The path to the CEO's office should not be through the CFO's office, and it should not be through the marketing department. It needs to be through engineering and design.
If your CFO is more important than your CHRO (Chief Human Resource Officer) you're nuts!
Because we weren't having success finding a CEO, our investors insisted that we hire these managers a temporary CEO and CFO. That didn't go great.
The CEO era gave rise to the CFO (not certified flying object, as you might imagine, but chief financial officer) and, most recently, the CIO, chief investment officer, a nice boost for the bookkeeper you can't afford to give a raise . . .