CMO Executive Partner

🔥 RESEARCH & INSIGHT 🔥 :

Forrester stands at a consequential moment. 2024 revenue declined 10% to $432.5M, operating income was roughly break-even (~0.2% margin), and the company recorded a net loss after two profitable years (per the Q2 2025 earnings call transcript, which references prior-year comparisons).

Segment pressure was broad-based: Research -5%, Consulting -18%, Events -34%. Contract value (CV) ended 2024 at $307.6M (-5% YoY), reflecting wallet retention of 89% but fewer clients.

Through Q2 2025, headwinds persisted: revenue $111.7M (-8% YoY); Research -7% (to $77.9M, or -5% excluding the divestiture of FeedbackNow), Consulting -5% (to $23.4M, with advisory down but consulting flat), Events -23% (to $10.2M).

Management guided 2025 revenue to $400–410M (down 5–8% YoY) with 8–9% operating margin and $1.20–1.35 EPS. Sales pipeline grew 15% QoQ, but conversion—not volume—is the constraint; average time-to-close is ~70 days. Multiyear mix continues to rise (~72% of CV, with ~22% at 3 years). Client retention improved to 74% (+1 pt QoQ), while wallet retention dipped to 85% (-1 pt QoQ), driven by lower enrichment amid budgetary pressures. Ouch ...

This isn’t a liquidation story—it’s a transformation story.

Forrester’s AI tool Izola is showing clear traction (clients using Izola +22% QoQ; prompts +44% QoQ), now able to interpret figures/charts and support in-report Q&A.

New constructs—Buying Networks and Total Experience Score—are resonating (100+ guidance sessions within weeks of launch at B2B Summit and CX Summit North America), while CX events posted double-digit attendance gains (11% in North America, 21% in Europe) and all-time-high satisfaction scores, even as sponsorship remained soft; the move of CX Europe to Amsterdam is aimed at reigniting sponsor demand.

Public sector momentum is real (several significant contracts with U.S. state/local governments and European federal agencies in Q2 2025), though federal cost controls are shifting dollars from one-time consulting toward research CV.

As of December 31, 2024, Forrester employed 580 sales personnel (down from 601 in 2023), organized into groups by client size, geography, and potential (e.g., Premier for large vendors/end users, Emerging/Mid-Size Tech for smaller vendors).

The sales organization is advancing under new Chief Sales Officer Nate Swan, with progress in leadership (five strong executives), performance management (faster removal of low performers), hiring (21% improvement in average time-to-hire QoQ), and adoption of FAST sales methodology with standardized account plans.

Market Context: The Advisory Industry Reality Check

AI is commoditizing “good enough” insights. Clients can get surface-level answers for near-zero cost. Premium advisory must prove outcome-level value—fast and repeatedly. AI tools now deliver comprehensive market analysis, competitive intelligence, and strategic frameworks in seconds at near-zero cost.

A CMO can prompt ChatGPT to analyze their competitive landscape, create customer journey maps, or apply business frameworks—getting results that are 70-80% as good as junior analyst work, delivered 100x faster.

This creates an existential crisis for advisory firms. Why pay Forrester $200,000 annually when AI provides acceptable strategic analysis for free?

The uncomfortable truth: For many business decisions, AI-generated insights are sufficient. Premium advisory must shift from selling insights to guaranteeing outcomes. Instead of "here's our market analysis," deliver "we will increase your market share by X% within 12 months using these specific strategies."

At least this is McKinsey's new approach.

Success requires staking reputation and compensation on measurable results—revenue impact, operational efficiency gains, competitive positioning improvements—with time-bound execution commitments. Speed becomes critical. Clients expect AI-level response times with human-level accuracy.

The advisor who takes two weeks to analyze challenges loses to AI delivering answers in minutes. This demands real-time advisory capabilities using AI tools during meetings while adding human judgment and industry expertise. Repeatability matters equally.

Every interaction must follow proven methodologies that consistently deliver superior outcomes. Ad hoc consulting cannot compete with AI's consistency and availability.

For Forrester's CMO Executive Partner, this means mastering AI-human integration that competitors cannot replicate, focusing on confidential benchmarking and network access that AI cannot provide, and building accountability relationships that transform advisory from information delivery to partnership.

Firms that successfully navigate this transition capture market share. Those that don't face continued revenue decline as clients substitute free AI tools for expensive advisory services. The window for adaptation is narrowing rapidly.

Scale pressure is intensifying. Larger rivals’ breadth and cost structure raise the bar on coverage, speed, and pricing discipline. Forrester must differentiate on customer-obsessed strategy, research depth in marketing/CX, and AI-human integration—not on breadth alone.

For context, Gartner's roughly 2x revenue scale creates compounding competitive advantages. Larger firms spread research costs across more clients, invest more heavily in technology, offer broader coverage, and respond faster to market changes. Gartner can assign 3-5 analysts to cybersecurity while Forrester might have 1-2 covering the same domain.

This scale advantage extends to pricing power, geographic coverage, and operational speed. When market disruptions occur, larger firms mobilize specialized response teams while maintaining normal coverage elsewhere.

Enterprise procurement departments favor comprehensive single-source contracts over managing multiple specialized vendors. Forrester cannot win a pure scale war. Attempting to match Gartner's breadth creates resource dilution—shallow expertise across many areas rather than deep expertise in fewer areas.

The strategic solution requires focused differentiation: customer-obsessed strategy, research depth in marketing/CX transformation, and AI-human advisory integration. Success demands becoming the recognized expert in specific domains rather than trying to cover everything. The Executive Partner must prove this differentiation strategy works in practice, building domain authority and network effects that scale advantages cannot easily overcome.

Enterprise buyer expectations have surged. “Amazon speed, Netflix experience, Apple polish”—and rigorous ROI evidence—are now table stakes. Enterprise buyers judge B2B advisory services against consumer technology experiences, fundamentally shifting competitive standards.

Immediate response to research requests (hours, not days), 24/7 global availability, and self-service platform capabilities with intelligent search and AI-powered assistance. Traditional "we'll get back to you next week" timelines destroy credibility.

Personalized content curation based on industry and role, seamless multi-device functionality, and engaging content design with executive summaries, interactive visualizations, and video explanations. Clients expect addictive, easy-to-consume research experiences.

Flawless user interface design requiring no training, seamless integration with existing business systems, and premium-quality deliverables that enhance client credibility. Clunky platforms lose credibility regardless of content quality. Quantified business impact measurements, benchmark comparisons against peers and alternatives, and predictive ROI modeling with guaranteed outcomes.

Testimonials and case studies no longer suffice. These elevated expectations require significant infrastructure investments, new talent capabilities, and cultural transformation that traditional advisory firms struggle to deliver. Success demands consumer-grade experiences while maintaining enterprise-level strategic value—a combination most research firms haven't mastered.

Macro volatility cuts both ways. Budgets are scrutinized, yet executive dependence on trusted guidance rises in uncertainty. Firms that quantify impact win share. With continued tariff, geoeconomic, and political volatility, Forrester expects the outlook for the second half of 2025 to remain uncertain, but pockets of momentum—particularly in government—are emerging through competitive wins in open bidding and interest in research-focused generative AI applications.

Five Must-Have Skills for CMO Executive Partner Success

1. Strategic Advisory & CMO-Level Coaching: Boardroom-caliber counsel for $1B+ enterprises; challenge assumptions; translate research into decisions, operating models, and execution roadmaps.
2. B2B Enterprise Marketing Leadership: Fluency in P&L levers (pipeline, ABM, partner ecosystems, pricing, CX/brand), with benchmarking and “show-your-work” analytics.
3. Executive Presence & Influence: Gravitas across 1:1s, ELT workshops, and boards; narratives that drive action under budget scrutiny.
4. Account Growth & Commercial Acumen: Codependence with Sales/CS on retention and expansion; structured engagement plans; cross-sell discipline; deal coaching.
5. Cross-Functional Orchestration & Research Integration: “Bring the full Forrester” to clients; feed field signal back into research; assemble analysts/consultants into coherent, repeatable solutions.

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SWOT Analysis

Strengths

1. Proprietary Research & Data Assets. Decades of frameworks, surveys (e.g., annual surveys of >700,000 consumers, business leaders, and technology leaders worldwide), and cases—now queryable via Izola—create meaningful differentiation versus generic AI answers and boutique point solutions. As clients adopt constructs like Total Experience Score and Buying Networks, internal vocabulary and operating rhythms begin to align with Forrester’s models, subtly increasing stickiness.
2. Rising Multiyear Mix & Embeddedness. ~72% of CV is multiyear, ~22% at three years—pragmatic progress on predictability and switching friction when value is realized.
3. Credible Brand & C-Suite Access. A recognized advisory brand that still opens doors—especially in marketing/CX and customer-obsessed growth, with rigorous, unbiased methodologies grounded in qualitative and quantitative data.
4. Early AI Integration. Izola’s growing adoption (+22% clients; +44% prompts QoQ) and new capabilities (charts/figures, in-report chat) enhance analyst leverage and client time-to-insight. GenAI ranks in the top three initiatives across all 14 Forrester Decisions services.
5. Complementary Businesses Driving CV. Consulting and Events support CV growth; clients purchasing consulting renew CV at higher rates, and event attendees show elevated renewal rates.

Weaknesses

1. Top-line & CV Pressure. FY’24 revenue -10%, CV -5%; Q2’25 revenue -8%, CV -7% YoY (per management). Execution must reverse net-retention deficits while reigniting new-logo flow.
2. Events Economics. Despite attendance gains and all-time-high satisfaction, sponsorship lag remains a drag; the Amsterdam move is a necessary, not sufficient, fix. Events revenue declined 23% in Q2 2025 despite hosting three events.
3. Conversion Discipline. Pipeline is growing (+15% QoQ), but deals linger; managers must intervene earlier, qualify harder, and compress cycles.
4. Resource Asymmetry vs. Larger Rivals. Forrester cannot spread everywhere; overextension reduces sharpness in core swim lanes. Sales force of 580 (as of Dec 31, 2024) is lean but must be upskilled for consistent Forrester Decisions selling, enrichment, and renewal.

Opportunities

1. AI-Augmented Executive Advisory. Turn AI-human workflows into a signature client experience: live benchmarking, scenario modeling, and decision support during sessions—not weeks later. That’s speed and insight clients will fund. (Izola’s in-report chat and figure parsing are enabling blocks.) Forrester positions itself as the leading AI research company, with extensive coverage of generative and agentic AI, including recent insights on AGI inevitability, task intelligence deployment, citizen development for business velocity, and the dark side of AI (e.g., vibe hacking and no-code ransomware). Blogs emphasize not pausing AI innovation despite volatility, highlighting practical criteria for AGI planning and how agentic AI elevates enterprise architects' roles. GenAI ranks in the top three initiatives across all 14 Forrester Decisions services.
2. Customer-Obsessed Differentiation. Double down on customer/brand/CX transformation themes where Forrester’s research heritage is strongest and most differentiated, including future trends, market forecasts, consumer/business buyer insights, best practice models, benchmarking data, and vendor evaluations. Recent content focuses on building trust in marketing measurement through data strategies, addressing marketers' confidence gaps in data quality and metrics, and linking accurate marketing management to improved CX via podcasts and webinars like "How To Gain AI Advantage And Not Lose Your Customers."
3. Public Sector Scale-Out. State/local and European agency momentum can diversify cyclicality and build referenceability, even as federal consulting dollars tilt toward subscriptions. Q2 2025 bookings included several significant government contracts driven by competitive wins and GenAI interest; this accelerated in August 2025 with over $800,000 in new strategic contracts with U.S. state and local government agencies, underscoring growing demand for Forrester's research and advisory in public sector contexts.
4. Economic Recovery Positioning. Durable relationships built in the trough expand when budgets normalize—especially where constructs like Total Experience Score (scoring 412 companies across 10 verticals in 13 countries) become management metrics. Projections for commercial software spend reaching $1.7 trillion by 2029 with double-digit growth position Forrester to advise on tech investments.
5. Events and Awards Momentum. Leverage upcoming events like the Technology & Innovation Summit EMEA (London, focusing on navigating technological chaos) and B2B Summit EMEA (adaptive growth strategies and AI hackathons) to drive engagement and CV. Lessons from the APAC Women’s Leadership Program emphasize advice for women in tech, while announcements of APAC recipients for the 2025 Technology Awards enhance brand prestige and competitive positioning.

Threats

1. AI Commoditization of “basic research.” If clients perceive parity between generic AI answers and paid research, willingness-to-pay compresses. Izola-plus-analyst must demonstrably out-perform, especially as AI's dark side (e.g., scaled attacks via no-code tools) creates new client vulnerabilities that could divert budgets to immediate defense rather than strategic advisory.
2. Escalating Scale Competition. Larger players can invest more in content/coverage and tools, widening cost and breadth gaps. Recent announcements like the Forrester Wave™: Privileged Identity Management Solutions, Q3 2025, show continued research output, but competitors may accelerate in high-growth areas like AI and software spend forecasting.
3. Extended Macro Tightness. Prolonged budget discipline would keep consulting and events under pressure and raise the performance bar for renewals. Instability in the economy affected both enterprise and vendor clients in Q2 2025, with ongoing uncertainty noted in earnings; stock performance remains weak (closing at ~$9.74 as of late August 2025, up modestly but reflecting market concerns), potentially signaling investor skepticism amid projected 5-8% revenue decline for 2025.
4. Talent Retention. Losing senior advisors/analysts degrades delivery quality and commercial momentum, particularly as AI transforms roles (e.g., enterprise architects) and demands new skills in areas like task intelligence and citizen development.

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Strategic Recommendations (what an A-player partner would drive)

0–90 Days: Prove the model

1. Standardize AI-Human Advisory Workflows. Design a repeatable “session spine”: pre-brief prompts, in-session live benchmarks and scenarios (Izola + analyst), post-session decision memos with owner/timeline/KPI. Measure time-to-insight and decision velocity.
2. Tighten Deal Physics. Manager in at Stage 1–2; social-contract the buying process; exit non-buyers early; instrument stage-to-stage conversion with weekly reviews. Target cycle time reduction (e.g., 70 → <60 days).
3. Events as Growth Funnels. Codify sponsorable moments (curated peer rooms, ROI clinics, AI labs). Pilot “Amsterdam playbook” with pre-sold outcomes for top sponsors, building on Q2 2025's attendance and satisfaction gains.

6–18 Months: Make it compound

1. Package Solutions, Not Pieces. Bundle research + advisory + targeted consulting around critical CMO jobs (e.g., pipeline velocity, retention/loyalty, pricing power, CX/brand alignment). Price for outcomes and multiyear commitments. Leverage Forrester Decisions (~80% of CV as of Dec 31, 2024) as the core subscription anchor.
2. Operationalize Customer-Obsessed Metrics. Help clients adopt Total Experience Score as a unifying measure; offer quarterly governance cadences and cross-functional rituals. Capture lift as case studies, drawing from high-scorers like USAA, Lexus, and Navy Federal Credit Union.
3. Public Sector Playbook. Build templates specific to agency challenges (service design, digital trust, AI policy/ethics), leaning into subscription-centric economics and competitive bidding wins.

18+ Months: Lock in advantage

1. Turn AI-Augmented Advisory into a Signature. Certify partners, publish the methodology, and measure deltas in decision speed, cost-to-answer, and business outcomes.
2. Community as a Moat. Convert marquee successes into peer cohorts and reference cycles; the more proof, the more attraction, the better the funnel.

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Tactical Guidance for the Role

Positioning (what to highlight):

C-suite outcomes under budget pressure; AI-enhanced advisory in live settings; commercialization of research into revenue; cross-functional orchestration around client jobs; competitive wins due to differentiated point-of-view in marketing/CX.

Metrics (what to own):

CV growth and expansion rates on your book; renewal uplifts tied to advisory cadence; cycle-time and stage-conversion improvements on pursuits you touch; measurable client outcomes (pipeline velocity, retention %, pricing realization, NPS/TxS movement).

Antipatterns (what to avoid):

Thought leadership divorced from adoption; heroic solo delivery without scale; “coverage for coverage’s sake”; AI demos that don’t change decisions.

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Bottom Line

This role sits at the intersection of Forrester’s risk and upside. The financials demand rigor; the assets—proprietary research (grounded in rigorous methodologies and vast surveys), brand access, Izola-enabled workflows, and emergent constructs—enable differentiation if you operationalize them. The winning Executive Partner will weaponize speed-to-insight and outcome proof, compound client value via integrated solutions and multiyear constructs, and treat every engagement as both impact and evidence. That’s how you bend CV back to growth while building a durable advisory franchise.

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