Your Board is Missing the One Person Who Actually Understands Growth
- Erik Emanuelsson
- May 6
- 3 min read
Updated: Jun 11
TL;DR - Key Takeaways
Boards are outdated: Over 90% of SMEs and ~92% of Fortune 1000 companies lack board members with senior marketing or growth expertise—leaving them blind to how customers think, convert, and stay
Senior marketers do more than ads: Today's marketing leaders manage tech stacks, customer journeys, ROI models, and brand trust—critical levers that finance/legal-heavy boards often miss
Growth accelerates with marketing DNA: Firms that add marketing-savvy directors see ~6 percentage points more revenue growth—they bring experimentation, customer insight, and market agility at the board level
The role of marketing has both changed and widened.
Thirty years ago, marketers handled logos, brochures, and maybe the occasional TV ad. Their core responsibility was "creatives"—important, but not so near the core of business strategy for many companies.
Fast forward to 2025, and that same department is now running your tech stack, tracking customer behavior across five platforms, owning a chunk of your sales funnel, and obsessing over how to make your product sticky enough to drive repeat revenue.
So why are most company boards still built like it’s 1995?
The Stats Are Brutal
Despite all the talk about “digital transformation” and “customer-first thinking,” fewer than 10% of small and mid-sized companies (50–1000 employees) in Europe or the US have someone with senior marketing experience on their board.
The facts:
100% of boards have someone with a finance background.
Only 2–10% have someone who’s actually responsible for driving demand and growth.
Even in the Fortune 1000, only around 8% of boards include a marketing leader. That means roughly 92% are making strategic decisions without anyone who really understands how customers think, click, convert—or leave.
Marketing ≠ Just Google Ads
Let’s be clear: today’s senior marketers aren’t just pushing out campaigns. They’re managing martech stacks, building revenue attribution models, designing customer journeys, and aligning closely with sales and product teams.
They’re often the only ones inside the business who truly own the full view of the customer—from the first impression to post-sale loyalty.
Not having that voice in the boardroom? That’s a liability.
What Boards Need to Wake Up To
If you’re building or sitting on a board right now, here’s what you should be thinking:
Do we have anyone who can question digital strategy intelligently?
Can our board evaluate customer acquisition costs, lifetime value, or brand risk?
Are we investing in marketing like it’s a cost—or a growth lever?
If you answered “no” or “not really,” then your board isn’t future-proof.
What Happens When You Fix It
Companies that bring marketing brains into the boardroom tend to grow faster. One study found that revenue growth increased by nearly 6 percentage points when a marketing-experienced director was on the board.
That’s not because marketers are magic. It’s because they bring a set of skills most boards simply don’t have:
Deep customer insight
Comfort with experimentation and iteration
Strategic thinking rooted in market dynamics
An eye for brand trust (and how fast you can lose it)
Plus, in a world where generative AI, changing consumer expectations, and new platforms emerge every few months, having someone who gets that complexity is no longer optional.
So What Now?
Here’s what forward-thinking companies are doing:
Auditing their boards for gaps in customer and digital experience
Inviting CMOs, growth leaders, or product marketers to join as directors
Treating marketing not as an afterthought—but as the engine room of growth
It’s not about replacing finance or legal expertise. It’s about adding balance—and making sure the voice of the customer is heard at the very top.
Final words
I am sure your board is full of smart people. But if none of them speak marketing, you're flying blind in a market that’s all about speed, relevance, and customer trust.
Time to fix that ;)
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