Glossary entry
CRO
Also known as Chief Revenue Officer
The exec who owns total revenue across sales, marketing, customer success, and revenue ops. The role that emerged in 2015-2020 as B2B SaaS consolidated functions. CROs replace separate VP Sales + VP Marketing + VP CS structures at companies above $30-50M ARR. Reports to CEO; owns the number; coordinates all customer-facing functions. The role's emergence reflected the fact that funnel ownership was getting too fragmented to optimize.
01Definition
TLDR
The exec who owns total revenue across sales, marketing, customer success, and revenue ops. The role that emerged in 2015-2020 as B2B SaaS consolidated functions. CROs replace separate VP Sales + VP Marketing + VP CS structures at companies above $30-50M ARR. Reports to CEO; owns the number; coordinates all customer-facing functions. The role's emergence reflected the fact that funnel ownership was getting too fragmented to optimize.
02Why it matters
The buyer for most strategic GTM tooling decisions. SDR tools, sequencers, intent platforms all sell into the CRO org.
03Example
Worked example
CRO at $80M ARR SaaS owns sales (40 AEs), marketing (12 people), CS (20), RevOps (8) — total team of ~80.
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