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Do you love helping businesses grow by bringing clarity to complexity, aligning teams around strategy, and turning marketing into a measurable driver of business success? Does serving as a trusted executive advisor while working alongside a community of accomplished marketing leaders sound like the most meaningful work of your career?
If so, keep reading.
Who We Are
Authentic® is a fractional CMO and marketing transformation firm, built to help growing businesses Overcome Random Acts of Marketing® and confidently take the next right step toward healthy growth.
We’re a tight team who genuinely care about each other, our clients, and the work. We’ve been at this since 2017 — and the results speak for themselves: multi-year recipients of the Best Places to Work Award, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal Fast 50, and Inc. 5000. We’re building for what’s next. That’s where you come in.
The Role
The Fractional CMO is the primary client-facing role within Authentic’s services model. You are the senior marketing leader inside your clients’ businesses—embedded, trusted, and accountable for helping them make smarter decisions, build stronger teams, and achieve healthier growth.
The ideal Fractional CMO enjoys and appreciates an environment where change is the norm, collaboration is expected, and every team member has an opportunity to play a highly influential role in making our business better, more profitable, more efficient, and an increasingly great place to work.
As an Authentic CMO, you lead with executive presence, practical wisdom, and measurable business impact. You bring strategic clarity, guide execution, elevate marketing performance, and help clients confidently take the next right step.
Unlike a solo consultant, you become part of Authentic Mindshare™—a connected community of accomplished marketing leaders who invest in one another’s success, share ideas, solve challenges together, and continuously learn from one another. When a client works with one Authentic CMO, they benefit from the collective wisdom of the entire community.
Success in this role is measured through client satisfaction and retention, retainer growth, measurable business impact for clients (i.e. increased revenue, profitability, shareholder value), advancement of marketing maturity, engagement profitability, collaboration with our Ally Network partners, and active contribution to the Authentic Mindshare™ community.
What You’ll Do
- Earn client trust quickly by establishing credibility with CEOs, founders, executive teams, and marketing leaders
- Apply the Authentic Growth® Methodology to assess marketing maturity, define priorities, align marketing with sales, and guide each engagement toward measurable progress
- Lead the client’s marketing function, including strategy, planning, budgeting, brand, messaging, content, digital marketing, demand generation, marketing technology, and sales alignment
- Build, lead, and develop client marketing teams while integrating agencies, freelancers, technology partners, and Authentic Ally Network Partners into a cohesive marketing ecosystem
- Translate marketing performance into executive-level business insights that support growth, profitability, and enterprise value
- Guide clients in evaluating and adopting AI, automation, and emerging technologies in ways that are practical, ethical, and aligned with business goals
- Manage client engagements effectively while balancing scope, priorities, and opportunities for additional value creation
- Participate actively in Authentic Mindshare™ by sharing expertise, collaborating with peers, and contributing to the success of the broader team
- Represent Authentic in the marketplace as a trusted advisor, experienced marketing executive, and advocate for healthy business growth
Who You Are
You are an accomplished marketing executive with deep experience leading strategy, teams, budgets, and business outcomes. You have operated at the senior-most levels of marketing leadership and still enjoy helping organizations solve meaningful business challenges.
You bring the judgment of a seasoned executive, the humility of a lifelong learner, and the practical orientation of someone who knows how to move businesses from ambiguity to action.
You don’t just follow AI trends. You lead the conversation. You actively use AI tools in your own marketing leadership practice, and you bring that fluency to every client engagement. You help organizations thoughtfully evaluate and adopt AI in ways that are practical, ethical, and human-first, understanding that AI amplifies great marketing leadership but never replaces the judgment, relationships, and strategic wisdom that only an experienced executive can bring.
You stay curious. You keep learning. And you share what you’re discovering with the Authentic Mindshare™ community, because we grow together.
You view fractional leadership as a purposeful career choice—not a temporary stop—and are energized by the opportunity to serve multiple organizations, solve a variety of business challenges, and create meaningful impact across a portfolio of clients.
You actively contribute to the growth of both your personal brand and the Authentic brand through thought leadership, relationship building, community engagement, and a genuine desire to help others succeed.
The Most Successful Authentic CMOs Share Three Defining Strengths
Active Advocate
Builds meaningful executive relationships and referral networks. Actively contributes to the growth of both their personal brand and the Authentic brand through thought leadership, community involvement, content contribution, and authentic relationship-building.
Brand Builder
An accomplished marketing executive with a proven track record of driving business growth, building high-performing teams, and creating measurable business impact. Brings a reputation for excellence, leadership, and results.
Confident Consultant
Builds trust quickly with CEOs, founders, and executive teams. Able to influence, challenge, and advise senior leaders with confidence and professionalism while aligning stakeholders around meaningful business outcomes.
Qualifications
- 15+ years of progressive marketing leadership experience, including at least 5 years at the Senior Director, VP, or CMO level in a non-agency environment
- In-house marketing leadership experience required; consulting experience is a plus
- Proven experience building, leading, and developing marketing teams and programs
- Executive-level fluency across strategy, brand, messaging, content, digital marketing, demand generation, marketing technology, sales alignment, and marketing performance
- Strong ability to translate marketing activity into business outcomes and executive-level insight
- Demonstrated AI fluency—you actively use AI tools in your own marketing leadership practice and can help clients evaluate, adopt, and build workflows around them with confidence
- Passion for helping small and mid-sized businesses grow with greater clarity, discipline, and confidence
- Strong executive presence and the ability to build trust with senior leaders
- Commitment to Authentic’s values: Authenticity, Wisdom, Humility, Passion, and Generosity
- Sees the Authentic Fractional CMO role as a long-term career destination
What We Offer
- A trusted community of accomplished marketing executives who invest in one another’s growth and success through Authentic Mindshare™
- A proven methodology and operating system for helping clients mature their marketing function and accelerate healthy growth
- Ongoing learning and collaboration related to marketing leadership, emerging technologies, AI, and business growth
- The opportunity to focus on meaningful executive-level work while benefiting from the collective experience of the broader Authentic team
- Hourly compensation plus eligibility for Authentic CMO Bonus and Revenue Share programs
- Medical, dental, vision, long-term disability, and term life insurance
- 401(k) with a 3% Safe Harbor contribution from Authentic
Role Details
- Reports to the Head of Delivery
- Role is W-2, paid hourly (non-exempt) based on client-billable work
- Authentic is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Our consulting team members are based throughout the United States and serve clients across the country and around the globe.
- Hours are variable based on client needs. Most Authentic CMO engagements range from 4–20 hours per week per client.
- Most Authentic CMOs serve multiple clients simultaneously, up to a maximum of 40 hours per week.
- Eligible for unlimited upside through the Authentic CMO bonus and revenue-share programs
Ready to Make an Impact?
If you are ready to bring your executive marketing experience into a community built around purpose, growth, shared wisdom, and measurable client impact, we would love to hear from you.
Learn more at www.authenticbrand.com.
*Authentic is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified candidates receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, or any other protected characteristic.*
