Phil Wahba

Senior Writer

The CMO role is losing clout, not because marketing is less important, but because it has become even more critical. The rise of “martech” or marketing technology has transformed the role of marketing from primarily placing print and television advertising to one that must leverage more specialized data than ever before.

In my latest Fortune story, I analyzed what’s happening to the CMO role, one that intuitively should remain crucial, especially for consumer-facing companies.

Fortune 500 companies are eliminating chief marketing officer roles as the position loses C-suite clout

TECH

Sundar Pichai is taking a leaf out of Mark Zuckerberg’s book and warns Google staff ‘ambitious goals’ can only be met with job cuts

“The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices,” an internal Alphabet memo reads.

Daniel Ek dashes ‘magical’ CEO illusions and says he’s ‘probably the least powerful person at Spotify’ thanks to Scandinavian leadership model

In the high-stakes world of corporate leadership, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek may seem to occupy one of the most coveted positions—that of a founder CEO.

DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman warns AI is a ‘fundamentally labor replacing’ tool over the long term

Despite today’s AI hype, it’s still a “truly transformational” technology that will replace jobs unless policy steps in, Suleyman said.

FINANCE

Open-source developers fled crypto in 2023. But the industry’s most dedicated coders aren’t going anywhere: ‘The tourists have left’

A developer report by Electric Capital showed that the number of developers staying in crypto after two years is growing.

ASIA

Alaska Airlines’s faulty Boeing door plug was made in Malaysia—and that’s complicating investigations into why it ripped off mid-flight

NTSB investigators identified a Malaysian plant operated by Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems as the source of the faulty door plug.

SUCCESS

Marc Benioff’s leadership style inspired this 39-year-old founder to start her own $30 million company: He was an ‘amazing CEO’

Dating app The League founder Amanda Bradford said she “learned a lot just watching how he operates his business.”

Bosses are using RTO mandates as a way to ‘blame employees as a scapegoat for bad firm performance,’ new research finds

A new working paper finds that return to office mandates don’t actually improve a company’s financial performance—despite bosses saying it will.

Remote workers are promoted less than in-office colleagues—but there’s no difference between hybrid working and always being in-person, study finds

Data shows that there’s no difference in performance reviews or promotion rates between those who come to the office five days a week or three.

Etiquette classes are coming to more than 60% of companies in 2024—and it’s not just Gen Z that needs lessons in how to make eye contact

The training is not just for Gen Z. In most cases, employees will be required to attend—including baby boomers.

How Edible Arrangements’ founder turned $5k into making his first million

Leadership Next: Wisdom for navigating 2024

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