The Old Creed: Everyone’s Pipeline is No One’s Pipeline
In the typical B2B organization, the ownership of pipeline—the lifeblood of the business—is fractured. It is a shared responsibility, and as is often the case with shared custody, it leads to neglect and conflict.
- Marketing owns the top-of-funnel (TOFU) MQLs.
- Sales Development (SDRs/BDRs) owns the handoff and qualification.
- Sales (AEs) owns the progression of open opportunities.
- Customer Success (CSM) owns expansion pipeline (upsell/cross-sell).
This structure inadvertently creates a fight for attribution instead of a singular drive for ownership. When revenue falters, the finger-pointing begins: “Marketing didn’t deliver quality leads,” “SDRs didn’t qualify hard enough,” or “Sales let opportunities rot.”
The pipeline becomes a battlefield where departments defend their budgets and claim credit for the final result, rather than a unified engine dedicated to maximizing the quantity and quality of qualified opportunities. This structural friction is not just inefficient; it is a philosophical betrayal of the core growth mission.
The New Paradigm: The Chief Pipeline Officer (CPO)
We propose the creation of a dedicated executive role: the Chief Pipeline Officer (CPO) or SVP Pipeline. This is not just a title change; it is the centralization of the genesis of revenue under a single, accountable owner.
The CPO sits as a peer to the Head of Marketing, the Head of Sales, and the Head of Channel—all reporting up to a unified role (e.g., the CEO or a dedicated Chief Revenue Officer/COO responsible for the entire engine).
The CPO’s Domain: Unlocking Latent Pipeline
The CPO’s entire mandate is pipeline generation. They are responsible for every initiative that results in a new, qualified opportunity, regardless of whether it’s a net-new logo or an expansion within an existing account.
Crucially, the CPO role is the fusion of two core functions:
- Demand Generation Team: Responsible for campaigns, inbound engine, and lead velocity.
- Sales Development (SDR) Team: Responsible for outbound prospecting, qualification, and initial meeting setting.
The CPO’s accountability forces these two functions to operate as a singular, hyper-efficient machine because their combined success—new meetings and qualified opportunities—is the CPO’s only KPI.
Key Functions Under the CPO’s Oversight:
The CPO: A Peer, Not a Boss
One of the most powerful elements of this model is how the CPO interacts with their peers:
- Head of Marketing is freed to focus on Brand, Content, Community, and Campaigns (Service Delivery). They deliver the assets and the audience that the CPO's team activates.
- Head of Sales (AEs) is freed to focus on Deal Execution, Negotiation, Forecasting, and Closing. They receive qualified, nurtured opportunities ready for late-stage progression.
- Head of Channel is focused on Partner Enablement and Sourced Revenue.
This structure ends the blame game. The CPO cannot blame Marketing, and Marketing cannot blame the CPO. The pipeline is either generated or it is not. This clarity of purpose removes the philosophical ambiguity and replaces it with concrete, measurable ownership.
The Boomerang Effect: Ownership Over Attribution
Your business can only scale effectively when its most crucial function—the creation of new revenue opportunities—is governed by a single, accountable owner.
By implementing the Chief Pipeline Officer, a company is not just reorganizing; it is making a profound philosophical commitment to growth. It is declaring that the genesis of revenue is so critical that it deserves its own, focused executive leadership.
The CPO elevates pipeline from a distributed task to a strategic function, transforming the chaos of competing priorities into the clarity of unified ownership. The result is a predictable, scalable, and ultimately healthier growth engine.
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