About Richard O’Connor
Over the years I have had the privilege to work for several global B2B and consumer media businesses across many markets. These include Centaur, The Independent Newspaper, UBM Plc, Informa plc and RELX plc. My commercial experience spans SaaS, Business Intelligence, exhibitions/conferences/virtual events and digital/print media. I have been incredibly fortunate to work extensively across EMEA, Asia and the US with a host of talented people, leading commercial teams and large-scale sales & marketing transformation. I joined B2B Marketing in Feb 2022 as Managing Director and was appointed CEO in September.
Most of my career has been in B2B and all of it has been working in and around marketing. I am incredibly proud to be leading a business that sits at the heart of B2B championing excellence and shaping the future.
What are your goals for joining the Zapnito community?
Influencer Of
Recent Discussions
I have had two conversations with large global brands in the last week, where Marketing reports to the CRO. It was also a topic on our Propolis Agency Leaders calls on Friday.
In one case, the Marketing Director is constantly banging the drum for investment in activities beyond demand generation. Budget is allocated to brand initiatives each year and the business are experimenting with ABM. However, the CRO is quick to divert budget to top the funnel lead gen activities when the pressure is on. Sales drive the bus and get far more airtime than marketing at board level. The relationship between Sales and Marketing is improving but remains transactional. The CRO is financially literate and has a close relationship with the CFO. Marketing don’t really talk to the CFO at all, meaning everything is filtered through the lens of the CRO.
In the other case, the CRO has an excellent knowledge of marketing as well as sales and has created a structure where marketing have full accountability for revenue generation. This has sharpened the focus on their ABM efforts, ensuring that sales are brought in at exactly the right point when the buyer is ready to engage. In turn, this has built trust from sales in the marketing team’s ability to tangibly support revenue generation. There is also an understanding that the marketing team’s efforts are likely to yield results in 12-month time, meaning there is no expectation on quick and dirty lead generation. The CRO recognises the value of investing in brand for the long term and works closely with the CMO to build the business case to take to the board. The CMO regularly attends board meetings and actively works with finance to create metrics and KPIs that show the value of every $ invested in marketing.
I was struck by the contrasting experiences in these organisations. The first case sounded depressingly familiar, the second incredibly encouraging.
The role of Chief Revenue Officer is not new, but there are clearly some marketing departments who are thriving in this organisational structure.
I would love to hear from Propolis members on their learning and best practices from working under a CRO.
@Scott Stockwell @Stephen Kemish @Shane Redding @Tony Lamb @Robert Norum @Karla Wentworth @Barbara Stewart @Darren Coleman @Joel Harrison @Georgina (Georgie) Gilmore @Helen Brown
Recent Comments
Great interview. Completely agree about the increasingly importance of Community in B2B Marketing. So much so our whole business model orbits around the principle of Community Intelligence