By Erika Velazquez Alpern, Marketing Executive and Senior Advisor to Avenir Talent

While there's no magic formula for hiring a Chief Marketing Officer, it's a critical decision that shapes how your company grows and evolves. Every organization's needs are unique, and the timing depends on your trajectory and aspirations.

What is Marketing?

It might seem like Business 101, but ask 100 people what marketing's role is and you'll get 100 different answers. Throughout my career leading marketing across media, tech, and consumer brands, I've witnessed the full spectrum of how marketing is viewed—from strategic driver to support function, with plenty of variations in between.

This disconnect fascinated me so much that I recently ran a survey to better understand how executives view marketing's role. The results were revealing: when asked about marketing's main objective, responses were evenly split across seven different options. About 40% of professionals saw marketing as both strategic and supportive, while others took firm positions on either side. The divide was particularly stark around product development—some viewed marketing as having "critical influence," while others saw it merely as a late-stage "advisory" function. And when it came to the timing of hiring a CMO? Zero consensus.

Here's my take: For marketing to drive meaningful business impact, it must be positioned as a strategic function. Not as a channel, nor as a support function, but as a strategic driver that helps shape business decisions from the start.

So when do YOU need a CMO?

While there's no universal formula, there are essential questions that can illuminate the right path forward.

Start with vision. Are you pursuing aggressive growth? Expanding into new markets? Building an enduring brand? Your strategic objectives will guide everything else.

Next, assess your current state. Perhaps you're an early-stage startup moving at lightning speed, or maybe you're PE-sponsored business scaling up and need more sophisticated marketing infrastructure. Take a clear-eyed look at your marketing team—are they stretched thin or firing on all cylinders?

A critical checkpoint: Where are you on product-market fit (PMF)? While a senior marketer can be invaluable in assessing product market fit, bringing on a star CMO before achieving it is almost impossible. I recommend working with a marketing advisor to evaluate your PMF, and waiting until you have a strong signal before making that senior hire.

Then there's the investment consideration. A CMO requires significant resources, both in compensation and team building. The timing needs to align with your ability to properly see the impact here.

Ultimately, you have several options to consider:

1. Bring on a full-time CMO - when you have PMF, resources, and need strategic marketing leadership

2. Start with a Head of Marketing who can grow into the CMO role - great for earlier stage and smaller companies with clear growth potential, though this can present challenges when one side is ready but the other isn’t

3. Engage a fractional CMO - ideal for when you need CMO power, but it’s not yet the right time to go full on

4. Build a growth team that combines multiple functions - can work well when you need flexibility and aren't ready for a full marketing organization

Consider your leadership needs carefully. Are you looking for a strategic executive who can shape company direction? A hands-on leader who excels in the details? Or perhaps a combination of a marketing advisor for strategy with a strong executor for implementation?

And a word of caution: avoid the common pitfall of hiring a junior marketer and having them report to someone who doesn't understand marketing but wants to control it. This creates misalignment and frustration for everyone involved.

The right time to hire a CMO isn't just about company stage or funding - it's about having clarity on marketing's strategic value to your business and being ready to invest in both the role and the resources they'll need to succeed. While fast-growing startups might need this leadership sooner, what matters most is setting your marketing function up for success from the start.

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Erika Velazquez Alpern is a strategic marketing leader who transforms how media companies, tech startups, and consumer brands approach storytelling and audience growth. She's held executive marketing roles and advised brands including Morning Brew, New Stand, Eddie AI, Argent, Dripkit, and The Boston Globe. Today, she runs Tactile, a hands-on marketing studio for ambitious brands, and is the co-founder and Chief Business Officer of The Purse, a newsletter-first media company reimagining how we talk about money, career, and kids.

Erika is a senior advisor to Avenir Talent and its clients on recruiting and building marketing organizations.