Who delivers the bigger bang for the buck: CMO or CIO?

There is emerging evidence that the Chief Marketing Officer is likely to surpass the Chief Information Officer in IT spending. Hence, it is relevant and timely to understand the relative impact of the CMO and CIO on business value. This study uses the foundation of executive power and influence to examine this question and analyze the relative impact of powerful technology and marketing leaders on firm output. We find that the inclusion of a powerful technology leader is more predictive of a sustained increase in firm output than the inclusion of a powerful marketing leader over a one-year, five-year and seven-year period.