most senior marketers in an organization, location, titles, education, gender, work experience, years of experience, current role details, and career focus.
List of Top Tier VCs: Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer V Partners, Founders Fund, GGV Capital, Institutional Venture Partners, Greylock Partners, Battery Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Norwest Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Spark Capital, Lightspeed Venture partners
List of Top 28 Universities: Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, University of Chicago, MIT, Duke, UPenn, Wharton, Brown, UC Berkeley, Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern, Cornell, Cal Tech, Johns Hopkins, UVA, Dartmouth, NYU, Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Vanderbilt, Wash University, Michigan.
References
About RevelOne
RevelOne is a leading marketing advisory and recruiting firm. We do 300+ searches a year in Marketing and Go-to-Market roles from C-level on down for some of the most recognized names in tech. For custom org design, role scoping, and retained search, contact us.
As the #1 marketing specialized retained search firm in the US, RevelOne is often asked by our clients how to accurately identify, or even predict, elite marketing talent. We believe identifying and hiring the right candidates takes marketing expertise and hard work, but to better address this challenge, we turned to the data.
We recently conducted a study analyzing over 100 Elite B2C Marketing Executives at high growth, consumer-focused tech companies in the U.S. to understand the skills, experience, attributes, and backgrounds that separate them from the rest. To be considered an “Elite Marketer,” you have to be the Marketing department leader at a company backed by a top tier VC that has achieved or is fast approaching “unicorn” status. For each marketing leader of these outstanding start-ups, we analyzed their LinkedIn profiles for the traits that led to their success (more details on the methodology can be found at the end of this article.)
In a 6-part article series, we will dispel myths, share interesting findings from our research, discuss key takeaways, and explore if predictive indicators exist to identify who will be the most successful marketers. Below are an initial 5 findings from our research.
The top 28 universities in the US produced 49% of the Elite Marketers in our study. So clearly, top universities have historically produced far more than their share, as only 6.25% of the 4,000 colleges and universities in the US produced basically half of the top tech B2C marketers in our study. That said, 51% did not attend a top university, indicating a top school is not required to be an elite marketer. In addition, our study also showed that only 38% of the top marketers on our list have an MBA.
So, while it may be common practice for employers to require a prestigious university on a resume, or be biased towards individuals with an MBA, the data suggests this practice may cause them to overlook a large set of Elite Marketers. From a talent acquisition perspective, many hiring managers might be using top universities and MBAs as screening criteria, we would recommend casting a wider net considering candidates who meet your skills, experience and cultural fit requirements.
Of all the Elite Marketers in our study, 75% have previous experience working at a public company. That surprised us. At first, the correlation between experience at a large, public company and success at a high growth startup may not make sense. However, these large corporations thoroughly vet employees before hiring them, invest in their skills development, offer structured training, and provide valuable peer networks available to tap for expertise on demand. All these elements create the opportunity for marketers to develop specialization and depth of expertise in a given function, to move between roles easily gaining additional experience, and access to a sea of experts from other disciplines and functions to learn from and grow. That type of experience is arming top marketers with an arsenal of best practices, and firsthand experience of what long term success looks like.
It is also notable that 43% of our elite marketers worked at a marketing agency at some point in their career. This is higher than many would expect. The data suggests while a mix of in-house and agency experience may be common, it is not critical. Marketers who have spent time within an agency gain experience working with many different clients, projects and situations. Interestingly, only one of our top marketers worked at a marketing agency immediately before their current leadership position.
From our experience doing over 600 retained searches in Marketing and go-to-market roles over the past few years, the most successful hires have demonstrated success previously in a similar stage or size company. While most of our top marketers have public companies experience, we don’t think this should become a requirement for top marketing searches at VC-backed tech companies, especially early to mid-stage growth companies. We encourage tech startups to stay focused on the functional skills and experience they require and concentrate on candidates with previous success at companies of a similar size or stage.
A surprising 39% of Elite Marketers have never left a company in under 18 months. And, 68% have been at all but potentially one of their roles for at least 18 months throughout their career. Job-hopping just doesn’t seem to be in their DNA.
Whether their longer tenures are due to their success and retention in a role, their own desire to see their work through, or other reasons, our analysis doesn’t reveal. We can speculate, however, that some shorter stints are driven by positive outcomes, such as an acquisition. We can also speculate that some shorter stints are likely beyond a marketer’s control, like challenges with company funding, lack of product-market fit, or even personal reasons outside of work altogether. Some marketers in growth companies also may enjoy earlier growth phases and choose to move in order to build somewhere else.
Only 16% of the elite marketers in our study have been at 3 or more jobs for less than an 18-month period. From our work with clients, we see that one short tenure is not uncommon, and two may be acceptable if the candidate has a good explanation for them, but it’s worth digging in carefully when candidates have 3 or more short stints.
Top marketers whose careers have spanned a variety of marketing disciplines (a “marketing generalist”) accounted for 51% of the elite leaders in our study. Marketers with a career strongly focused on specific marketing disciplines, like performance marketing, brand/comms, and product marketing (“marketing specialists”), accounted for 49%. For an elite marketer to successfully oversee the strategy and execution of all marketing initiatives – ranging from customer acquisition, retention, brand, communications/PR, and analytics – one might think a more diverse marketing background would be required. The data demonstrates otherwise. Those who have specialized in a more focused discipline, are just as capable to be an elite leader at a high-growth start-up as their more diversified counterparts. Great leaders lean on specialists on their team in areas they don’t know quite as well.
However, their particular areas of specialization may matter. Brand/Communications and Performance marketers made up 72% of our total specialized leaders (37% and 35%, respectively). Implying while specialization in a certain marketing discipline may still prove them capable, the specialty itself significantly matters. Few of the top specialized marketers were CRM/Lifecycle or Product Marketing specialists (2% and 10%, respectively).
In total, an impressive 86% of our entire elite marketer set come from either a general marketing background or have specialized in Brand/Communication or Performance marketing specifically. Considering some in our study have a background outside these three areas, we believe marketers with other backgrounds should not be discounted. But if fast-growing tech companies are struggling to narrow down their candidate search criteria, looking for one of these three types of backgrounds in their next marketing leader would be a great approach.
Women accounted for 56% of the Elite Marketers in our study. Compared to the US adult population in which women account for 51%1, and the US college graduates in which women account for 56%2, women are proportionately well represented when it comes to leading marketing for the country’s fastest-growing and successful tech startups.
However, one finding implies things may not be so equal. Only 34% of women top marketers have a C-level title (i.e., Chief Marketing Officer or Chief Growth Officer), while 63% of their male counterparts have C-level titles.
Perhaps this could be explained by the fact that women top marketers in our study are younger? 70% of women top marketers have less than 20 years of experience, compared with 46% of men top marketers.
So, we wanted to normalize for years of experience.
For the top marketers with less than 20 years of experience, 24% of women have a C-level title, while 52% of their male counterparts have one. This is a similar disparity to our first finding.
We also looked at our more experienced top marketers with 21 years or more of experience – which represent 40% of our top marketers in this study. Only 59% of women with 21+ years of experience have a C-level title vs. 72% of the men. Women are under-represented in the C suite even at this more experienced level. Combine this with an article by Business Insider stating that on average women executives make only 89% of what their male counterparts bring home, and one wonders if the title gap may be reflective of the same phenomenon happening in compensation.
Additional research on our top female marketing VPs could uncover if their executive team peers are also VP level, indicating an even playing field for all CEO direct reports. Or, if our top female marketing VPs are more likely to report to a COO or other C-level positions making a C-level title less likely.
Our arms-length analysis of the data doesn’t provide the reasons for the disparities, or insights into the minds of the hiring managers, but we certainly hope there is not a bias toward withholding C-level titles from women.
There are so many interesting findings from this analysis by gender, that we’ll be devoting an entire article to this subject in the near future. Stay tuned for much more on this important topic.
The above findings are just a few of the high-level insights our data has uncovered. To share even more of our findings, including deep dives into key areas, we will be sharing more of our research and takeaways over the course of several articles, while focusing on a few key topics:
Then, with our 6th and final article, we’ll wrap up the series with highlights and the implications of the study.
We hope these insights will help hiring managers understand the skills, experience, attributes and backgrounds of the top marketing leaders in tech. We also hope that, in many cases, these findings have predictive value and can help to identify the next generation of CMOs. By identifying the critical underlying skills required for success, we believe this study can broaden the pool of qualified candidates for important roles beyond the same repeating set of “top marketers” most employers go after and further assist with diversity efforts.
If you are interested in our next articles in this series, please follow RevelOne on LinkedIn.
RevelOne is the #1 marketing specialized retained search firm in the US. Our mission is to accelerate our clients’ growth by partnering with company leaders to turn their marketing goals into actionable talent strategies — we do this by hiring the best marketers at all levels — while sharing the knowledge and data we gain along the way to help hiring managers and marketers make better decisions.
Methodology
We identified the most senior marketing leaders at over 100 of the highest growth tech companies in the US.
How we determined the companies: The fastest-growing tech startups included in our study had to meet several key requirements. Companies had to be funded by a top tier VC (see list below), be a consumer-focused business, have an employee count between 100 and 5000, and have been identified as a “unicorn” ($1 billion or greater valuation) or be a “successful, high growth company” in one of the following publications: CB Insights and Fast Company 50 Future Unicorns, CNBC Disruptor 50 Companies, Forbes 25: Next Billion Dollar Startups, Forbes Midas List, or raised $50 million or more in funding within the last 2 years per Crunchbase.
How we identified the marketing leader: The most senior marketing leader within each company was identified based on title. They had to be in a marketing role, must be located in the US, and must have a CMO, VP, SVP, EVP, Head of, Sr Director, or Director title.
How we conducted the analysis: Crunchbase was utilized for public company status, funding VCs, and funding amounts. Company and marketers’ LinkedIn profiles were analyzed to determine company employee count, consumer focus, most senior marketers in an organization, location, titles, education, gender, work experience, years of experience, current role details, and career focus.
List of Top Tier VCs: Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer V Partners, Founders Fund, GGV Capital, Institutional Venture Partners, Greylock Partners, Battery Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Norwest Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Spark Capital, Lightspeed Venture partners
List of Top 28 Universities: Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, University of Chicago, MIT, Duke, UPenn, Wharton, Brown, UC Berkeley, Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern, Cornell, Cal Tech, Johns Hopkins, UVA, Dartmouth, NYU, Amherst, Williams, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Vanderbilt, Wash University, Michigan.
References
About RevelOne
RevelOne is a leading marketing advisory and recruiting firm. We do 300+ searches a year in Marketing and Go-to-Market roles from C-level on down for some of the most recognized names in tech. For custom org design, role scoping, and retained search, contact us.
