My unsolicited 🌶 hot take 🔥 as a 20 year RevOps/SalesOps vet and SaaS Founder:
Yup. 😎
RevOps teams SHOULD report to the CEO.
And it all comes down to one thing: balance.
The way I see it, the top 3 options in C-suite are either the CRO, the CFO or the CEO.
When RevOps reports directly to the CRO, it can sometimes makes them too focused on Sales & marketing needs, at the expense of the remainder of the revenue chain. Organizations that rebranded their Sales Ops into Rev Ops often retained that reporting structure, but that tends to keep these teams biased towards Sales Ops functions.
If RevOps reports directly to the CFO, it can make sense as RevOps teams have a great impact on deal structure, something that CFOs are more and more involved in, especially in the SaaS world. But with RevOps teams already erring on the side of caution and consistency, when you add a typically less risk-prone CFO persona, it can create a bubble where all prevailing voices are making decisions from a single POV.
And due to some of the *necessary* CFO characteristics that come with needing to protect the company’s financial interests, that single POV can lead to RevOps strategies that are overly cautious, with processes that are often too complex for the revenue flow. In turn, these teams can become too biased towards maintaining the status quo and existing processes.
But RevOps teams do more than just handle the flow of deals and process orders. They are the link between sales, marketing, finance, and customer success and the impartial voice of the customer themselves.
As such, I believe they should report to the C-suite member that is more impartial, has a growth mindset, and shares that more holistic view of the organization… the CEO!
I know the argument against reporting to the CEO is that they may not have a lot of bandwidth, or also be too sales-focused and therefore push too hard in the name of scaling but that’s where the importance of BALANCE comes in. ⚖ It is truly at the center of their role, and they can impart it to RevOps, in addition to really recognizing the strategic nature of such a team.
RevOps teams can provide the CEO with the impartial holistic reality of how (and if) their high-level growth strategies can be implemented successfully.
CEOs in turn can push RevOps teams outside of their comfort zone by empowering them to focus on more than operational efficiencies and really use that holistic viewpoint to their strategic advantage.
Can’t wait to hear what everyone else has to say, will be tuning in 👀 👀
GTM Hot Takes show (Episode #2: RevOps should report to the CEO)