Unexpected Skills Required by Marketing Leaders in 2025
The ever-increasing pace of change in the wider world means that marketing leaders need to constantly evolve their skill sets to keep up with emerging technologies, changing customer demands, and other fragmented factors that shape their roles. This is particularly key for heads of functions who must navigate these ever-changing waters while ensuring their teams are up to speed. With this in mind, what are some of the unexpected skills required by marketing leaders in 2025?
Evergreen Skills
Many of the top traits required by marketing heads are evergreen and will always be sought after by employers regardless of their industry, location, and organizational culture. These include strong written and verbal communication skills and the ability to pair creativity with strategic and tactical nous to gain a competitive advantage. Equally, few professionals will get far in their careers without strong numeracy attributes and the ability to multitask and prioritize effectively.
An eye for design and branding acumen will also remain critical traits for the foreseeable future, as will commercial expertise. Recognizing how marketing impacts revenue, and therefore how each action can either positively or negatively affect organizational growth, is another skill that most marketing leaders will always possess. The best professionals know how marketing impacts almost every other aspect of the business, from the bottom line to the ability to recruit and retain staff, and develop plans that incorporate all these elements accordingly.
Technological skills are increasingly important in this tech-backed discipline. While many professionals are not digital experts, it’s becoming critical that the best leaders understand how their tech stacks work and interact with different parts of the business. These are attributes that most perhaps already know that marketing leaders need to possess. However, there are other, less recognized but potentially more valuable traits that set the best function heads apart from the competition.
Unexpected Skills for Marketing Leaders
We spoke to some of our specialist team about the qualities they see in the best leaders that few outside of these positions might be aware of. Jack Pascoe, Senior Consultant at VMA GROUP, notes, “A really valuable trait that we see in the top 5% of marketing heads is a strong grasp of psychology; not just for internal teams, but also in being able to appreciate their audiences’ emotional triggers and develop plans accordingly. Possessing psychological expertise is one thing, but being able to be brave and speak to those triggers throughout campaigns is equally critical.”
Gabriel Charles, Senior Consultant at VMA GROUP, adds, “We all recognize the role that emotional intelligence (EQ) plays in modern marketing, but far fewer are aware of cultural intelligence (CQ), which you could argue is just as valuable. CQ is the ability to understand and adapt to different cultural norms and varying contexts. It’s particularly beneficial for international teams targeting audiences in other countries and parts of the world, enabling directors to lead diverse teams effectively and craft campaigns that resonate while avoiding missteps in tone or messaging.”
As international borders become increasingly blurred, having high levels of CQ can add significant value and aid improved performance. However, it’s less common than you might think, and even the biggest organizations often highlight their lack of cultural nuance. Marketing leaders that don’t possess this type of cultural intelligence can do serious damage to their brand reputation if they’re not careful.
The Role of AI Literacy
If you asked marketing leaders about AI as recently as two years ago, most would have shrugged their shoulders. However, that’s changed. The growth of large-language models like ChatGPT, CoPilot, and DALL-E, and the increasingly significant role they play in day-to-day life, now means that expertise in this field is increasingly valuable. AI literacy allows leaders to leverage tools for personalized marketing, predictive analytics, and more.
Currently, the main uses in marketing communications will largely relate to boosting efficiency without needing to overly rely on specialist teams. Its role will only become more apparent in the coming years as tools are refined further. Those who can develop these skills ahead of the rest of their market will set themselves apart in an increasingly competitive job market.
We could go on and touch on aspects such as data-backed storytelling, the ability to navigate complex data stacks, conflict resolution, foresight, narrative empathy, and more. Put simply, the best marketing leaders have something that separates them from their competition.
If you would like to speak to our team about standing yourself out from the crowd to secure game-changing career opportunities, get in touch with our expert team. Read more of our blogs on LinkedIn.
