Madeleine Hope is a marketing communications consultant and president of Wordspark in Union City, NJ. She is a longtime active SMPS member. Her email address is mhope@wordspark.org

Chief Marketing Officers Chart a New Course

Design and construction industry firms are showing more interest in building the business as they hire and promote executive-level marketing officers.

by Madeleine Hope

While chief marketing officers were virtually unheard of just a few years ago at architecture, engineering, and construction firms, their numbers are slowly growing.

The trend is especially picking up at large, national firms, and the Society for Marketing Professional Services has followed the moves since February 2005 in its Marketer newsletter's "CMO Forum" column.

Notably, this emerging trend has not caught on at firms based in New York, where a state law has been a stumbling block. The law restricts ownership of architecture, engineering, and surveying firms set up as professional corporations to licensed technical professionals in those fields. Although such firms can have a CMO, the title carries no ownership stake.

There are efforts afoot to seek legislation in New York as early as next year to allow up to 25 percent ownership of professional corporations in the design field by nonlicensed professionals. Such a change could offer marketing, human resources, and other nontechnical business professionals admittance to the executive suite at design firms for the first time.

If New York follows the national trend, it may find that CMOs can reinvigorate the marketing function at architecture, engineering, and construction firms.

One of the few New York-based design firms with a CMO is Mancini o Duffy, which is not set up as a professional corporation. The 150-person firm hired Steven Bleiweiss as its first CMO in 2002, after he had contacted Tony Schirripa, the CEO, to share ideas on how the firm might expand "rainmaking" capabilities.

It was the right plan at the right time, because the firm relied heavily on Ralph Mancini, one of its founders, as its chief rainmaker, and needed to prepare for his eventual retirement. Bleiweiss came on board to spearhead the plan, which spreads client contact and rainmaking efforts among more professionals, getting away from the practice of having only a few partners focusing on that function.

Burt Hill, a 600-person national design firm based in Butler, Pa., hired J. Rossi in 2004 as its first CMO, wooing her back after a stint at the firm in the 1980s. She said a main focus has been "establishing or re-establishing credibility for me and the marketing effort" and implementing a corporate rebranding effort.

"Change is tough, but it was important to get commitment from all of the principals regarding our efforts," she added. "There has to be mutual respect."

In 2004, Craig Park became CMO at Fields Devereaux - which has since become Harley Ellis Devereaux, a 500-person national design firm headquartered in Southfield, Mich. - as part of a reorganization. He said it was a signal that the firm held marketing as "critical to the lifeblood of the firm as design or operations."

"The typical principal owner structure promotes technical expertise, but does not necessarily position people with appropriate backgrounds as responsible for the business needs of the firm," Park added.

The results have so far pleased J. Peter Devereaux, the firm's president.

"Not only did our sales increase under Craig's direction, but our win-rate percentage increased dramatically," Devereaux said.

Over the past year, other firms have joined the CMO ranks. Last year, Sheryl Maibach was promoted from vice president of marketing to CMO at Barton Malow, a 1,550-person construction services firm based in Southfield, Mich. A 27-year veteran of the firm, Maibach had proposed the change to "send the right message," and she said the promotion has allowed her to increase her involvement in top-level executive decision-making and expand her role in regional sales.

Earlier this year, Peter Kienle became CMO at McKim & Creed, a 450-person engineering, surveying, and planning firm in Wilmington, N.C. He said Michael Creed, the CEO, decided to upgrade from plans to hire a corporate marketing director by elevating marketing to the same level as operations and finance.

And Carter & Burgess, a 2,800-person engineering and architecture firm based in Fort Worth, Texas, hired Laurin McCracken as its CMO in March. A registered architect himself, McCracken said his goal is "to find the crystal ball that will show us the future flow of money in the real estate industry."

McCracken can fundamentally alter the firm's prospects, said Ben Watts, the CEO.

"In three years, Laurin will have changed the way Carter & Burgess approaches business development and marketing forever," he said.