An observation in CMO departures across Big Food: What looks like “sudden exits” is usually months in the making.
Here’s what I keep seeing across global food and beverage clients and conversations with boards and operators.
It isn’t one thing. It’s four things stacking at once.
→ Investor clock vs operating clock. Boards want exit-level stories on a quarterly cadence while brand effects, retailer resets, and innovation gates compound over 6 to 24 months. That gap turns CMOs into shock absorbers.
→ Accountability without control. Many CMOs are on the hook for revenue and mix, yet price, pack, promo depth, assortment, and trade terms sit with other functions. When the P&L wobbles, marketing pays the bill.
→ Retail media whiplash. Massive RMN budgets with thin measurement create noisy “wins” that don’t hold up to incrementality. When the readouts change, confidence wobbles and trust erodes.
→ Mandates that start at month 12. New leaders inherit org design debt, agency sprawl, and patchy data. They need a quarter to baseline and a quarter to fix plumbing, but the narrative expects a turnaround by Q2.
Common precursors before the headline
→ A “marketing strategy” that is really a media plan. No value creation thesis across price, pack, channel, and demand.
→ No clear owner for lifecycle, retail media, or measurement. Everyone is a generalist.
→ Promotions buying volume while killing mix.
→ Shadow advisory quietly auditing CAC, incrementality, and test velocity to inform a keep, augment, or upgrade decision.
The category context making it harder
→ Private label pressure and retailer power shifting margin math.
→ Fragmented attention and rising creative costs to cut through.
→ Consumption shifts that don’t care about board calendars, from wellness trends to new usage occasions.
→ Innovation reality. Concept to shelf in Big Food is often 12 to 24 months, even when you do everything right.
If the CMO owns the growth number, give them joint authority on price, pack, promo depth, and retail media. Fund capability, not theater. Lifecycle CRM, creative testing, MMM or equivalent evidence, retail media discipline. Under-resourced turnarounds create six-month CMOs.
If you are the sitting CMO
→ Own the baseline before someone else presents it. CAC, payback, promo depth, and what you will stop doing this week.
→ Bring a two-quarter ladder. One hygiene fix, one capability hire, two sharp tests with clear success criteria.
→ Separate brand and performance goals and tie both to penetration, repeat, and contribution, not vanity reach.
→ Curiosity reads as coachable. Defensiveness reads as replaceable.
This is about aligning clocks, giving leaders real levers, and resourcing the system you actually expect to work. When that happens, departures slow down and momentum compounds.
What are you seeing in your market. Are CMOs given a mandate or a countdown.
#BigFood #FMCG #CPG