POV
January 13, 2026
CMO Stands for Chief Magic Officer
Is the CMO Role Evolving or Disappearing?
Is the CMO role truly on the verge of fading out? There's a lot of chatter right now about the need for this role and how marketing leadership is getting diluted, especially with AI and new functions taking ownership of the various marketing functions. As someone who's spent half my career in marketing, I don't think the issue is that the title is obsolete, but that it may not be well-suited to success in many organizations.
I sometimes joke that a CMO is like a Chief Magic Officer because companies often expect miracles without precise alignment on the role, KPIs, and budgets. And many times, that is on the CMO because they don’t build role clarity and consensus with their stakeholders. The reality is that marketing as a function covers a vast range of functions [brand strategy, partner marketing, growth marketing, customer experience, marketing ops/agency management, digital activation and presence, social media, MarTech, AdTech, Agentic AI marketing for marketing workflows, Marketing analytics and much more]. And not all of these necessarily sit neatly under one roof.
So, the future isn't about the title itself, but how organizations align these pieces and which clusters they put together as highly dependent adjacent Organizations with cross-functional accountability. Whether it means the CMO role evolves into something like a Chief Growth Officer or any other title, or if marketing becomes more integrated with revenue and digital teams. What matters is cross-functional accountability and making sure marketing has the proper budget, KPIs, and alignment at the C-level. By the way, budget calibration and prioritization are a MMM (marketing model mix) exercise, not a spreadsheet of money to be spent. A topic for another post.
Jamshed Wadia
President of the CMO Council Advisory Board in APAC
With more than three decades of experience, Jamshed Wadia has built a career around reinvention, leading change, and helping organisations navigate disruption. His journey spans marketing, sales, digital transformation, data-driven strategy, and audience engagement, shaped through work across diverse industries and global markets.
As the founder of AIdeate Solutions, he partners with brands and agencies to solve business challenges through marketing, communications, and AI-enabled strategy. His work encompasses marketing transformation, executive branding, AI governance, and advisory support for leadership teams. He also mentors early-stage startups through programs such as TASMU in Qatar, Eduspaze in Singapore, and HP Garage 2.0, guiding founders on product development, user experience, positioning, and global brand scale-up. In addition, he serves as an Independent Advisor to Mavic.ai, supporting the team on AI ethics and governance, product market fit, and growth.
His corporate leadership experience includes building Marketing Centres of Excellence at Intel, driving digital transformation, leading global accounts, and operating across product, pre-sales, and regional marketing roles. At Edelman, he led the digital practice for Asia, owning the P&L, shaping digital solutions, expanding capabilities across the region, and enabling the integration of artificial intelligence into workflows, tools, and strategy.
He frequently guest lectures at universities and speaks at industry forums on marketing transformation, leadership, and the evolving role of AI in business. He currently serves as the President of the Asia CMO Council and previously chaired the Chief Digital Officer Forum for the World Federation of Advertisers in Asia Pacific from 2015 to 2018.
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