What future executive role should I be shooting for as a Product Marketing Manager if you don't want to be a CMO?

Product Marketing is an interesting role because it puts you at the intersection of so many different functions, allowing you to "run the business". Outside of CMO, a couple other logical steps I've seen PMMs take are Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) or General Manager (GM).Chief Revenue Officer is the most interesting of the bunch because it puts you at the center of all revenue growth. Most of the time, you would find a sales leader occupying this role, but I have seen several with a strong product ...Read More

I think the first question to ask yourself is, do you actually want to be an executive? After that, you should also ask yourself what an “executive” means to you. It turns out that a lot of people feel like they should be shooting to be in the C-suite without actually knowing if they want to be in the C-suite. From my understanding, it’s elite at the top but the air is pretty thin. It’s stressful work, and your neck is on the line when things go poorly. I've decided this is something that I want ...Read More

I have to partly disagree with Mike--PMM can be an excellent path to CRO/GM/President or to CEO, albeit with stops in between. I know people in the Valley who have this progression. Typically after succeeding as a PMM they take on responsibility for managing sales, and can then own the P&L for a business. I think PMM is good preparation for these executive roles because it's strategic, customer-facing, and concerned with driving revenue. There's a motto I've heard occasionally that "Marketin ...Read More

Depending how you work your career, you could easily aim for a CPO role (Chief Product Officer). You may have to spend a few years as a product manager - but as a PMM, you and your PM should be two hands of the same body. Everything my PMs do and know, I know as a PMM - I don't get into the engineering side, but I can. My PM can step into my shoes if they need to cover for me, and I could step into my PM's shoes if I had to cover for them - that relationship is extremely important to me.   So if ...Read More

I found this chart from Payscale interesting, and echoes what Mike said - CMO is the executive-level role that most closely aligns with the PMM role. The chart shows Career Paths for PMM (it's in the middle of the page, so keep scrolling down) Having said that, just because that's what everyone has been doing doesn't mean you can't aim for CRO/GM roles, assuming you're willing to put in the work and willing to take a pay cut (sometimes) when making the lateral move (e.g. from PMM to Director of ...Read More

None. The only C suite job PMM prepares you for is CMO. More accurately, a Director/VP PMM job where you lead a team and work at the executive team level prepares you for a CMO job.    If you want to be a COO, get a job in ops. CRO, get a job in sales. CTO? Better become an engineer. But don't expect a PMM job to magically make you qualified for any of those.    Being an executive is extremely stressful and incredibly difficult. It requires passion and dedication. You can't just "shoot for" an e ...Read More