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

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, but it took some soul-searching before I made that decision. If you decide that an executive role is what you want, you should also think about what level you’re shooting for. Of course, executive usually means the C-suite, but at a large company there are plenty of very high level roles focused just on product marketing, like the VP of Product Marketing or the SVP of Product Marketing.

If you decide that yes, you want to be an executive and no, being a SVP of Product Marketing is not what you want, then there are a few options for you. If you love product, you can chart a course to being the Chief Product Officer. If you make this choice, you’ll need to move into a true PM role and build your career from there. Lots of people move from product marketing to product, and the PMM skillset can help make you a more well-rounded product leader.

Don’t want to go into product but still want to be in the C-suite? Another route you can take is moving into a COO role. If that’s what you’re looking for, it’ll be incredibly important for you to get some operations work under your belt. That can start in marketing ops but you’ll also need to get insight into sales ops and customer ops in order to truly succeed at that role.

Of course, there’s also the option to move into a President or CEO role. As a product marketer, you’re inherently a problem solver so it’s not an implausible jump, but it won’t be a straight shot from PMM to CEO - you’ll likely take a few stops along the way, including a few other C-suite positions.

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 marketing background.

General Manager is perhaps the easiest to get into beause the ultimate job of the GM is to drive revenue by understanding the end customer and delivering a product and message that solves their problem or need. The important difference is that they must also must manage product development as well as influence sales GTM motions.

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 executive job that you're not prepared to do. It's a hell of of a lot more difficult than just hiring a team, telling them what to do and then putting your feet up on the desk and lighting cigars with $100 bills before you take a Don Draper nap on your couch. 

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 "Marketing can run Sales, but Sales cannot run Marketing".

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 you're interested in that, continue on the PMM path, make sure you're doing true Product Marketing (and not just marketing products), get a few years of PM experieince, and you could easily make a CPO case.

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 PMM, then to Director of Partnership to Director of Sales to Head of Sales, so on so forth). I agree with Stephan that PMM role prepares a person well because it's strategic, customer-facing, works closely with sales & customer success, and always think about the top line of the business (revenue).