CMO Executive Search
CMO Executive Search, Brisbane and South East Queensland
A business needs a proper CMO when marketing stops being a collection of campaigns and starts becoming a growth function. Most of the appointments that fail do so for one of two reasons. Brilliant on brand, weak on commercials. Or the reverse.
What a Chief Marketing Officer does in a mid-market business
A Chief Marketing Officer owns how a business acquires customers and how it is positioned: demand generation, brand, pricing narrative, product marketing and the numbers underneath them. In Brisbane's founder-led and private equity-backed businesses, a CMO is usually appointed once marketing carries a revenue number rather than a campaign calendar.
The trigger
When founders and boards hire a CMO
Marketing is being measured on activity, not revenue
The reports are full of impressions, opens and events. Nobody in the room can say what a customer costs to acquire or what one is worth.
The founder has been the brand
It worked, and it does not scale. At some point the story has to live somewhere other than one person's calendar.
Sales and marketing have stopped speaking honestly
Leads are dismissed as rubbish, campaigns are blamed for the forecast. That argument is a leadership gap, not a systems gap.
Positioning is now the constraint
When the product is good and the market still cannot describe what you do, the problem has moved above the marketing manager.
The assessment
What a strong CMO appointment looks like
- 01
Talks about acquisition cost, payback and pipeline contribution before they talk about creative.
- 02
Has owned a number, missed it at least once, and can describe what they changed.
- 03
Understands positioning as a commercial decision rather than a design exercise.
- 04
Can challenge the founder without it turning into a turf war. This is the trait that decides whether the appointment lasts.
- 05
Builds a small, capable team and buys the rest. Mid-market marketing rarely rewards an in-house department of fifteen.
CMO compensation in South East Queensland
Total package ranges drawn from our own Queensland search data, reviewed quarterly. Equity, options and carried interest sit outside these figures unless noted.
Marketing Director, 50 to 150 staff
Total package. Often the step before a genuine CMO appointment.
$180,000 to $230,000
CMO, founder-led or family owned
Full ownership of brand and demand, usually reporting to the CEO.
$230,000 to $300,000
CMO, private equity-backed
Base plus short-term incentive plus equity, tied to growth targets over the hold period.
$280,000 to $380,000
Fractional or interim
Common where the business needs positioning and structure before a permanent hire.
$1,400 to $2,200 per day
Ranges come from our Queensland search data, reviewed quarterly. Total packages exclude equity, options and carried interest unless noted.
The Queensland market
What we see in the CMO market here
Brisbane has plenty of senior marketing talent shaped by big brand environments and considerably less that has carried a growth number in a business under 300 people. Those are different jobs, and the second one is the one most of our clients need.
The other pattern worth naming is the agency-side leader moving client-side. It can work well, but the ones who succeed have usually already run a P&L or a practice, not just accounts.
Fractional CMOs have become genuinely useful at the smaller end. Where a business is not ready for a $280,000 executive, two days a week from someone who has done it before often builds the foundation the permanent hire then inherits.
Questions we are asked
CMO hiring questions, answered
When marketing has to contribute to enterprise value rather than run campaigns. In practice that is usually between 100 and 300 employees, or immediately after an investment where the growth plan depends on acquiring customers at a predictable cost. Before that point a strong marketing manager and a fractional CMO is often the better structure.
Neither background is disqualifying, but a CMO who cannot hold both conversations will only ever solve half the problem. We screen for evidence that the person has owned positioning and owned an acquisition number, in the same role if possible.
Our South East Queensland data shows CMO total packages between $230,000 and $300,000 in founder-led and family owned businesses, and $280,000 to $380,000 in private equity-backed businesses where incentives and equity form part of the structure. Fractional engagements run at $1,400 to $2,200 per day.
If sales and marketing are arguing about attribution and the founder is refereeing, a CRO can resolve it by consolidating accountability. If the harder problem is that nobody can explain what the business stands for, appoint the CMO first. Consolidating too early usually buries marketing under quarterly pipeline pressure.
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