Chief revenue officers · the role
What does a chief revenue officer do?
The short answer · updated
A chief revenue officer (CRO) is the executive who owns a company’s revenue. The CRO runs sales, marketing and customer success as one engine against a single number, owns the revenue plan and the forecast, and answers to the chief executive and board for new business, renewals and growth. The seat is most common in subscription and software businesses.
What is a chief revenue officer?
CRO stands for chief revenue officer. A chief revenue officer is the member of the executive team who answers for every pound of revenue, from the first marketing contact to the renewal. Instead of a sales director, a marketing director and a head of customer success each owning part of the customer, one executive owns the whole journey and the number at the end of it.
The seat grew up in subscription and software businesses, where a customer who does not renew costs as much as a sale that never closed. There the CRO’s job is as much retention and expansion as new business. In other sectors the same remit may sit with a commercial director or a sales director.
Watch the abbreviation. CRO also stands for chief risk officer, a risk and governance role. In an FCA-regulated firm the chief risk officer holds one of the senior management functions that need the regulator’s approval before the holder starts. In a bank or insurer, a CRO job advert is likely to mean risk; this page is about revenue.
What a CRO does
There is no statutory job description; the remit is set by the chief executive and the board. The usual responsibilities:
- The revenue plan and the forecast: targets set with the CEO and finance, and the forecast the board relies on.
- Sales leadership: the sales team, the pipeline, pricing discipline in deals, and the largest negotiations.
- Marketing: demand generation and the message, so that marketing produces the pipeline sales needs.
- Customer success and renewals: onboarding, retention, expansion and the accounts at risk.
- Revenue operations: the CRM, the data, the territories and the targets that join the teams together.
- Sales compensation: commission and bonus plans that pay for the revenue the business wants.
- Hiring the revenue leaders: the heads of sales, marketing and customer success who report in.
Who a chief revenue officer reports to
The CRO reports to the chief executive and sits on the executive team, and sometimes on the board. The CFO is the closest peer: targets, discounts and commission plans all need finance’s view, and the CRO’s forecast becomes the CFO’s cash plan. The chief product officer or CTO is the other key peer, because what the product can do is what sales can sell.
Heads of sales, marketing, customer success and revenue operations report into the CRO. In a smaller company the CRO may be the only revenue leader, carrying a number personally while building the first team.
A CRO appointed to the board carries the general duties of a company director that Companies House sets out under the Companies Act 2006, including promoting the success of the company and exercising reasonable care, skill and diligence.
CRO vs CCO vs sales director vs CMO
A sales director runs the sales team to a number: hiring and managing salespeople, the pipeline, forecasting and closing. Marketing and customer success sit elsewhere. A sales director often reports to the CRO. See sales director.
A chief marketing officer (CMO) owns the brand, the market and demand generation. Where there is a CRO, marketing may report into the CRO or sit beside it as a peer; where there is no CRO, the CMO and the sales leader share the revenue target between them. See CMO.
A chief commercial officer (CCO) owns how the company makes money from its markets: the commercial model, pricing, partnerships and key accounts, with sales and often marketing reporting in. A CCO is usually wider than a CRO on pricing, partnerships and the commercial model, and narrower on customer success. Most companies have one or the other, not both. See chief commercial officer.
A chief revenue officer owns the revenue engine itself: sales, marketing and customer success run as one team against one number, with renewals counted as revenue as much as new sales. Choose a CRO when the problem is a fragmented customer journey; choose a CCO when the problem is the commercial model; choose a sales director when the problem is the sales team.
Skills, qualifications and the rules a CRO works within
No qualification is required by law. Boards look for a record of forecasts made and met, revenue retained as well as won, and revenue teams built at a comparable scale. Most CROs come up through sales leadership and widen into marketing and customer success.
Two professional frameworks are useful signals. On the sales side, the Institute of Sales Professionals’ Sales Capability Framework is the basis of Ofqual’s specification of sales qualifications. On the marketing side, CIM’s Chartered Marketer status requires graded membership, two years of continuing professional development and an assessment.
The CRO designs how salespeople are paid, so the employment rules matter. Acas says an employee’s entitlement to commission should be in their written statement of employment particulars, and a contractual scheme can only be changed by changing the contract. The sales team also deals with customers and competitors every day: the CMA’s short guide to competition law risk warns of fines for companies and disqualification for directors, and under the Bribery Act 2010 a company commits an offence if it fails to prevent bribery by people acting for it, unless it has adequate procedures in place.
It is a seat with little time to prove itself. Harvard Business Review reported in 2024, from US data, that the average CRO tenure is 25 months, among the shortest in the C-suite, and that 62% of companies see revenue growth decline or stay flat in the year after a CRO change.
Fractional, interim and permanent chief revenue officers
A permanent CRO suits a business with several revenue teams to lead and a number big enough to need an owner every day.
A fractional CRO works a set number of days a week or month: building the revenue plan, hiring the first sales leader, putting the systems in, then leaving the team to run it. It often suits a company moving from founder-led sales to its first revenue team. Our page on the fractional CRO explains how the part-week role works, and to hire a fractional CRO, go to the hub.
An interim CRO works full-time for a fixed period, covering a departure, resetting a sales team or carrying the business to a sale. See interim CRO, or hire an interim CRO.
Where a fractional or interim CRO works through their own limited company, the off-payroll working rules (IR35) may apply. Status turns on how the engagement runs in practice, and a medium or large client makes the determination. Our IR35 guide sets out the tests.
What a CRO earns, and how to hire one
Exec Capital’s C-Suite Salary Guide 2026 puts revenue CROs at UK businesses with commercial revenue model complexity (SaaS, subscription and multi-channel retail) on base salaries of £120,000–£220,000 at mid-market scale, with variable pay tied to revenue on top. Exec Capital is a search firm, and these are its own ranges. Our chief revenue officer salary page sets out permanent, interim and fractional pay, each figure with its source.
Write the brief around the number and the teams the person will own. If the need is mainly running a sales team, a sales director may be the better fit; if it is the commercial model and pricing, look at a chief commercial officer. Open roles are on the CRO jobs page.
We recruit permanent, interim, fractional, part-time and temporary revenue leaders, and non-executive directors. To hire a chief revenue officer permanently, see chief revenue officer recruitment. Every brief gets a shortlist of 3–5, each with pay or day rate, availability and IR35 position set out, after our five-stage vetting.
Questions people ask
What does CRO stand for?
In a company’s revenue team, chief revenue officer. The same letters stand for chief risk officer, a risk and governance role that is common in banks and insurers, so check the job description before you compare roles or pay.
What is the difference between a CRO and a CCO?
A chief revenue officer runs sales, marketing and customer success as one revenue engine, most often in subscription businesses. A chief commercial officer is wider on pricing, partnerships and the commercial model, and usually narrower on customer success. See chief commercial officer.
Is a CRO the same as a sales director?
No. A sales director runs the sales team to a number. A CRO owns the whole revenue engine, with sales, marketing and customer success reporting in, and the sales director often reports to the CRO.
Does the CMO report to the CRO?
Sometimes. Where a company puts all revenue under one executive, marketing reports to the CRO; where brand and market strategy carry more weight, the CMO sits beside the CRO as a peer. Either way the two need one plan for pipeline.
Is a chief revenue officer a board-level role?
Usually executive-team level, sometimes on the board. A CRO appointed to the board carries a director’s legal duties, set out by Companies House.
How much does a chief revenue officer earn?
Exec Capital’s C-Suite Salary Guide 2026 puts revenue CROs at UK businesses with commercial revenue model complexity on base salaries of £120,000–£220,000 at mid-market scale, with variable pay on top. See our chief revenue officer salary page; on every shortlist we set out each candidate’s pay or day rate.
How do I hire a chief revenue officer?
Write the brief around the number and the teams they will own, choose permanent, fractional, interim or part-time, and test candidates on a real forecast or pipeline problem. See chief revenue officer recruitment; we send a shortlist of 3–5, each with pay or day rate, availability and IR35 position set out.
