If you're looking to become the next CMO, your career path may have a few twists and turns.
Just ask Gary Briggs. Facebook's chief marketer has a long and varied resume. Since August 2013, Briggs has served as CMO of Facebook, but earlier in his career he worked for global brands, including McKinsey and Company, PepsiCo, and IBM. He joined Google in 2010, leading marketing efforts for the brand. Before that, he worked at eBay for eight years in such roles as vice-president of consumer marketing, general manager of eBay Canada, global marketing head of PayPal, and CMO of eBay North America. In fact, in his 19-year career path to CMO of Facebook, he has held 12 positions at 11 companies.
You couldn't ask for a more dissimilar path in the case of for IBM's Jon Iwata, who joined IBM in 1984 and has been there ever since. He was appointed vice-president of corporate communications in 1995 and senior vice-president of communications in 2002. He assumed his current role as senior vice-president of marketing and communications on July 1, 2008. Iwata has been core to how IBM has been understood in the world and to the creation of the company's strategic points of view on business and technology.
Of course, many other paths to the C-suite exist. Some journeys to the top are more unpredictable than others are
See, below, how some of the world's top tech CMOs got to their position. Identify the similarities in their career paths such as education, background, companies they have worked at, and how long it took them to reach CMO.
The path to tech CMO gives you the opportunity to understand how to position yourself during your career and to develop skills needed to reach the same successes as these CMOs. Check out the infographic by Ecard Shack.
