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While those looking for statistical relevance in a universe of only 50 will be disappointed, there are still some insights and facts—perhaps factoids—to be gleaned from the 2023 Forbes World’s Most Influential CMOs list. Let’s consider the numbers in two buckets:
1. The CMOs
2. The companies they steward
The CMOs
Of the 50 CMOs recognized on this year’s list:
- 25 are making their first appearance on this, the 11th annual, Forbes World’s Most Influential CMOs list.
- This year’s list of 50 is equally comprised of women and men.
- For the first time, this year’s list includes four CMOs from companies that are not publicly traded, and that in previous years were not eligible for consideration. They are the CMOs from (alphabetically) Canva, FIFA, the National Football League, and New Balance.
- In 2023, on average, the CMOs recognized received six times more media mentions when compared to the universe of eligible CMOs.
- On average, they appeared in high-profile media outlets almost four times as often as other eligible CMOs.
- The media coverage of these 50 CMOs had positive sentiment scores that were 50% higher on average than the scores of other CMOs.
- On average, the CMOs making this year’s list they received seven times as many Twitter mentions as other CMOs.
- As the Sprinklr report shows in greater depth, the data inputs and variables spanned 5 dimensions of influence: CMO attention, sentiment and salience; CMO’s community visibility; brand attention, sentiment and salience; campaign attention and salience; and financial performance.
- While some highly influential CMOs steward brands attracting significant online attention, CMO and brand visibility do not move in lockstep. An influential CMO can drive significant attention for their brand(s) without garnering comparable levels of attention for their own social media presence; and some of the 50 CMOs recognized are able to command significant attention, again the table stakes of influence, while leading brands with smaller followings. Both types of CMO appear on this year’s list, but those CMOs who appear higher in the rankings are—typically—those who appear frequently in online coverage and conversations.
- Only one CMO was eligible for induction into in this year’s CMO Hall of Fame class. Morgan Flatley, Global CMO of McDonald’s, who would have appeared a 5th time, becomes the 19th member of the Forbes CMO Hall of Fame.
The Companies They Steward
The companies whose brands and businesses are stewarded by the CMOs recognized this year include:
- The world’s most valuable company (Apple)
- The world’s largest company (JP Morgan Chase) as in the Forbes Global 2000.
- The world’s largest retailer (Walmart) and the largest U.S. company base on revenues (also Walmart)
- The most valuable luxury and spirits company (LVMH)
- The world’s number one brewer (ABI)
- The world’s largest restaurant business (McDonald’s)
- China’s, if not the world’s, number one e-commerce company (Alibaba)
- The 1st (Netflix), and 2nd (Disney), largest media companies in the world, based on market capitalization, as of the time of this writing.
- 43 of the 50 CMOs represent global/multi-national brands and businesses.
As of the close of markets on June 9, 2023, the combined market cap of the 41 discrete and publicly traded companies represented on the list for whom data is available (i.e., neither private like Canva or New Balance and not, as Cartier or ESPN for example, bundled into a holding company) is $9.167 Trillion USD
- The average market cap across the 41 companies is $223 billion USD.
- Apple has the largest valuation at $2.85 trillion USD, reflecting fully 31% of the consolidated total.
- American Eagle’s is the smallest, reflecting a market cap of $2.35B USD.
As for employees, on a combined basis the 50 companies represented:
- Employ nearly 12mm people, in over 150 countries around the world. This is a significant increase versus the 2022 list, which reflected an aggregate of 8.1mm employees.
- Walmart is the largest employer, employing 2.3MM people, representing almost 20% of the total.
- Canva, the Australian based enterprise employs the fewest among the 50 with 2000 employees.
- Canva, founded in 2012, is also the youngest company represented on the 2023 list.
- The oldest individual brand to be found inside the companies on this year’s list is Chateau d’Yquem, founded in 1593, and now part of the LVMH portfolio.
Geographically, the 50 companies represented are headquartered in 13 different countries around the world.
- 28 are U.S. based. Of the 22 others, 13 are headquartered in countries across the E.U. which, together with the U.S., accounts for 82% of the total.
- Within the E.U., Germany and France headquarter the most represented companies with 5 each.
- United Kingdom: 2
- China: 2
- India: 2
- Belgium: 1
- Canada: 1
- Australia: 1
- Ireland: 1
- Italy: 1
- South Korea: 1
- Switzerland: 1
Of the 50 companies represented, only 7 are not global/multi-national in their operations.
