CMOs Know What They Should Do. Why Aren't They Doing It?

Dr Leeya Hendricks on the Lippincott CMO Outlook 2026 and the gap between what marketing leaders know they should do and what they are actually doing. This week on The Responsible Edge, why the short-term credibility trade-off is costing CMOs something harder to recover than a quarterly target. Sponsored by truMRK. New episodes every week. A global study of more than five hundred CMOs, conducted by Lippincott in partnership with Bloomberg Media, finds a striking gap. Marketing leaders believe long-term brand building is critical for sustainable growth. They are systematically deprioritising it anyway, trading brand investment for short-term credibility with the C-suite. In this episode of The Responsible Edge, host Charlie Martin speaks with Dr Leeya Hendricks, Managing Director and Founder of Hark Consultants, Non-Executive Director at the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and author of The Platform Playbook, about what the CMO Outlook 2026 reveals and what it obscures. Leeya's response to the headline finding is a reframe. The short-term drift is not something being done to CMOs. It is a choice, and it reflects a failure by the marketing function to make its strategic case with sufficient rigour. "It shouldn't be a case of us being forced into a space. It's the job of the CMO to really have those strategic long-term discussions." The conversation covers the specific AI trap the Lippincott data surfaces: CMOs defunding the digital foundations AI depends on in order to fund AI implementation itself. It covers why the strategy conversation is being mistaken for a technology conversation. And it ends with the question Leeya argues the data is really pointing at: whether boards have the capability to lead organisations in an AI-enabled economy. "The question isn't simply whether marketers should be in the boardroom. It's whether boards have the capabilities needed to lead organisations in an AI-enabled economy." Her magic wand: businesses that measure long-term value across customers, employees, partners, society, and shareholders. "Responsible growth isn't about sacrificing commercial performance. It's about creating businesses that can sustain it." If your work touches marketing leadership, brand strategy, or the role of AI in commercial growth, this episode is worth your time. #CMOStrategy #MarketingLeadership #BrandBuilding #AIMarketing #ResponsibleGrowth #TheResponsibleEdge