The HEEDGROUP team built this check from what we see most often when a new marketing leader starts: the areas that need focus first. Answer the ten questions below for a quick read on what your new marketing leader will need.
Every CMO search has a quiet cost: the months it takes to find the right fit. While the board interviews candidates, campaigns pause, data drifts, and the function waits for someone to own it. A new leader brings judgment and direction. The positioning, systems, data, and programs they need to deliver results are a separate build, and the search doesn't include it.
Spencer Stuart's CMO Tenure 2026 study found that 62% of departing S&P 500 CMOs were promoted or moved to a similar or bigger role. The best CMOs are builders who keep moving up. Ideally, companies get the most from CMOs when they are able to focus on growth.
Run it with your leadership team. Have two or three people answer separately. Where your answers differ, you have found your first gap.
Start with the area the CMO Search Readiness check flags. CRM and baseline come first when scores tie, because every decision your new leader makes depends on data they can trust.
Share the results with your search firm. Strong candidates ask these exact questions in interviews. Knowing your answers makes the search sharper and the first conversation more honest.
Start with a CRM your teams trust and a baseline of what marketing produces today, by channel. Then agree on positioning, keep one demand program running, and list every tool, vendor, and contract in one place.
Keep at least one program running with tracking in place. A paused function loses pipeline and data, and the new leader inherits the gap.
About two minutes. It is five quick steps with two questions each, answered Yes, Partly, or No, across positioning, CRM, baseline, demand, and the function map. You get a score and the one area to build first.
The check scores five areas from 0 to 2 each: positioning, CRM, baseline, demand, and the function map.
A score of 8 to 10 means your next marketing leader can start on growth.
A score of 5 to 7.5 means they will spend their first two quarters building.
A score under 5 means their first two to three quarters will go to an audit and rebuild, so start building now.
Sources
Spencer Stuart, CMO Tenure 2026: Snapshot of an Expanding Role for Marketing Leaders, January 2026. Analysis of 346 named CMOs at S&P 500 companies as of June 30, 2025, including 218 CMO exits between 2021 and 2025.
Not used, deliberately:
Executive search timeline benchmarks. Recruiter sites put C-suite searches anywhere from nine weeks to twelve months, and none we found publish sample sizes or methods, so we left the number out.
"Half of new executives fail within 18 months." Widely repeated, and we could only find it secondhand, without the original study.