EXPRESS: When Marketers Get the Top Job: How Marketing CEOs Influence Firms’ Product-Market Strategy

Research on upper echelons in marketing has primarily focused on the CMO, yet the CEO ultimately bears responsibility for key strategic decisions, including those related to marketing. This study examines how CEOs with marketing experience (i.e., “marketing CEOs”) influence firm stock market performance by shaping product portfolio decisions. Drawing on upper echelon theory and in-depth interviews with business practitioners, we argue that marketing CEOs are more effective at selecting customer segments and implementing competitive strategies, leading to more differentiated portfolios and, consequently, higher shareholder returns. Our analysis of the main research question combines a qualitative study, a natural experiment involving CEO turnovers, large-scale panel data analysis, and an experiment with executives. Our results show that marketing CEOs positively impact shareholder returns through portfolio differentiation. Furthermore, the positive effect of marketing CEOs on portfolio differentiation is strengthened by their larger professional networks and a strong customer orientation within the firm but is diminished by CEO overconfidence and high firm financial leverage. Our findings highlight the distinctive value of CEOs with marketing experience and provide insight into the conditions that enhance or constrain their ability to generate firm value.