Marketers at the Top: The Value of Corporate Marketing Leadership
(A2026-131864)

AUTHORS

Bernard Jaworski, Claremont Granduate University; Shekhar Misra, University of Galway; Christophe Haon, Toulouse Business School; Lily (Xuehui) Gao, Stockholm School of Economics; Mariia Koval, IESEG School of Management

ABSTRACT

We propose a non-traditional special session that examines the strategic value of marketing leadership within organizations. Recently, there has been increasing academic interest in how marketing impacts firm performance, innovation, and customer-centric decision-making. Recent research, such as Whitler et al. (2022), provides an important overview of findings in this emerging field, emphasizing the unique and often overlooked role of marketing leadership in shaping corporate strategy and fostering sustainable competitive advantage. Despite this, many firms still debate the necessity and impact of marketing representation at the highest levels of leadership. This special session aims to further this discussion by gathering scholars who are actively researching or engaging with this topic. It will include short presentations, an expert panel discussion, and an interactive Q&A. This session aims to build momentum for deeper exploration into the role of marketing leadership and to encourage critical thinking about how marketing influence can shape the strategic future of organizations. We are confident that conference attendees will find this session highly valuable, as it will emphasize the importance of marketing leadership, present the current state of research in this area, provide theoretical perspectives for understanding the topic, and suggest promising avenues for future research.