CMO Moves Mid-April Update

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this month, CMO appointments have tapered off slightly.

During the first two weeks, 17 new CMOs were announced: 10 women and 7 men. Among them, only 3 were internal promotions (HR, we’re looking at you), while the remaining 14 came from outside the organization. For 5 of these leaders, this marks their first-ever role in the C-suite.

In the U.S., 12 CMO appointments were announced across 9 states: California led with 3 hires, followed by Connecticut with 2. The remaining appointments were spread across Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oklahoma, and Utah - geographically, this is quite a diverse footprint.

Globally, the UK led international activity with 2 new CMO announcements. Italy, South Africa, and India each reported one appointment. What could possibly be behind this build-out of marketing muscle outside of America? 🥺 

Yawningly, the Tech sector remains at the forefront, accounting for 6 CMO hires across Software Development and Telecommunications. Retail followed with 4 appointments, while Restaurants and Professional Services each added 2 new CMOs to their ranks.

We kick off this edition with a big hitter…

NOTION

Notion has a new Chief Marketing Officer, and it’s a name worth circling. Lena Waters, who previously led marketing at Grammarly and Docusign, is stepping into the role. Her timing is key - Notion is preparing to launch Notion Mail, a major new product that could reshape how people use the platform.

If you haven’t followed Notion lately, here’s the update. It began as a note-taking and wiki tool. Now, it’s grown into a $10 billion software company used by teams around the world. The pitch is simple: one place to write, plan, and organize. And now, communicate.

Currently in Closed Beta, Notion Mail is the company’s big push into the inbox. A sign that it wants to be the all-in-one hub for modern work, something Monday.com, Airtable, and Atlassian are all attempting in their own way. Of course, the giants loom too. Microsoft and Google already own huge swaths of the modern workspace through Teams and Workspace, but Notion’s bet is on simplicity, design, and flexibility - qualities the large incumbents often struggle to deliver.

So why mail? Why now?

Notion isn’t building a better Gmail. It’s trying to collapse the distance between communication and execution. Today, your email still lives outside your work tools, and it’s annoying. You get a message, you copy it into a task manager, and you lose context. Notion Mail is designed to pull those messages inside the workspace itself. The goal isn’t more messaging, it’s fewer steps.

This hire matters. Notion isn’t a startup anymore. It’s at a moment where the brand needs to grow up without losing what made people love it in the first place.

Few companies pull this off.

That’s where Waters comes in. She has deep experience guiding companies through change. At Grammarly, she worked on the shift to AI while keeping the product’s human tone – that’s why it’s my all-time favorite AI app.

Notion has built a strong foundation. The company’s headcount grew 75% last year [source: Linkedin Talent Insights]. Employee satisfaction is high. Attrition is low. Its marketing team is large. But with growth comes pressure, especially as the company moves deeper into enterprise sales. Ask Canva! It’s no longer enough to have loyal users. Notion has to tell a bigger story, one that speaks to IT buyers, CIOs, CFOs, and procurement.

Her job is clear: help Notion scale without losing its soul. That’s never easy. But Lena Waters has done it before. Now, she’ll try to do it again.

BRIONI

Brioni has a new, very dapper Chief Marketing Officer. Flavio Cerbone, most recently Head of Communication at Church’s, has been named to the top marketing role at the storied Italian menswear house.

He joins them from the Prada Group, where he spent over a decade in communication-focused leadership roles. At Brioni, he’ll report directly to CEO Mehdi Benabadji and oversee marketing, events, media, PR, and social.

That last part matters. Cerbone isn’t a performance marketer or a digital growth hacker. He’s a PR strategist with a career built on brand storytelling. And Brioni, a brand built on discretion, not disruption - may need that now more than ever.

For those unfamiliar, Brioni is one of Italy’s most powerful fashion houses. Founded in Rome in 1945, it helped define the postwar European tailoring ideal. Over the decades, it became a go-to label for politicians, CEOs, and screen icons. Barack Obama wore Brioni on the campaign trail. Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig both wore it as James Bond. If Tom Ford is luxury with a wink, Brioni is luxury with a straight face.

But reverence doesn’t always equal relevance.

Brioni sits within Kering’s “Other Houses” segment, alongside Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen - which saw an 8% revenue dip in 2024. Brioni, however, was a rare bright spot. According to Kering’s latest earnings, the brand posted double-digit growth in Q4, hinting at new traction in a turbulent luxury market.

There are headwinds. U.S/EU trade tensions could trigger new tariffs on luxury imports. Chinese demand is softening. And younger buyers are leaning into flashier, trashier meme brands. In this landscape, Brioni's core values—tailoring, heritage, understatement, can feel out of sync.

That is exactly why this hire makes sense. Cerbone’s background in high-end comms suggests a strategy rooted in controlled evolution. His recent work at Church’s, another classic brand trying to modernize under the Prada umbrella, shows he knows how to finesse legacy labels into the present without losing their edge. 

The question now is whether Cerbone can make timeless feel timely, and whether Brioni can continue to sell silence in a world addicted to noise. One thing we know for sure is, the new CMO will look good doing it 🤌 

BURGER KING

As featured by our partners Ad Age on April 14^th, Burger King has named Joel Yashinsky as Chief Marketing Officer for the U.S. and Canada. He fills the seat vacated by Pat O’Toole in late 2024.

Yashinsky’s fast food roots run deep. He spent nearly two decades at McDonald’s, where he helped lead U.S. brand campaigns, and later served as CMO at Applebee’s. There, he helped engineer an unlikely comeback when country artist Walker Hayes name-dropped the chain in the viral hit “Fancy Like.” Yashinsky quickly turned that moment into a full campaign, licensing the song, reviving a discontinued menu item, and driving Applebee’s to its best sales growth in over a decade.

“Yeah, we fancy like Applebee's on a date night
Got that Bourbon Street steak with the Oreo shake
Get some whipped cream on the top too
Two straws, one check, girl, I got you”

Now he joins Burger King at a moment of cautious momentum. The brand’s “Reclaim the Flame” plan is a $700 million investment to modernize stores, boost digital, and repair brand perception. In Q4, BK posted a 1.5% lift in U.S. comps - beating McDonald’s (-1.4%) and Wendy’s (+0.9%). Remodels are underway, and a sleeker “Sizzle” prototype is rolling out.

Yashinsky’s challenge? It’s translation, turning internal progress into external excitement. Unlike past BK leadership, who chased buzz with provocative campaigns, his track record suggests a steadier hand: timely, audience-savvy, and focused on what moves the needle.

The flame’s been lit. Now it’s his job to make it stick. Let’s GRILL!

ZOOM

Kimberly Storin has joined Zoom as Chief Marketing Officer, filling a role that’s been vacant since Janine Pelosi left in 2023. Storin brings with her a deep tech resume: CMO roles at Zayo Group and RapidDeploy, plus marketing leadership stints at IBM, AMD, and Dell.

In her LinkedIn announcement, Storin describes herself as a longtime Zoom customer and says she’s excited to help tell the next chapter of the brand’s story. That story now includes Zoom’s predictable push into AI, with new tools like the AI Companion and ambitions to become an “AI-first company,” as CEO Eric Yuan put it in the latest earnings report.

It’s a tough time for the platform. Zoom reported $4.6 billion in revenue for fiscal 2025, which is a lot of dough, but still, a modest 3.1% increase year-over-year. Remember 317% revenue growth in 2021? 😾 

The business remains profitable, but the stock has drifted far from its pandemic highs. Once trading above $500 a share, Zoom now hovers closer to $60, with a market cap around $18 billion. Still strong—but no longer the story of tech’s future. That perception shift is part of what Storin is stepping into.

Her challenge isn’t brand awareness. Everyone knows Zoom. The question is whether it can be more than a meeting tool. More than a pandemic relic. Just like Notion, Zoom wants to be a full collaboration platform; faster, smarter, and AI-driven. But in a market filled with serious competition, and enterprises paring back budgets amidst uncertain business climate - the messaging will need to be very compelling.

Storin now leads brand, product, enterprise, and regional marketing, as well as comms. It’s a big portfolio, and the brand itself needs a tune-up. The product works. But people don’t talk about Zoom the way they used to.

She doesn’t need to reintroduce it. She needs to make people care again.

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