--- title: "James Murray - Behind the CMO | Behind the CMO" description: "Articles by James Murray on Behind the CMO." canonical: https://www.behindthecmo.com/authors/james-murray/ url: https://www.behindthecmo.com/authors/james-murray/ lastmod: 2026-10-12 publisher: Behind the CMO license: "Article text (c) Behind the CMO; metadata free to use with attribution" --- > Articles by James Murray on Behind the CMO. # James Murray Founder, Pivotal Consulting Group 97 articles published · 52 deep dives · 45 Monday Briefs James Murray is a Google, Amazon, and London Business School alum who left the Big Tech world to build Pivotal Consulting Group out of Kansas City. He spends his days turning messy ad accounts into profit machines for CMOs who are tired of getting poor results from their agencies. He started Behind the CMO because the most useful conversations in marketing happen when the consultants leave the room, and he wanted to write those down. - LinkedIn - @jamesmurray on X ## Articles by James Murray [All articles](https://www.behindthecmo.com/strategic/) - What Your CEO Says About You When You Leave the Room LeadershipOct 8, 202612 min Your CEO keeps two cards on you. The review only covers one of them. - The Decisions You Both Think You Own LeadershipOct 1, 202613 min Eight go-to-market decisions, a default owner for each, and the condition that moves it. - Plan for the Budget You Won't Get LeadershipSep 24, 202613 min Your mandate is going from five accountabilities to eight. Your budget moved a tenth of a point. An incremental ask does not close that gap at any size. - The Job Is Splitting. Pick a Side. CareerSep 17, 202612 min The CMO seat is being re-cut into two jobs with different scoreboards, and the hybrid version is the one companies are removing. - Has Your Purpose Ever Lost an Argument? Deep DivesSep 10, 20269 min Patagonia put its purpose ahead of revenue three times in fifty years. Only the 1972 decision was made before the company could afford it. - The Bonus That Killed Blockbuster Deep DivesSep 3, 202610 min Blockbuster beat Netflix in 2007. Its board took the CEO's bonus to zero the same year, and the next CEO shut the winning product down. - Brand Is a Balance Sheet Item Deep DivesAug 27, 202610 min The finance case for brand, argued in the CFO's own vocabulary. - The RevOps Land Grab StrategyAug 20, 202610 min How a support function quietly took ownership of the numbers marketing gets judged by, and the three ways to respond. - Pick Your P&L CareerAug 13, 202610 min Why the CMOs who own a revenue number outlast the ones who own a budget. - The Board Doesn't Want Your Dashboard LeadershipAug 6, 202611 min The 30-metric slide is armor, and directors read armor as fear. - Nobody Gets Fired for Cutting Brand BrandJul 30, 20269 min The safest career move in the room is usually the most expensive one for the company. - The Cost-Center Trap Deep DivesJul 23, 20269 min When value goes up and budget goes down at the same time, you're not underperforming. You've been reclassified. - The Trust Premium Deep DivesJul 16, 20269 min As AI makes production free, the scarce asset stops being reach or quality. It becomes trust. Here's where to spend it. - What's Your First-Party Data Worth Now? Deep DivesJul 9, 20268 min The cookie that was supposed to die is still alive. The thing you built to replace it is the part now at risk. - Make Your Brand Machine-Readable Deep DivesJul 2, 20269 min Last week the agent did the buying. This week, how you get it to pick you, ranked by what's actually proven - Marketing to Machines Deep DivesJun 25, 20268 min The optimistic case for AI in marketing, with receipts. - The Spreadsheet Decade AI TechJun 18, 20267 min The optimistic case for AI in marketing, with receipts. - Distribution Is the Last Moat StrategyJun 11, 20267 min Evan Spiegel isn't worried about AI. Here's where he's actually moving the budget. - The CEO Doesn't Want a CMO CareerJun 4, 202612 min The JD said CMO. The scorecard says something else. That's not an accident. - The First 90 Days Is a Lie CareerMay 28, 202611 min Every fired CMO I've met did exactly what the book said. - The Performance Illusion AI TechMay 21, 202611 min We measured everything and learned nothing. Here's how that happened. - Pricing Is a Marketing Job. We Just Don't Own It. GrowthMay 14, 202610 min Finance can't do it. Product won't do it. It's worth more than the rest of your job combined. - The Fractional Ceiling CareerMay 7, 20269 min The LinkedIn bio that tells you the ladder is breaking. - What a PE CMO Actually Does LeadershipApr 30, 202612 min Same business card. Different profession. - The CFO Problem LeadershipApr 23, 202610 min The adversary you think you have isn't the one cutting your budget. And by the time you figure it out, the CFO has already drafted the memo that replaces you. - The Deal You Lost Was Never Real GrowthApr 16, 202614 min The scoreboard is fiction. It always has been. And the CMO who runs the playbook like it's gospel is going to get fired by it. - Bring Your Own Agent AI TechApr 9, 20269 min The rolodex, the resume, the agent stack. What you're really buying when you hire someone is changing again. - Most Incompetence Is Insubordination AI TechApr 2, 20269 min The knowledge barrier collapsed. "I can't" became "I won't." And your team knows it. - Can OpenClaw Really Replace Your Marketing Team? Deep DiveMar 26, 202610 min The open-source AI agent has 247K GitHub stars and 13,000 plugins. I've been testing the tools around it. Here's what CMOs actually need to know. - The Most Expensive Thing in Marketing Is Being Unknown BrandMar 19, 20269 min Brand doesn't compete with performance. It subsidizes it. But brand's real problem isn't measurement. It's that the customer doesn't have a seat at the budget table. - Your Next Marketer Has Already Been Built AI TechMar 12, 20268 min AI isn't replacing content creators. It's replacing entire execution layers. And the CMOs celebrating efficiency are walking into a trap. - The Proficiency Gap AI TechMar 5, 20268 min The gap between AI tourists and AI operators is the new career risk. - Everyone's a Marketer (Until It Doesn't Work) LeadershipFeb 26, 20268 min Marketing is the only C-suite function where everyone thinks they can do your job. The reason is more structural than you think. - The Premium Stress Test BrandFeb 19, 20267 min Consumers are checking whether your premium is real or just marketing. A lot of CMOs are about to find out which one they have. - The Rent You Can't Negotiate GrowthFeb 12, 20266 min Retail media isn't a channel. It's a tax. And the landlord just raised it. - The Judgment Call AI TechFeb 5, 20266 min Svedka bet their biggest moment on AI. Some CMO approved that. That CMO is about to find out if they were right. - The Authenticity Arbitrage BrandJan 29, 20266 min The gap between usage and belief is your 2026 opportunity. - The CMO-to-CEO Pipeline Is Finally Opening CareerJan 22, 20266 min She's not the only one. Here's what separates CMOs who ascend. - The K-Shaped CMO LeadershipJan 15, 202610 min Two types of marketing leaders are emerging. Same title, diverging trajectories. Which arm are you on? - The Confidence Gap StrategyJan 8, 20268 min CMO budgets are up. CMO confidence is at a five-year low. The math doesn't add up until you understand what's actually being measured. - Why the Best Marketers Don't Get Promoted GrowthDec 31, 20259 min The unspoken skill that determines who advances and who plateaus - The CMO Is Dead. Long Live the CMO. LeadershipDec 26, 20259 min Only 49% of Fortune 500 top marketers hold the title today, down from 55% last year. Here's what's actually happening. - 10 Things to Be Thankful For (CMO Edition) CareerNov 25, 20254 min Here are things worth being thankful for this year. - The Illusion of Optimization GrowthNov 11, 20257 min Why everything’s green in your dashboard and red in your P&L. - The Uncomfortable Truth About Incrementality GrowthNov 4, 20257 min Platforms sold us precision. Now leaders want proof. And that’s a harder story to tell. - Why “LLM Optimization” Will Replace SEO Faster Than You Think AI TechOct 14, 20259 min Discovery is shifting from Google to GPTs. Your brand is already being summarized. You just can’t see it yet. - Sales + Marketing = The Ultimate Power Couple LeadershipMar 20, 20257 min - The 5 Types of Marketing Wealth CareerFeb 27, 20255 min True wealth for marketing leaders come in many shapes and sizes - Stop Being Data-Driven, Start Being Data-Obsessed StrategyFeb 24, 202511 min Together, we’ll build marketing teams that scale. 🚀 - Unlock Speed in Your Marketing Org: 3 Steps to Decision Velocity LeadershipFeb 12, 20257 min Is your marketing team stuck in a slow-moving rut? - What CMOs Can Learn from NFL Coaches: Winning Strategies for Marketing Success LeadershipFeb 9, 20258 min How you can learn from the best. - Are You Fully Leveraging AI in Growth Marketing? GrowthFeb 8, 20257 min Artificial Intelligence is your unfair advantage. ## Monday Briefs [All 45 issues](https://www.behindthecmo.com/weekly-brief/) - Oct 12, 2026 Meta and TikTok Want Your AI to Buy the Ads - Oct 5, 2026 Apple's Safari Update Blocks The Trade Desk - Sep 28, 2026 ChatGPT Is Now Half the Market - Sep 21, 2026 ChatGPT Wants to Keep Your Click - Sep 14, 2026 Amazon Is Now Selling ChatGPT Ads - Sep 7, 2026 Amazon Charged You Your Own Bid ## Other writers - Behind The CMO Team 24 articles - Ryan Pantaleo 5 articles - Dean Moussalli Marketing Director, Modern Family Law --- Source: https://www.behindthecmo.com/authors/james-murray/ © Behind the CMO.