CMOs are expected to do it all—drive growth, build trust with the C-suite, and adapt to a constantly changing marketing landscape. But what does it really take to thrive in this demanding role?

Bart Molenda, CMO at HelloFresh, has spent over 15 years answering this question. With a career spanning marketing leadership roles at companies like FreshBooks, eBay, and Kijiji, Bart has gained invaluable insights into what it takes to succeed in the top marketing seat. From navigating organizational challenges to building strong relationships across the executive team, Bart’s journey offers a wealth of wisdom for current and aspiring CMOs alike.

In a Mavuus Coffee Chat, Bart shared his hard-earned lessons from stepping into the CMO role. Whether you’re a seasoned CMO or preparing for your first executive marketing role, here are the 10 lessons Bart Molenda believes every CMO should know.

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Table of Contents

1. Understand Growth Opportunities in Marketing
2. Respect the Foundations: Don’t Break What Works
3. Build Allies Across the C-Suite
4. Stay Curious About Market Trends
5. Use Data to Build Trust and Tell Stories
6. Hire for Cultural Fit, Not Just Skills
7. Lead Without Ego: Align with the CEO’s Vision
8. Anticipate and Address Financial Priorities
9. Add Value Beyond Campaigns
10. Embrace Change: Your Tenure is Temporary

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1. Understand Growth Opportunities in Marketing

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One critical lesson for marketing leaders aiming to thrive at the C-suite level is understanding where growth opportunities exist—and where they don’t. Bart Molenda, CMO at HelloFresh, emphasized the importance of joining companies with an established growth trajectory rather than starting from scratch.

“Focus on the growth opportunities in marketing.” 

He explained that while every company in some capacity needs marketing, the most successful marketers align themselves with organizations that already have some level of product-market fit and organic growth. 

“If you have to fix those things from the marketing seat, it’s incredibly hard.” 

For CMOs and aspiring marketing leaders, stepping into a role at a company with a proven foundation for growth can make all the difference. Without this foundation, the challenges of building from zero can become overwhelming, limiting your ability to drive meaningful impact.

This principle underscores why understanding a company’s position in the market is crucial before stepping into a leadership role. Bart’s advice? Look for companies where marketing can amplify existing momentum, not create it from the ground up.

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2. Respect the Foundations: Don’t Break What Works

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When stepping into a new leadership role, it’s tempting to make immediate changes to leave your mark. But according to Molenda, that’s a mistake.

One of the most important lessons Bart learned in his career came from Craig Miller, former CMO and CPO at Shopify. Early in his career at Kijiji, Bart recalls Craig offering this advice: 

“We built it to here, don’t break anything.”

Bart explains that new leaders often feel pressure to make their mark, but rushing to implement changes can backfire:

“Inevitably, some new guy would come with great ideas that would want to break all of the success that had gotten the company to here. And those are big swings and big risks.”

The first step, Bart advises, is to evaluate what’s already working. Instead of disrupting the core foundations, focus on learning the company’s history and understanding why certain systems are in place. Success isn’t about starting from scratch. Bart emphasizes the importance of consistency:

“Your job isn’t necessarily to change everything but to improve everything. And some of that is just continuing on the rails of consistency.”

Before jumping into big changes:

• Evaluate the foundations. What has driven the company’s success?
• Respect what works. Preserve the strategies that have stood the test of time.
• Focus on improvement. Small, thoughtful changes can have a bigger impact than drastic overhauls.

For Bart, this approach has helped him navigate complex challenges while maintaining the momentum of the businesses he’s served. 

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3. Build Allies Across the C-Suite

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Strong relationships across the executive team can make or break a CMO’s success. Marketing often becomes the first department blamed when challenges arise, making it crucial for CMOs to build allies within the C-suite.

“When there’s a disaster—when customers are upset, when retention is poor, when acquisition costs are too high—it’ll all point towards marketing first.” 

This means CMOs often face pressure to solve problems that may stem from other business areas. To avoid becoming the default scapegoat, CMOs need to work proactively to gain trust and support from peers.

A CMO’s responsibilities go beyond managing their team:

“Your underlying job, first and foremost, is to manage alongside your peers and to have good executive connections with your peers as well as your CEO.”

Strong relationships across the C-suite protect marketing from being unfairly blamed and open doors for greater collaboration and impact. By fostering relationships with other leaders, CMOs can address challenges more effectively and position marketing as a strategic partner.

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4. Stay Curious About Market Trends

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To thrive as a CMO, staying current with market trends is essential. Molenda underscored the importance of maintaining a pulse on external trends, highlighting how this knowledge positions CMOs as proactive leaders rather than reactive executors.

Molenda stressed that a marketer’s value lies in understanding external factors—like consumer behavior, technological advancements, and market shifts—and translating them into actionable insights.

He explained that CMOs must balance internal and external priorities:

• Internal Focus: Managing teams and operations inside the organization.
• External Focus: Monitoring environmental factors, consumer behavior, and industry trends to identify risks and opportunities.

At HelloFresh, Bart spotted growth potential in the ready-to-eat meal market, an adjacent space to their core meal kit business. This insight into a new category positioned HelloFresh for expansion and the acquisition of Factor in 2020. 

The more you know about what’s happening in your industry and beyond, the better positioned you’ll be to guide your company through challenges and toward new opportunities.

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5. Use Data to Build Trust and Tell Stories

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Building trust with the CEO and board is critical to succeed as a CMO, and data is your strongest ally. Molenda shared a powerful approach: connecting seemingly unrelated data points to tell a cohesive story. While often overlooked, this skill is essential for marketing leaders to influence key decisions.

“A lot of marketers will just point to the first and simple thing like search volumes in our industry are down or Google is changing their algorithm. So what? That is not a story, nor does it have a logical path in how this impacts the business.”

Link Data Points to Build a Narrative

Bart shared his method for creating impactful stories:

1. Gather Key Metrics: Identify relevant data from different sources (e.g., churn rates, product feedback).
2. Connect the Dots: Look for patterns or relationships between data points.
3. Tell the Story: Present insights in a way that explains the problem, highlights the trend, and drives action.

For example, Bart described linking customer churn rates with product feedback to create a meaningful narrative for the board:

“Our churn rate is this. This is what I’ve been experiencing. This is the trend. I’ve also noticed that this other adjacent thing [product feedback] is saying something similar, or I can draw a comparison point between the two.

For marketers looking to develop this skill, Bart suggested keeping a running list of data discoveries: 

“What I do is things that are data points that I feel like I found a little discovery, I just keep a page marked off on one of my books to keep the points together.” 

Over time, this process leads to pattern recognition, making it easier to identify connections and craft compelling stories. When CMOs can use data to tell a meaningful story, they gain credibility, earn trust, and drive smarter business decisions.

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6. Hire for Cultural Fit, Not Just Skills

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Molenda believes in prioritizing cultural fit and ensuring team dynamics work harmoniously. Here are his key principles for hiring:

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Avoid “Bad Culture” Baggage

Bart is deliberate about steering clear of candidates who come from organizations with toxic cultures.

“Places like some of the banks or telcos here create bad behaviors in people or a lot of political damage and turmoil that they carry on to their next organization. “I’ve been pretty conscious...not hiring from places that they previously had a bad culture.”

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Balance Personalities

A cohesive team thrives on a mix of personalities, not just technical skills. Bart uses DiSC profiling to assess how different personalities will complement each other.
“It can be a challenge for two high D [dominance] profiles to work together. But I can benefit from someone that is a high I [influence] or a high S [steadiness].”

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Avoid Extremes

Too many introverts or extroverts can skew the team dynamic. Bart ensures his team has a balance of thinkers and doers.

“As marketers, we can’t fly by vibes or feelings. We have to fly by actual, real data.”

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By hiring for cultural fit, balancing personalities, and fostering harmony, you’ll build a marketing team that doesn’t just perform well but also works seamlessly together.

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7. Lead Without Ego: Align with the CEO’s Vision

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One of the biggest lessons Bart Molenda has learned as a CMO is this: leave your ego at the door. Success in the role depends on aligning with the CEO’s vision, even when it means stepping outside traditional marketing metrics.

CMOs often act like they’ll be in the role forever, but the reality is their tenure is temporary. The key is to focus on how you can help the CEO achieve their goals—because those goals ultimately shape your priorities.

"You’re here to fill a role and to do according to what the CEO and the business overall wants to do. It’s not about you at all. You’re there to be an ambassador to the CEO."

At one of Bart’s previous companies, the CEO faced an existential threat: a potential hostile takeover by a private equity firm. Success at that moment wasn’t about running marketing campaigns or optimizing customer acquisition—it was about ensuring the CEO could retain control of the business.

CMOs succeed by helping their CEOs achieve the outcomes that matter most to them—even when those outcomes fall outside marketing’s traditional scope. By setting ego aside and staying laser-focused on the CEO’s goals, CMOs can build stronger relationships and ensure their efforts align with the company’s broader vision for success.

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8. Anticipate and Address Financial Priorities

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Building a strong relationship with the CFO is essential for every CMO. Molenda highlighted that it’s not about avoiding spending; it’s about ensuring the CFO understands the payback timeline.

“The number one thing, bar none, every time that a CFO is interested in or what we connect the most on is how and when am I going to get payback on my spend.”

He emphasized that marketers must speak the language of finance, using metrics like:

• LTV (Lifetime Value) to CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost): How much you spend versus how much a customer is worth.
• Capital Efficiency: How wisely funds are being deployed.
• Risk vs. Payback Timelines: A clear roadmap for ROI.

At eBay, Bart faced a unique challenge: growing the company’s classifieds business after settling a legal dispute with Craigslist. With the lawsuit resolved, the CEO’s top priority was growth—fast. To achieve this, the CEO allocated $40 million in additional marketing funds outside the existing budget. This led to:

• Acquiring a startup to boost app development.
• Achieving 7–8 million app downloads in one year.

But there was a trade-off. 

“We had no monetization. We had no LTV to CAC. It was purely about showing immense customer growth,” Bart admitted.

CMOs must adapt their strategies to reflect organizational priorities, even when those priorities might not align with traditional marketing benchmarks. As Bart put it: 

“You really have to understand what the metrics of the organization are, not necessarily just what you think is best for the business.”

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9. Add Value Beyond Campaigns

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As a CMO, your value isn’t just measured in the campaigns you run or the metrics you track. Molenda shared how focusing on practical contributions—not just advice—can make a lasting impact. He realized that simply sharing advice or opinions wasn’t enough to stand out. 

Instead, he decided to focus on one principle: 

“Anyone has the ability to jump on the microphone and say something… Only do things that would add value to someone else.”

For Bart, this mindset shift was transformative. He began reaching out to startup founders and marketing teams, offering to help them solve real challenges. 

By shifting your mindset from offering advice to delivering actionable insights, CMOs can ensure their contributions resonate across the organization and solidify their role as strategic partners.

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10. Embrace Change: Your Tenure is Temporary

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Finally, Molenda didn’t mince words when it comes to the reality of being a CMO: 

“Your time at any company is fleeting—act accordingly.” 

This sobering but practical insight reflects the transient nature of the role and why CMOs must remain adaptable, focused, and aligned with their organization's overarching goals. Bart emphasizes that many factors influencing a CMO’s tenure are beyond their control:

 “Boards change over, they want a new direction, they have favoritism towards who they want to bring in or work on.” 

These shifts, he notes, often have little to do with the CMO’s actual performance or abilities. Instead, they reflect broader organizational dynamics, such as changes in board priorities, leadership turnover, or external pressures.

This awareness led Bart to adopt a mindset of adaptability and humility. 

“It’s not about you at all. It’s like you’re here to fill a role and to do according to what the CEO and founder and business overall wants to do.” 

For Bart, success as a CMO is less about ego and personal accolades and more about being a supportive partner to the CEO. By aligning closely with the CEO’s priorities and addressing their most pressing challenges, a CMO can enhance their effectiveness and help stabilize the organization during pivotal moments.

Lastly, recognizing the temporary nature of the role doesn’t diminish its value. It empowers CMOs to focus on what truly matters—driving results, fostering alignment, and leaving a lasting impact.

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Leaving A Lasting Impact as a Marketing Leader

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The journey to becoming a successful CMO is anything but linear. As Bart Molenda shared, it requires adaptability, a deep focus on building relationships, and an unwavering commitment to delivering value. 

From understanding growth opportunities and respecting what’s already working to leading without ego and aligning with the CEO’s vision, these lessons go far beyond traditional marketing skills—they’re about thriving in the dynamic world of executive leadership.

One of the most important takeaways is to embrace the reality that a CMO’s time at any company is finite. By focusing on adaptability, fostering trust with the CEO, and leveraging data to tell impactful stories, marketing leaders can leave a lasting impact—no matter how long their tenure may be.

Join the Mavuus community to learn from top industry experts, connect with fellow marketing leaders, and access resources that empower you to thrive in today’s dynamic marketing landscape.

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