The title “Chief Revenue Officer” is one of the most misunderstood in the C-suite. Too often, companies hire a CRO expecting a supercharged VP of Sales, only to be disappointed when revenue growth stalls.
This widespread confusion creates silos, misaligns teams, and ultimately hinders long-term success. The problem isn’t the title; it’s the outdated definition.
In a recent episode of The Go-to-Market Podcast, host Amy Osmond Cook, Co-Founder & CMO of Fullcast, sat down with Warren Zenna, Founder of The CRO Collective, to bring much-needed clarity to the CRO role. Warren explains that a true CRO is a strategic business leader who architects the entire revenue engine, not just the sales team.
“The CRO role is not defined clearly. People don’t know what CROs really do. CROs are not really being hired to do the right job. CROs are not getting the right level of authority to do the job they’re supposed to. And companies don’t know what to do with them when they have them.” – Warren Zenna
Warren’s insights help separate myth from reality, providing a modern CRO role definition. Let’s explore why the old model is failing, what a true CRO actually does, and how to prepare your organization for this critical leadership role.
Why Most CROs Are Hired for the Wrong Job
The core problem is that companies hire sales leaders for a business strategy role, creating another silo instead of a unifying force.
The root of this issue lies in organizational muscle memory. For years, sales leaders saw the CRO title as the next step up the ladder, leading companies to hire for sales acumen alone. As Warren notes, “almost every single CRO ran sales.” However, as market dynamics have shifted, this narrow focus has become a liability.
From Sales Chief to Revenue Architect
Warren emphasizes a fundamental truth: revenue is not the same as sales. While sales focuses on customer acquisition, revenue includes the entire commercial health of the business. “There’s profitability, there’s margin, there’s pricing… everything goes into revenue,” he explains. “And there’s also the costs.”
A true CRO operates as a business leader who understands these financial levers, not just as a manager who can close deals. This big-picture view is the core of a modern CRO role definition.
Hiring a sales leader for this role is a mistake because it often results in “creating a much more another silo.”
How Market Forces Are Forcing a Change in GTM Strategy
The era of “growth at all costs,” fueled by what Warren calls “zero interest rates was easy money,” is over. Today’s economic climate demands efficiency and sustainability. He points out that investors now evaluate companies on their “customer retention capabilities, ’cause that signals a better business,” not just their ability to acquire new ones.
This shift requires a leader who can build a durable revenue engine focused on long-term customer satisfaction, not just short-term wins. The foundation of this engine is a well-defined Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), yet the 2025 GTM Benchmarks Report reveals that 63% of CROs have little or no confidence in their current ICP definition, highlighting a critical execution gap.
The “C-Suite Destination” Trap (& Its Unifying Alternative)
Many sales leaders viewed the CRO title as the natural next step after a successful tenure as a VP of Sales. Warren acknowledges this pull, noting that it was often seen as the “C-suite destination” they deserved. While understandable, this promotion path often overlooks the need for cross-functional expertise.
A modern CRO isn’t just the head of sales; they are the connective tissue between marketing, sales, and customer success. This role is far more aligned with a RevOps philosophy that focuses on getting teams to work together, not just stay in their own lanes.
The Modern CRO Mandate: Unifying the Entire Customer Journey
A true CRO’s job is to own the entire customer journey, ensuring marketing, sales, and customer success operate as a single, coordinated team. A clearly defined CRO role moves beyond managing a single function to connecting every part of the business that touches revenue.
Their primary mandate is to create a customer journey that feels smooth, avoids wasted effort, and puts customer needs first.
Driving Alignment Across Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success
The most common failure point in a go-to-market strategy is the friction between departments. Warren recalls observing this pervasive misalignment early in his career, seeing “almost like three different organizations: a sales organization, marketing organization, and customer success organization, not working in lockstep at all.”
A true CRO eliminates these silos by owning the entire funnel, ensuring that the ICP is consistent, handoffs are seamless, and every team is working from a single source of truth.
This connected approach is the key to getting more done with less wasted effort, and platforms like Fullcast for RevOps are designed to create that central nervous system for go-to-market teams.
Mastering the Full Lifecycle
Instead of focusing solely on closing deals, a modern CRO designs the entire customer experience. This begins with a data-driven approach to defining the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), ensuring marketing and sales are targeting the right accounts.
Success is not just measured by deals closed. As Warren puts it, the goal is to “make that customer an advocate and become a new sales force for me.” This transforms the business model from a leaky bucket of acquisition and churn into a flywheel of retention and organic growth, proving that “no one’s better to sell your business than other than happy customers.”
The Business-First Mindset: Why Curiosity Is a CRO’s Superpower
According to Warren, the best CROs are not just sales leaders; they are “business people.”
They are naturally curious about how the entire organization works, from marketing campaign effectiveness to product usage data and customer support tickets. “Someone who comes to the role is someone who loves the whole business,” he states.
That curiosity leads them to ask bigger-picture questions and identify opportunities for growth that a leader stuck in one department would miss. A leader who is only concerned with their own department is simply not equipped to architect a comprehensive revenue strategy.
Is Your Company CRO-Ready?
Even a brilliant CRO will fail if the company isn’t prepared to grant them the authority and support needed to unify revenue-facing teams. Hiring a talented CRO is only the first step. Without the right environment, authority, and organizational alignment, even the most capable leader will fail.
Warren stresses that “the company that’s hiring a CRO has to be as diligent about the CRO role as the person who’s gonna get the CRO role.”
The Cost of Hiring a CRO Into the Wrong Environment
Warren uses a powerful analogy: hiring a CRO into an unprepared company is like “buying something complicated that you don’t know how to use.”
When the leader inevitably fails, the company is disappointed and blames the hire, thinking “this thing sucks.” The reality, he says, is that “it was an amazing thing you bought, but you just didn’t know how to use it properly.” Before you hire, you must have clarity on the CRO’s mandate, authority, and how their success will be measured across the entire revenue cycle.
How to Assess and Improve Your GTM Maturity
A successful CRO needs a solid operational foundation to build upon. This means having a well-defined go-to-market plan, clear rules of engagement, and the agility to adapt. Companies that can tighten up their planning and get to work faster give their revenue leaders a significant advantage.
For example, by automating GTM operations, businesses like Udemy have been able to slash planning time from months to weeks, enabling their teams to execute faster and more effectively.
Defining Your Goal: Are You Building for a Quick Flip or Market Leadership?
The type of CRO you need depends heavily on your company’s long-term goals. Warren advises leaders to ask, “find out what their goals are.” A business aiming for a quick acquisition event in three years requires a different skill set and strategy than one striving to become a top player in its industry over the next decade.
The former might prioritize aggressive acquisition, while the latter must build a sustainable, customer-obsessed model. Be transparent about your objectives to ensure you hire a leader whose approach matches the company’s end goal.
The Real Question Isn’t Who to Hire, but Why
Moving from a sales-focused leader to a true revenue architect is a critical shift for modern businesses. As Warren Zenna makes clear, a Chief Revenue Officer unifies the entire customer journey, breaks down destructive silos, and builds a sustainable, efficient engine for growth. This is the modern CRO role definition.
But this transformation requires a dual commitment. Aspiring CROs must learn to think about the entire business, not just their department, while organizations must give that leader the authority and operational support to succeed.
The companies that get this right will stop asking if they have the right person in the role and start seeing the results of a truly unified revenue strategy. The first step is creating the alignment and single source of truth that enables smart decisions.
Ready to build the operational backbone your revenue leader needs? See how Fullcast for RevOps helps unify your go-to-market teams and drive predictable growth.
