The 2025 Forbes World’s Most Influential CMOs List: By The Numbers

While the Forbes World’s Most Influential CMOs list itself analyzed 10 billion individual data points to get to the 50 chief marketers recognized on it, this look inside the numbers will consider some 9,999,999,900 fewer, give or take.

Those looking for statistical relevance in a universe of only 50 will be disappointed; we nonetheless think there are some worthwhile insights and facts—perhaps factoids—to be gleaned from a deeper look into the 2025 Forbes World’s Most Influential CMOs list.

Our analysis, such as it is, considers the numbers and what’s behind them in two buckets:

1. The CMOs

2. The companies they steward

The CMOs

Of the 50 CMOs recognized on this year’s lists:

• 16 are making their first appearance on the Forbes World’s Most Influential CMOs list in 2025, our 13th annual.
• 24 of the CMOs on last year’s list, which is to say just fewer than half, are on this year’s as well. Turnover year-over-year results from various factors, including promotions, job changes, retirements, new positions, and scoring differentials.
• There were ten CMOs eligible for induction into the 2025 Forbes CMO Hall of Fame class. Six, Enrico Galliera, Carla Hassan, Greg “Joz” Joswiak, Alex Schultz, Alicia Tillman, and William White, all of whom would have appeared on the Most Influential’s list a fifth time, become the 22^nd-28^th CMOs inducted.
• This year’s list includes fifteen CMOs from companies that are either part of larger companies or not publicly traded—up from five last year—and who until 2023, were not eligible for consideration.
• These are the marketing leaders from (alphabetically) Bose, Canva, Chime (which recently filed for their IPO), Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, GAP, Gymshark, Jaguar LandRover, Klarna, Kraken, Loewe, the National Football League, New Balance, the Premier League, Tubi, and the WNBA.
• As immediately above, the chief marketers of three sports leagues appear on this year’s list, representing the greatest one-year presence of same in the list’s 13 years.
• Of note, brands led by the recognized CMOs have nearly twice as many followers per social media account, compared to the average for other brands, and have online engagement rates that are 2.4x the rates of other brands in the eligible universe.

The Companies They Steward

• Among conglomerates and even within categories, assigning a category to an individual company/brand can be challenging—as example, while Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts is a hospitality company, it’s also a luxury brand. This said, we’ve made some efforts to categorize them broadly, and the CMOs represented on this year’s list come from 13 distinct categories:
• Apparel and Footwear (4 CMOs)
• Alcoholic Beverages and Spirits (3)
• Automotive (3)
• B2B Professional Services (8)
• Electronics and Audio (1)
• Financial Services (4)
• FMCG (6)
• Luxury (3)
• Retail—inclusive of apps and QSR (3)
• Media, Sports, and Entertainment (7)
• Technology (1)
• Telecomm (3)
• Travel and Hospitality (3)
• One company, Mattel, didn’t fit naturally in any of the above.

Inclusive of the Forbes CMO Hall of Fame inductees, the companies whose brands and businesses are stewarded by the CMOs recognized this year include:

• The world’s most valuable company by market cap, Microsoft, and the third most valuable, Apple (as of the close of markets June 6th.)
• The world’s largest company (JPMorgan Chase), as identified in The Forbes Global 2000.
• The world’s largest and second largest retailers (Amazon and Walmart.)
• The most valuable luxury and spirits company (LVMH)
• The world’s number one brewer (AB InBev)
• The world’s largest restaurant business (McDonald’s)
• The 1st (Netflix), and 2^nd (Disney), largest media companies in the world, based on market capitalization, as of the time of this writing.
• Prior to the opening bells on exchanges around the world on June 9^th, 2025, the combined market cap of the 35 discrete and publicly traded companies represented on the list for whom data is available (i.e., neither private like Canva or New Balance nor, Tubi or Loewe, for example, bundled into a larger or holding company) was $13.6T (USD), reflecting an increase of 28% versus the 2024 list.
• The six CMOs inducted into this year’s Forbes CMO Hall of Fame, add an additional and aggregated $6.35T (USD) to this, bringing the combined to over $20T (USD).
• As of the close of markets on June 6th, the average market cap across the 35 publicly traded companies is $338 billion USD, an increase of $100 billion USD versus the prior year.
• Mattel is the smallest of the publicly traded companies, with a market cap of $6.90 billion USD, as of the close of markets on June 6th.
• Aggregated and reported estimates for the 16 privately or portfolio held companies add an additional $342 billion (USD) in valuation to the total. Of these, the NFL represents nearly half, with estimates of the league’s valuation at $182 billion (USD).
• The 50 companies represented on the Most Influential list employ an estimated 4.3 million people in over 150 countries around the world. This reflects a 53% decrease versus the 2024 list, due in large part to William White, Walmart’s CMO, being inducted into the Forbes CMO Hall of Fame. When the companies represented by this year’s Hall of Fame inductees are added to the aggregate, the total employee base increases to an estimated 7.1 million employees, a still material variance vPY.
• Based on reported data and considering only the companies represented on the World’s Most Influential CMOs list, Amazon is the largest employer with an estimated 1.5 million employees, and the WNBA the smallest among the 50 companies represented, with some 200 employees.
• Canva and DoorDash, both founded in 2013, are the youngest companies represented on the 2025 list.
• The oldest individual brand to be found inside the companies on this year’s list is Stella Artois. Now part of AB InBev, the Belgian brewery was founded in 1366.

Geographically, the 50 companies represented on the World’s Most Influential CMOs list are headquartered in 12 different countries around the world.

Geographically speaking, the 2025 list looks much like those of recent years. The vast majority of these multi-national enterprises are U.S. based, with the U.K. again representing that country with the second most HQs.

Corporate headquarter geography breaks out as:

• United States: 30
• England: 4
• Canada: 2
• France: 2
• Germany: 2
• India: 2
• Spain: 2
• Australia: 1
• Belgium: 1
• Ireland: 1
• Italy: 1
• Sweden: 1

Lastly, for those interested in a more comprehensive look at the methodology behind this year’s Forbes World’s Most Influential CMOs list, see Sprinklr’s supplemental report here.