A Fractional CMO, who owns the number
Positioning, the pipeline model and the team that runs it, owned at board level by someone who has done it before at a business this shape. Deliberately not an agency retainer and not a strategy deck. One senior operator accountable for the outcome, with our delivery teams behind them.
Accountable for revenue, not for activity
A Fractional CMO owns four things: the positioning decision and who the business is for, the pipeline model and the assumptions underneath it, the boundary where marketing hands to sales, and what the spend buys across budget, tooling and agencies.
The comparison most people arrive with is an agency, and the distinction is worth being blunt about. An agency executes against a brief you wrote, which means the quality of the outcome is capped by the quality of a decision you were hoping they would make for you. A consultant writes the strategy and leaves before it meets contact with a sales team. This is neither: the accountability for the number sits with the person, and the people who do the work sit behind them.
It is also not a replacement for a marketing manager. It sits above one, and most engagements make that person more effective rather than redundant, because they finally have decisions to execute against instead of guesses to defend.
If more than two of these are true, the spend is covering for something
Pipeline has been short for three quarters, and the response each time has been to spend more.
You can say what a lead costs to acquire, but not what one costs to convert.
Sales and marketing define a qualified lead differently, and the disagreement is older than anyone currently in either team.
The website, the sales deck and the actual conversation describe three different companies.
You have changed agency twice and the problem came with you both times.
Marketing reports impressions, downloads and qualified leads to the board, and nobody in the room can tell whether it worked.
Four areas of ownership, not a retained advisory day
Positioning & Proposition
Owns who the business is for, what it charges and why that holds, and owns getting the answer agreed rather than circulated. This is the decision the rest of the spend is compensating for.
The Pipeline Model & Its Assumptions
Owns the forecast's arithmetic and, more importantly, the assumptions under it: conversion at each stage, cost to win, value once won, and which of those has ever been tested against reality.
The Sales & Marketing Boundary
Owns the handover and the definitions either side of it, including the awkward one about what qualified means. Where the two functions disagree, this role is where the disagreement gets settled.
Spend, Stack and Agencies
Owns what the budget buys: tooling against what is genuinely used, agency and contractor arrangements against what they deliver, and the case for each at renewal rather than after it.
Someone still has to run it
The CMO sets the position and owns the number. Where that turns into defined work, whether a proposition rebuilt and tested, a pipeline model instrumented so the assumptions are visible, a martech stack consolidated or a campaign programme actually run, we take it on through our delivery partners, manage the agencies and suppliers you already have, or run a selection on your behalf. Leadership and delivery are quoted separately, because a blended rate is a quiet incentive to recommend more delivery. If we run the selection, neither we nor our partners can win it. See how we run a selection.
Before you take this to the board
An agency executes against a brief. If the brief rests on a positioning decision nobody has made, the work is capped by that before anyone writes a word, and no agency is well placed to tell you the brief is the problem, because the brief is the engagement. This role owns the decision first and the execution second, and the people doing the execution sit behind it rather than in another company.
No. It sits above them, and most engagements make that person considerably more effective. A capable marketing manager who is being asked to invent the strategy as well as run it is being set up to fail at both. This provides the decisions they execute against, and the board-level accountability that was never theirs to carry.
That is the failure mode to watch for, and it is worth testing us on it. The distinction is whether the person is accountable for the number after the deck is delivered. Ours are, and our delivery teams do the work that follows, which is the same test the better buyers' guides in this market tell you to apply, and it is a fair one.
They overlap at the edges and the edge is worth naming. Who you serve and what you charge are operating-model decisions that happen to be executed by marketing, so a positioning question can turn into a structural one quickly. The COO owns how the business coordinates itself; this role owns how it goes to market. Businesses that need both take both, and we will say which one to start with.
The evidence behind this work
The practice behind this role
The decision under the spend, the 95:5 derivation in full, and where we say marketing is not what is wrong.
See Product & Go-to-MarketSee COO leadership
Where coordination, decision rights and operating model sit: the structural half of the same question.
See how we lead thisProblem before platform
Why a marketing stack gets bought against a problem nobody had defined, and what it costs for years afterwards.
Read the articleTake the Revenue Engine Assessment
Whether the spend is buying growth, or covering for a decision nobody made. Seven areas, rated on screen, with a PDF if you want it.
Start the assessmentTalk to us about the number you own
A short pipeline, an acquisition cost that keeps climbing, or a board that cannot tell what the marketing budget bought. A direct conversation, not a credentials deck.