CMO of the Year

The CMO of the Year Awards winner is Ram Subramanian of Discover Financial Services. 

As Chief Marketing Officer, Ram and his team drove record profitable growth by tackling two major challenges: repositioning Discover as a full-service bank to attract young debit users and maximizing deposit growth despite declining consumer confidence. His strategy focused on launching a disruptive product, go-to-market excellence, and integrated measurement. Under his leadership, Discover transformed, with consumer deposit balances increasing nearly 50% over three years and checking accounts growing 65% year-over-year from 2022 to 2023 and 55% from 2023 to 2024. Judges praised Ram's initiatives for enhancing brand consideration, engagement, and business outcomes. By broadening financial product messaging, Discover increased brand consideration, differentiated from competitors, and drove revenue growth, setting new benchmarks for brand recall and customer acquisition.

Watch the video to discover more!

Our CMO awards recognizes CMOs who have redefined marketing leadership—those who exceed C-suite expectations and set a new standard for impact.

In a landscape where only 45% of CMOs surpass CEO and CFO expectations, market-shaping leaders stand out for their ability to drive growth and innovation.

Download the market-shaping guide for CMOs to:

  • Discover key behaviors that distinguish market-shaping, award-worthy CMOs
  • Access proven strategies for bridging customer needs, driving innovation, and anticipating disruption
  • Benchmark your leadership with actionable C-suite insights

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    Q&A with Gartner Experts on CMO Awards

    Gartner experts address some common and pressing questions about the CMO awards and the leadership qualities that are most relevant to CMOs. Read through to navigate this ever-evolving landscape effectively.

    The CMO awards recognize an individual who brings to life the qualities of an exceptional leader in navigating the challenges associated with being a CMO. Judges look for how leaders have achieved outstanding success in their role, elevating the performance of their team and function. This award is limited to CMOs (or equivalent, if your organization doesn’t have a CMO).

    The CMO awards are important because, amid acute business risks and shifting digital ownership, the marketing function risks being descoped and defunded to the point where it can no longer drive long-term business health. CMOs must recalibrate perceptions of marketing and drive business-wide alignment on new strategies and customer engagement models for long-term growth. The CMO awards recognize marketing leaders who have successfully met the challenge of this moment.

    CMO awards winning entries were encouraged to include approaches that demonstrate how they have:

    • Successfully repositioned marketing from being a reactive order taker to a proactive business partner
    • Successfully led or contributed to enterprise-wide projects or initiatives that demonstrably supported enterprise goals
    • Successfully managed marketing through adversity, such as budget cuts, talent challenges or macroeconomic pressures
    • Successfully built or rebuilt a marketing function from the ground up
    • Successfully spearheaded growth or innovation initiatives that introduced capabilities new to the organization, industry or customers with demonstrable positive impact

    CMO awards winning entries are more likely to tell a coherent story of a CMO's demonstrable impact on business objectives with a greater degree of detail and specificity.