From Mr Peter Fisk.
Sir, I think Elisabeth Marx was absolutely correct in raising concern that a state of mind may be developing whereby executives with a career outside accountancy or finance may have a hard time making it to the top in companies ("Chief executives 'more likely to have an accountancy background' ", July 17).
Ultimately, the role of the CEO is to create value for shareholders and that means making decisions that create value for customers too. This requires a broad range of skills but at the heart of the CEO's make-up must be the ability to make decisions that connect creativity with commercialism and strategy with delivery.
A recent report by PA Consulting Group indicated that the people who most possess these skills and have the ability to create real business value invariably reside in the marketing department.
The report, which looked at 6,000 companies across 40 sectors, revealed that marketing is the primary driver of shareholder value and that, on average, it creates three times more value than other business activities.
Sadly the message is not getting through and our recent analysis of FTSE 100 companies revealed that only 8 per cent have a marketing director on their executive board. So it looks like good news for bean-counters but bad news for marketers.
Personally, though, I feel most sorry for the shareholders, as they are the ones that are losing out in the end.
