The Marketing Centre bets on fractional CMO growth

The Marketing Centre has launched a new proposition centred on fractional marketing leadership. Its Founder said the model could account for 30% of marketing leadership roles by 2035.

The business is repositioning its offer around part-time Chief Marketing Officers for companies that do not want to hire a full-time senior marketing executive.

The move reflects a wider debate over how smaller and mid-sized companies buy senior expertise as marketing becomes more closely tied to board oversight, commercial performance and the use of artificial intelligence tools.

For many businesses, a permanent Chief Marketing Officer can be hard to justify because of salary costs, recruitment risk and long-term overheads. Companies that rely on agencies or junior internal teams can also find themselves without senior strategic direction.

A fractional CMO typically works within a company for one or two days a week and is responsible for marketing strategy, performance and board-level alignment. The model has become more visible as companies seek more flexibility in senior hiring and more direct accountability for results.

New offer

The revised proposition is aimed at businesses at different stages of marketing maturity. Alongside access to senior marketers, it also offers a wider pool of tools, artificial intelligence products, agency partners and specialist support through what it calls a Client Hub.

The Marketing Centre frames its offer around four areas: control, time, expertise and access to a broader support network. The approach is intended to appeal to chief executives and leadership teams that want senior input without committing to a full-time board-level appointment.

Lucy Hogarth set out her view of how the market may develop over the next decade.

"By 2035, I believe a significant proportion of marketing leadership roles will be fractional - potentially up to 30%. This won't be driven by businesses wanting to cut costs, but because they want better access to expertise, flexibility and measurable impact. The traditional full-time model simply won't suit the pace and complexity of modern marketing," said Lucy Hogarth, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of The Marketing Centre.

Her comments point to a change in how companies define senior marketing leadership. Instead of treating the role as a permanent headcount decision, more businesses are viewing it as a service bought in line with need, budget and growth stage.

The Marketing Centre argues that marketing has changed sharply over the past five years. It cites the adoption of artificial intelligence, more complex customer journeys, greater board scrutiny and stronger pressure to show return on investment as factors that have made the discipline more central to commercial decision-making.

That shift has particular implications for small and medium-sized businesses. These companies often need strategic direction and board-level input, but may not have the scale to support a full-time senior marketing hire.

Leadership gap

The company argues this creates a gap between what businesses need and what they can justify employing directly. Fractional executives are being presented as a way to close that gap by giving management teams regular access to senior judgement without a permanent fixed cost.

The approach is not limited to strategic planning. The Marketing Centre says its fractional CMOs are expected to diagnose barriers to growth and implement commercially aligned plans within client organisations.

Hogarth said demand from business leaders is already shaped by the need for immediate, practical senior support.

"We work with hundreds of businesses in the UK and globally and understand that leaders want senior marketers who can step in quickly, diagnose what's holding growth back and implement disciplined, commercially aligned plans. Our goal at The Marketing Centre is to become the most recognised, most effective and most highly regarded global marketing service - ready and able to deliver a fractional future in marketing," said Hogarth.

The company operates in the UK and international markets, and its latest positioning suggests it expects the fractional model to move further into the mainstream of marketing leadership. Whether the 30% prediction is met will depend on how employers balance flexibility, cost and the need for embedded strategic direction in a function that now carries greater commercial weight.