What a Commercial Director Does: CCO vs Sales Director vs CRO
A commercial director, or chief commercial officer, owns everything that produces revenue: pricing, channels, sales, and the commercial side of marketing. A sales director owns the sales team only. The difference decides whether the role can actually change the revenue line.
The scope test
Ask one question: who decides the price? If the answer is the managing director or the owner, the role is a sales director whatever the business card says. A commercial director without pricing authority can grow volume and destroy margin at the same time.
The three titles side by side
What the role delivers in the first six months
- A price and discount policy that is enforced, not just written
- A channel mix decision: which routes to market get investment and which get closed
- A pipeline that reconciles with the forecast, and a forecast the board can trust
- A sales structure sized to the actual market, not to history
Pay in Italy, 2026
When a fractional or interim commercial director makes sense
When the revenue problem is structural rather than a headcount gap: pricing has drifted, the channel mix is wrong, or the sales team is selling the wrong thing well. Those are diagnosis and decision problems, and they are solvable in two or three days a week without a permanent hire.
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