Being able to admit when you don’t have all the answers is essential to modern marketing leadership.

This is the feeling of two of Marketing Week’s 2025 Top 100, talking today at the Festival of Marketing (2 October). They highlighted the importance of “humility” and the fact it is just as important to be aware of what you don’t know as it is to lead from the front.

Cancer Research UK’s outgoing director of marketing, fundraising and engagement, Philip Almond, said the era of marketing bosses having all the answers is “over”. He described it as the “old model of leadership”, fuelled by the increasingly complex nature of the industry.

“The level of complexity, particularly in marketing across the organisation, has expanded exponentially, but the leadership capacity to manage that complexity has not kept pace,” he said.

Almond urged marketing leaders to have the “humility to know that it’s quite alright” that others on the team will know how to do a Facebook campaign. Instead, it is the CMO’s job to “retain the marketing fundamentals” of things, like customer orientation, and “corral these different skills, which you will not be anywhere near as expert in”.

When I started off in marketing, I used to think the people at the top knew all the answers. And I thought, I can’t wait until I’m at the top and I know all the answers.

Sharry Cramond, M&S

Sharry Cramond, M&S’s marketing director for fashion, home and beauty, agreed, saying it’s “OK not to know all the answers”.

“When I started off in marketing, I used to think the people at the top knew all the answers. And I thought, I can’t wait until I’m at the top and I know all the answers,” she joked.

Her motto now is “I don’t care who is right, I just care about getting it right”. Cramond tells her marketing team if the cleaner has the best idea, that’s the idea M&S will go with.

“It’s about [having] a complete lack of ego and…speaking to lots of different people, because ideas can come from anywhere,” she added.

According to Cramond, it’s essential marketers “reach out and have a very wide network across the organisation”.

Cancer Research UK’s Philip Almond on legacy, lessons and long-lasting brands

Stay curious

That doesn’t mean marketers shouldn’t remain curious. And while they won’t necessarily be experts in all emerging tech, they must be clued up enough in what’s possible and work with their teams to ensure the knowledge is there.

“It’s not about rapid response, but no response is not an option,” said fellow panellist Anne Stagg, CEO at Digitas, which sponsors the Top 100.

“It’s not enough to be a deep brand or media expert. You have to be data-savvy, you have to have knowledge of new emerging tools and tech, the roles they play and the experience your customer is going to receive,” she added

“The velocity and pace of change means you have to be curious, you have to investigate. That doesn’t have to be you personally, but within your team, you need an ecosystem of experts that can come together and centre around the customer experience, and figure out how you need to work together.”

CMOs need to be particularly close to the chief technology and information officers to ensure the brand response is connected, said Stagg.

“When I look around the boardroom table, the CMO, CTO and CIO need to be closer than ever if the brand vision and its vision for the customer experience is going to become a reality, because the mix of understanding the CMO now needs is fundamentally different, I’d argue, even than five years ago,” she explained.