Modern CMO Leadership Programme

The Modern CMO Programme is a 10-day senior marketing leadership programme delivered by Mars Training Centre across our international centres — in London, Paris, Geneva, Dubai, and New York — designed for chief marketing officers, marketing directors stepping into a CMO seat, and senior commercial leaders running multi-disciplinary marketing functions.

The CMO role has changed more in the last five years than in any decade before it. Boards now expect the chief marketing officer to own brand, demand, customer experience, digital, content, analytics, and the data infrastructure that underpins them — all while defending the budget commercially and standing alongside the CFO and the chief digital officer at the executive table. The role demands breadth across disciplines and the leadership maturity to direct them.

Across ten days delivered as two consecutive working weeks, you will work through the full modern CMO agenda: brand and positioning, customer experience, digital and AI, demand generation, content, communications, analytics and ROI, organisational design, and the personal leadership work that the role requires. The programme uses regional case material drawn from British, European, and Middle Eastern organisations and is built around the real strategic problems delegates bring with them.

What You Will Learn

By the end of this programme, you will be able to:

• Build a coherent marketing strategy that aligns with corporate strategy.
• Lead the brand as a long-term commercial asset.
• Govern customer experience across functions outside marketing.
• Direct digital, content, and AI-led marketing activity at executive level.
• Build and defend a demand-generation engine commercially.
• Apply marketing analytics frameworks to defend marketing investment.
• Design and lead the marketing operating model and team structure.
• Lead a senior marketing function through major change.
• Operate effectively at the executive table with finance and digital peers.
• Diagnose your personal leadership style and growth priorities as CMO.
• Build a personal CMO development plan for the year ahead.
• Communicate marketing strategy persuasively to boards and investors.

How You Will Benefit

You will leave with the breadth of senior marketing leadership grounded in a structured framework, a personal CMO development plan, and a Mars Certificate of Completion.

Your organisation will gain a marketing leader who can operate as a credible commercial partner to the executive team, integrate brand, demand, digital, and customer experience under one strategy, and defend the marketing function as a commercial investment.

Who This Programme Is For

This programme is designed for senior marketing leaders, including:

• Chief Marketing Officers and Group Marketing Directors
• Marketing Directors preparing for a CMO role
• Chief Commercial Officers with marketing ownership
• Chief Customer Officers extending into wider marketing
• General Managers running marketing-led businesses
• Marketing leaders in family-business and group structures
• Senior public-sector and destination marketing leads
• Marketing leaders in mid-sized firms taking on board roles

The seniority floor is director level and above. The programme is delivered in person over ten days, as two consecutive working weeks, in London, Paris, Geneva, Dubai or New York, and leads to a Mars Certificate of Completion.