What would be the UK equivalent to a 'Chief Marketing Officer'?

[Syranius Apostle]

I have been trying to get my head around various corporate terms, for some time now. Adopting the 'you don't know what you don't know' mentality, I have inadvertently spent a lot of time going around in circles as I have ended up trying to find the differences between elements that are actually the same thing. The reason for this, being that I have been comparing 'British speak' with its Americanised counterparts. To name a few examples ...

• Managing Director v CEO
• Articles of Association v Corporate Bylaws;
• 'Officer' (in the context of a Board Member) v 'Officer' (in the context of the 'C-Suite').

Whilst I can now see that the 'Managing Director' title is the preferred title to CEO within the UK, who oversee the roles of 'Finance Director', 'Marketing Director' etc, what would be the UK title for the position created to act as senior departmental Director ... A role that Americans would refer to as 'Chief Marketing Officer' or 'Chief Operating Officer' etc?

Given that the Companies Act 2006 does use the prefix 'Chief', when it comes to the Company Secretary, I assume the term 'Chief' is commonly used within the UK as well as America. With this in mind, would it be a fair assumption to say that whilst the US would use terms such as 'Chief Marketing Officer' and 'Chief Financial Officer' and collectively refer to these as the 'C-Suite', would the UK variants simply replace 'Officer' with 'Director'? For example 'Chief Financial Director'.

Whilst a lot of these titles come across as pompous and 'empty', I want to ensure that fully understand these concepts as even sticking with the UK variants, it can be misleading, since the Managing Director, Financial Director etc may not serve on the Board of Directors and thus may not actually be Directors at all. That said, I do believe that non-Board Directors are referred to as 'Non-Statutory Directors'.

 

[obscure]

what would be the UK title for the position created to act as senior departmental Director ... A role that Americans would refer to as 'Chief Marketing Officer' ....

Director of Gobbledegook Dissemination.

The UK doesn't really go for overblown US style titles. In general the title is what are responsible for....

Managing Director
Sales Director
Marketing Director
Operations Director
Meat Sack Exploitation Director
Development Director
Technical Director

 

[webgeek]

Also available is: Head of Marketing

But generally, yes, UK uses Director of Marketing in lieu of Chief Marketing Officer.

Of course in USA you can be Marketing Director without being at the top rung of the Marketing role ladder, which makes this whole mess confusing if you try to cross-post CV's.

 

[Ian J]

The UK doesn't really go for overblown US style titles. In general the title is what are responsible for....

Managing Director
Sales Director
Marketing Director
Operations Director
Meat Sack Exploitation Director
Development Director
Technical Director

HR not your favourite department then

 

[WaveJumper]

Having worked for a very large American company I always thought it funny that everyone you came across was an Associate Director

 

[Mr D]

Head of marketing is what I've come across in UK. Head of xxx where that denotes a separate department and so on.


Not really into CEO, COO, VP, Chiefs etc. Least not in the places I've worked where have come across top bosses. MD is common enough.

 

[The Byre]

I'd better decode some titles here for the non-cognoscenti -

Managing Director - boss
Sales Director - a salesman
Marketing Director - an old salesman
Operations Director - foreman
Meat Sack Exploitation Director - Mrs Greely upstairs.
Development Director - Fred out the back.
Technical Director - That'll be young Dave. They've given him a computer!

 

[Ian J]

I'd better decode some titles here for the non-cognoscenti -

Sales Director - a salesman

There are certainly a few factoring companies who refer to all of their salesmen as Sales Directors

 

[paulears]

I always found that when I was teaching and was having to hand out roles for projects, you'd always have the critical ones, and the unpleasant ones, so the trick which worked every time was to tag the awful role with something that suggested more importance. Adding Manager, Director, Executive (actually anything executive suggests more importance).

In UK real life it's extended to the words "associate" when it used to be assistant, meaning a lower level. Co-ordinator - that's a great one, and now I notice doctors employ 'care navigators' rather than receptionists.

However - in the UK now we have stolen the US term 'intern', to mean somebody working hard for nothing for experience. We also use the old UK term apprentice - which meant a learning/training role where people would work, learning on the job developing a trade, or higher level skills. To off-set the cost of training, which is of course transferable to other job roles when they finish the apprenticeship, they were paid less than a normal worker. So carpenters, blacksmiths, bricklayers, electricians, and engineers were learn on the job role. Good ones were kept on, and less good ones went into the job market, qualified in their trade or profession. Now you can be an apprentice in jobs that really have little or no specialist training, allowing employers to pay you the apprentice rate for being a shop worker, or cleaner, or other role where commons sense and minimal training is historically how it was done. We now also have job roles for people who have to monitor, check and assess the 'trainees' for funding purposes.

 

[Owesdr]

I think that whichever expression you use, i.e. Marketing Director or Head of Marketing Department even Associate; everyone will understand role of that particular person in company. So, whichever you choose would be perfectly fine