6 answers
Vice President, Product Marketing at Braze
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.
VP, Product at Barracuda Networks
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 ...more
Head of Portfolio & Engagement Product Marketing at Airtable
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 ...more
Group Product Marketing Manager at Amplitude
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 engin...more
Product Marketing Director at Eightfold.ai
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 ...more
Product Marketing at Sisense
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 everyon...more
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