Customer-centric, Tech-enabled: The New Face of Activation & Growth Leaders

In the face of volatility on all fronts, connecting with customers to grow businesses has never been harder. In 2025, companies are finally embracing the evolution of go-to-market leaders into Customer Activation and Growth leaders (CAG)—realizing they need to seamlessly bring marketing and technology closer together to activate their customers and drive results. This has created evolving growth roles within organizations and a new remit for marketing-oriented leaders.

Starting in 2020, Russell Reynolds Associates began tracking global Customer Activation and Growth leadership hires across all industries to provide a greater understanding of CAG trends within the context of rapid digitalization, changing consumer behaviors, and heightened emphasis on data-driven strategies.

This report shares findings gleaned from the 14,000+ publicly disclosed CAG leadership appointments tracked over the last five years. These learnings include:

• Title vs Remit: The CMO role isn’t going away—but the focus is evolving
• Men hold the majority of CAG leadership roles—and current trends suggest this is poised to continue
• Industry activity is experiencing growth in unexpected places
• Internal promotions are slow—organizations are looking externally for new expertise

Title vs Remit: The CMO is not going away—but the focus is evolving

Click bait articles tout the end of the CMO as we know it. However, when reframing the remit as a c-suite role that can “activate customers and grow businesses,” we don’t believe there is marketing devaluation–instead, we see an evolution of organizations’ overall approach to connecting with customers.

The chief marketing officer (CMO) role continues to be a cornerstone of customer activation and growth, with 1,215 seats filled in 2024 – 24% of all CAG roles placed globally (Figure 1). However, we saw a decrease of 28% in CMO placements in 2023.

This shift is counterbalanced by a surge in appointments for chief sales officers (up 58% since 2023), chief growth officers (up 27%), and chief revenue officers (up 17%). This trend signifies a strategic pivot toward roles focused on bottom-line outcomes, underscoring a robust demand for growth leadership.

Figure 1: Top CAG role appointments (2022-2024)

_{Source: RRA proprietary "CAG Moves Analysis," 2020-2024, n=18,883}

There are multiple factors contributing to the evolving CMO role.

As organizations face added pressure to deliver on the bottom line, CAG leaders have adapted to support board directives and aggressive CEO growth strategies. This is likely why we’ve seen an increase in roles that are focused on the bottom-line: as shown in Figure 1, CSO, CCO and CRO appointments are all on the rise.

Functions that were formerly included in a CMO’s mandate are now being pulled into unique roles with new KPIs. This includes everything from branding and storytelling to technology and digital transformation roles.

Marketing leaders can still find success by shifting their career path expectations. Don’t be obsessed with title –be obsessed with remit. Consumer-centric and tech-enabled roles are plentiful, but evolving. A focus on results-driven growth with the bottom-line in mind is increasingly valuable to organizations across all industries.

Men hold the majority of CAG leadership roles—and current trends suggest this is poised to continue

While it’s well established that women leaders account for less of the C-suite than men—holding only 29% of the leadership roles in the S&P 100—the CMO role has historically been considered an exception in which parity has been achieved. However, when we view the entire CAG function, we encounter a less balanced story. For the first time since 2020, the share of CAG women leader appointments dropped below 30% (Figure 2).

Figure 2: CAG appointments - Men vs women (2020-2024)

_{Source: RRA proprietary "CAG Moves Analysis," 2020-2024, n=18,883}

The chief marketing office role remained the closest to gender parity in 2024—with women holding 49% of these roles globally. While this follows a multi-year trend, it may spell trouble for women’s overall CAG representation in the long-term, as the CMO role continues to evolve.

Importantly, the CAG roles experiencing the fastest growth are the roles more likely to be held by men. Men dominate chief revenue (86% of 2024 appointments), chief sales (82%), chief product (80%), chief commercial (83%) and chief digital (82%) officer roles (Figure 3). These roles account for about half the overall CAG leadership population, and explain why—despite gender parity in the CMO role—male CAG leaders were appointed at a higher rate than women last year.

There are a few exceptions to this imbalance. Women accounted for 46% chief experience officer appointments in 2024. And there were two CAG roles where women outnumbered men - the chief communications officer (comprised of 61% women vs. 39% men) and the chief brand officers (53% women vs. 47%men); as well as chief marketing officers.

Figure 3: 2024 CAG role appointments by gender

_{Source: RRA proprietary "CAG Moves Analysis," 2020-2024, n=18,883}

Despite performing alongside their male counterparts,  proactive succession planning, and a forensic understanding of women leaders’ differing motivators on their journey to the top, women leaders are still underrepresented around the entire C-suite. CAG leadership is no exception. As organizations search for more bottom-line focused roles that men are more likely to hold, the CAG gender gap may continue to grow. 

Industry activity is experiencing growth in unexpected places

Customer activation and growth roles are prevalent in almost all industries and market segments. However, two industries consistently grow their CAG function, and account for more than half of CAG appointments globally: technology (35%) and consumer (26%) (Figure 4).

Figure 4: 2023 vs 2024 CAG appointments by industry

_{Source: RRA proprietary "CAG Moves Analysis," 2020-2024, n=18,883}

While the industrial and natural resources (“INR”) industry only represents 16% of overall CAG roles, it’s experiencing the fastest growth – up 37% in the last year. This is likely due to several factors: private capital’s new and growing interest in INR businesses; implementing MarTech platforms to create stronger connections with sales; and more aggressive growth goals.

Chief commercial officer, chief sales officer and chief marketing officer were the most popular titles in the space (Figure 5), indicating a need to solidify the connection between marketing and sales where organizations have long buyers’ journeys.

Figure 5: 2024 CAG INR roles by title

_{Source: RRA proprietary "CAG Moves Analysis," 2020-2024, n=18,883}

Internal promotions slow as organizations look externally for new expertise

While the broader C-suite is trending towards internal hires—with RRA’s CEO Turnover Index finding that 73% of all incoming CEO were promoted internally in 2024—customer activation and growth roles are still most likely to go to external candidates (Figure 6).

Figure 6: 2020-2024 CAG internal vs external placements

_{Source: RRA proprietary "CAG Moves Analysis," 2020-2024, n=18,883}

Within that, our data shows that a significant 80% of chief revenue officers and 76% chief sales officers come from outside the organization (Figure 7).

This is likely because CAG leaders are typically tasked with injecting new energy into a business—CEOs often look to these leaders to bring new perspectives that will lead to new growth and customer acquisitions, which often leads them to looking externally. Also, given the range of roles under the CAG umbrella, CAG leaders often have a one in five chance (or less!) in getting the top CAG role in their organization – meaning there are even more leaders looking for roles externally.

One exception? Chief customer officers. These leaders are most often internally appointed, as they need a deep knowledge of engaging and maintaining the company’s current customer, along with acquiring new ones. Who better than someone who’s already embedded in the business, familiar with the customer and the strategic direction of the organization?

Figure 7: 2024 CAG internal vs external placements by title

_{Source: RRA proprietary "CAG Moves Analysis," 2020-2024, n=18,883}

What does this mean for CAG Leaders in 2025?

CAG leaders have an opportunity to create bottom-line value for their organizations by championing digital transformation, AI adoption and data-driven, customer-centric growth strategies. This influence is increasingly valued by their C-suite counterparts and board leaders. As the dynamics of a tech-enabled landscape evolve, there is an opportunity for CAG leaders to expand their influence.

To achieve this, CAG leaders will need to work closely with their enterprise-wide counterparts, especially on the technology side of the organization. Relationship building in areas of shared accountability can provide the foundation needed to drive enterprise growth efficiently and effectively.

The next generation of CAG leaders should keep an open mind in terms of title and focus on organizational impact. Recognizing that the approach to customer-centric growth strategies can live under a variety of titles and remits. Opportunity and influence are available for those that are willing to concentrate on the bottom line.

Authors

TR Straub leads Russell Reynolds Associates’ North American Customer Activation & Growth and Global Corporate Affairs practices. He is based in Washington, DC.
Norm Yustin leads Russell Reynolds Associates’ Global Customer Activation & Growth and Global Omnichannel Retail and Luxury practices. He is based in Chicago.
Amanda Callahan leads Russell Reynolds Associates’ Global Customer Activation & Growth Knowledge team. She is based in Chicago.