CEO hires CMO and lets her do Marketing her way. CMO clueless.
CMO thought she was hired to follow orders, like every other SaaS company.
6 months into the job, Amrita Kartik realized that the CEO has not meddled in any of her projects as of yet. She was taken by absolute surprise.
As per her network, she was told that the CEOs do not allow CMOs to function independently, so there’s no point in knowing how marketing works anyway. And she found herself at a place where she was expected to do her job, as per definition.
“I thought I just had to hire people that my CEO wants, give them the tasks that my CEO wants, fire the people that my CEO wants, and morph the KPIs while fighting with the Sales head. I never knew a CMO also had to do marketing. This is an absolute surprise.” Amrita added while being disappointed at her CEO.
“I don’t know marketing. I don’t know how to code. I don’t know Ops. That’s the main reason why I am the CEO. If the world doesn’t get it, I am just ahead of the curve. I hire smart people and prove them to be dumber than me, to show the board I am the smartest. That’s how it works.” Philip John, the CEO with sunglasses, as he is known in the SaaS circles of India, remarked.
We think it’s high time that the playbook of a SaaS CMO is revised and Marketing is added as a KRA, even if a minor one.