How to handle executive misalignment between CMO and the rest of the c-suite?

This is a question I see a lot in coaching and onboarding calls. Here’s my breakdown

Most CMO misalignment comes from one root cause. The CMO shows up as a department lead defending a function, while the rest of the C-suite wants an executive running the business. In coaching CMOs, the theme I hear most is that your job is to be a company executive first and a department leader second.

You sit in the C-suite to represent business needs, and those needs will often beat your team's needs.

The gap usually opens when the CMO hasn't set the right guardrails and the department ends up chasing poorly thought-through KPIs and disconnected OKRs.

» You can read more about the CMO vs CGO debate and CMO executive presence

Here's how I recommend addressing this in order.

1. Work out what kind of misalignment it is

Before you act, find out where the problem sits: with you, with the team, or with the goals that were set. A lot of the time it's less about how you run your team and more about your relationships with your peers and your boss (founder, CEO or COO). I also look for skill gaps that are hurting you. Many department leads hire to cover their own gaps and then explain those hires badly to their peers, which creates friction and often means those hires leave.

Read more about my CMO advisory to dive in further

2. Settle the ownership lines

Marketing is an easy target for blame. If someone wants to pick holes in it, they can find 20 things to question any day of the year. Most CMOs struggle because nobody has agreed where the handovers sit. In B2C, marketing brings people in, product takes over on site, and then CRM picks the customer back up.

That handover is usually informal, and nobody quite understands it.

I recommend a RACI-style map for the whole business with three levels: ownership, co-ownership and collaboration. Without that map, nobody knows who is accountable, and marketing gets blamed for outcomes it doesn't control.

» Watch my rundown in more detail and a deeper dive in CMO exec presence rundown

3. Get your peers onside before the meeting

Hold weekly one-to-ones with the CFO, COO and CPO so their concerns come up in private and never in front of the CEO. That way a side question can't derail your update. If you report into a COO or CRO, you'll need regular skip-level time with the CEO and CFO to build direct trust. When Harry Lang and I talked this through on our podcast, he admitted he'd got it wrong in the past by treating these meetings as "needless." He came to see that his job is to make sure his team isn't dismissed because he hasn't communicated well enough with his peers.

» Read more about the evolution of the CMO role

4. Make the CFO your closest ally and speak their language

The CFO often has the final yes or no. Nobody in the C-suite cares about engagement rates. Start with revenue, margin, CAC, LTV and market position, then show how your marketing metrics roll up into those numbers. If you lead with marketing metrics, you lose credibility.

I've watched brand-first CMOs get flustered when asked for CAC, and they lose the room instantly.

One of my first-30-day moves is to agree on a shared definition of marketing success with the CFO.

» Go deeper on how marketing leaders should navigate office politics and ruthless C-Suite‍ ‍

5. Build your PQ (political intelligence)

I hear "I don't play the game" all the time. The game carries on whether you play or not, and the colleague you keep clashing with usually has the trust of your peers and your boss. Don’t play the game and you will be played out of the business!

Map where formal and informal power sits, which metrics actually move the room, and which colleagues are competing with you for the same parts of the customer journey. You don't have to like the politics. You do have to see them clearly and take part on purpose.

6. Stop defending and over-explaining

I've seen this many times. The marketer feels cornered and starts over-explaining, the leadership team exchange looks, and the CEO moves on from "the marketing complain and explain" again.

When the C-suite digs into channel-level detail, it usually means they don't fully trust you. Walk in with a plan: what you'll do, where the money goes and what it will deliver. Share updates in threes, bring solutions and backup plans, and write an exec summary if you're unsure.

7. Market marketing internally

Proactive internal reporting is a lost art in many marketing departments. Bring stakeholders into planning early, share key decisions and milestones, and add a "why" section to strategy documents. Then people outside marketing understand the reasoning, and you get fewer last-minute "quick fix" requests.

» Read my dedicated newsletter on selling the marketing dream to non marketers

8. Earn trust quickly with visible wins

Trust follows impact. My 90-day CMO plan opens with 3 moves:

- Cut or fix the bottom 20% of spend.

- Agree the shared success definition with the CFO.

- Walk into the next board meeting with a cleaner, simpler story.

To be fair to CMOs, misalignment rarely runs one way. Many CEOs, especially founder-led ones, treat marketing as a lead-gen service and expect instant results, and that is 95% unrealistic and dangerous thinking.

The CMO can't wait for them to change their minds, though. If the misalignment carries on, the business often makes the decision for you: the title gets swapped for CGO or VP, or the marketing lead ends up one or two steps removed from the CEO.

Before your next ELT or board meeting, map who holds formal and informal power, book time with your CFO, and cut your update down to three metrics-backed points with a clear recommendation.

Is the misalignment with one person, such as the CEO or CFO, or with the whole leadership team? I can go deeper on whichever relationship is causing the most friction.

Short Explainer: Executive misalignment between a CMO and the rest of the C-suite often stems from the CMO acting as a department defender rather than a business leader. To bridge this gap, CMOs must prioritise overall business needs above their own team's metrics, establish clear guardrails, and ensure their department's KPIs and OKRs are directly connected to the company's broader goals.