The CMO role is evolving before our very eyes

As brands that eliminate the CMO role gain attention in marketing circles, it's time to ask if it's more evolution than revolution.

By ,
Head of Content & Media
Published on October 14, 2026 • 3 minutes read

Table of Contents

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    Is the CMO role truly dying, or are modern marketers just setting themselves up for failure? 

    In this episode of Conversations with MarTech, we sit down with Kyle Lacy, CMO at Docebo, to break down the real reasons major brands are eliminating executive marketing positions.

    Kyle exposes the biggest traps holding modern marketers back — from over-indexing on pipeline numbers to letting AI replace human connection — and outlines what it actually takes to build a brand that is impossible to ignore.

    Key takeaways

    • The production house trap: Why viewing marketing strictly as a content assembly line makes your role easily replaceable by AI tools. 
    • The risk of short-term thinking: What really happens to pipeline 12 months after a company absorbs marketing under sales. 
    • Human-centric storytelling: Why brand story is your only true competitive edge in an AI-driven market. 
    • The flaw of attribution: Why using attribution models as “absolute truth” kills creative team innovation.

    Episode guide

    00:00 Introduction
    00:31 Meet Kyle Lacy
    01:47 A high-level take on what’s happened to the CMO role
    03:18 Are B2B or tech companies more likely to eliminate the CMO role?
    04:52 “We did this to ourselves.”
    07:27 What is the risk you face when you eliminate the CMO?
    10:26 Are more technical-minded CMOs better prepared for the future?
    14:17 What’s the difference between product and brand for today’s B2B orgs?
    16:20 What’s the biggest lie marketing tells itself?
    18:30 “If you want to kill creatives, tell them they have a pipeline goal to hit.”

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    Mike Pastore
    Head of Content & Media

    Mike Pastore is the Head of Content & Media at Third Door Media, the publisher of the Martech and Search Engine Land websites and the producer of the SMX and MarTech Conferences. In nearly three decades in B2B marketing, Mike has worked as an editor, writer, and marketer. He first wrote about marketing in 1998 for internet.com (later Jupitermedia). He then worked with marketers at some of the best-known brands in B2B tech, creating content for marketing campaigns at both Jupitermedia and QuinStreet. Prior to joining Third Door Media as the Editorial Director of the MarTech website, he led demand generation at B2B media company TechnologyAdvice.

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