CMO Moves August Summary

Despite whispers of a slowdown and murmurs of boardroom upheaval, the CMO hiring spree shows no signs of tapping the brakes. August brought 40 new marketing chiefs into the spotlight: 20 women, 19 men, and one non-binary leader among them.

Interestingly, only 3 of these appointments were internal promotions. The other 37 were recruited from outside, suggesting companies are leaning heavily on external fresh thinking over familiar faces. 16 are stepping into the C-suite for the first time, while just 4 made the jump from entirely different sectors - what we like to call “Industry Travelers”.

In the U.S., 29 new CMOs were hired across 14 states, with California leading the pack (8), followed by Texas (6), and smaller showings from Colorado, Massachusetts, and a scatter across states like Florida, New York, and North Carolina.

Globally, England led international hiring with 3 new CMOs, followed by India and Australia with 2 each. Germany, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Scotland each welcomed one.

Tech, unsurprisingly, continued to dominate with 14 new hires, most in Software Development. Professional Services followed with 7, then Financial Services and Retail with 4 each. Restaurants added 3, while other sectors, including Media, CPG, and Government, saw a single new CMO apiece.

• Tech: 14

• Professional Services: 7

• Financial Services: 4

• Restaurants: 3

• Retail: 3

• Media, Sports & Entertainment: 2

• CPG: 1

• Construction: 1

• Manufacturing: 1

• Government: 1

• BioTech, Pharma, Healthcare: 1

• Hotel and Travel: 1

CROCS | HEY DUDE

Crocs just split the megaphone. Carly Gomez takes the Crocs brand. Amondo Redmond takes HEYDUDE. Both report to Terence Reilly, who now holds the brand spine across the house. This is not a mood hire. It is a portfolio model built for what the numbers demand. Q2 brought about $1.1 billion in revenue, strong margins, and $269 million in free cash flow. Q3 is guided down 9% to 11%. And Tariffs bite - although courts just issued a major setback.

Start with the Crocs brief. Management pulled back promotions in May to protect brand health. That lowers revenue and visits in the short term. It also raises the bar for marketing. The story must sell. The good news, it already does when the idea lands. Sandals jumped double digits, led by the Brooklyn, Getaway, and Miami lines. Miami took off on TikTok. Customization still sells, with Jibbitz charms keeping fans posting. The new SoHo store is the showcase.

International is the other engine. It is now more than half of brand revenue. China, India, and Western Europe are rolling. Social commerce is a real register. Crocs is the top footwear brand on TikTok Shop in the U.S., and the UK launch is moving.

Gomez fits that moment. At Fabletics, she ran a membership flywheel that turned community into sales. She pairs celebrity with clips that feel native to each platform and still push product. I’ve watched her interviews and she protects voice with a daily gut check. At Vans she built the DTC playbook and reset brand ID. She can shoot close to market without losing control. Her own line says it best:

Expect planned social “showstopper” beats that point back to sandals and clog refreshes. Expect creator programs with real fit tests. Expect perks that feel like access, not blanket discounts. Also expect retail theater. I’d bet that the SoHo store and the Icon concept want a steady cadence, not a single ribbon-cutting.

Want to know something else interesting about Carly? She was only just promoted to the CMO seat at Fabletics in June of this year! One of only 6 CMOs who rose up in that month. What’s going wrong with CMO succession planning???

HEYDUDE is a different job, which is why Redmond is there. DTC is up on new outlets and TikTok Shop. Wholesale needed a detox. Awareness in North America is climbing into the mid-thirties. HEYDUDE is clearing older stock and scaling back performance ads so they stop paying for unprofitable clicks. That will hurt this quarter, but it strengthens the brand. With fresher shelves, the updated stretch styles, H2O, the new Paul Pro, and the work line can carry more weight.

I’ve watched him open his playbook on YouTube. Redmond starts with people, then story. At Forever 21 he did not walk in with a day one plan. He un-siloed a post-bankruptcy org. He turned a drop treadmill into a steady narrative that moved stores. At Foot Locker, he ran partner choreography with Nike, Adidas, PUMA, and New Balance. He takes social channels seriously. He also sweats the last mile. Seamless pickup, stocked and tidy shelves, teams that feel alive.

The macro is not friendly. Athletic is surging into broader distribution. Tariffs act like a tax on momentum. The lower-income U.S. shopper is cautious. Crocs is answering with sandals share, social commerce, and international muscle. HEYDUDE is answering with cleanup now and narrative later. Both moves are rational. Neither will make Q3 pretty (but at least we are seeing companies start to give guidance now!)

There is one more truth to handle with care. The middle management layer at both CROCS and HEYDUDE has churned across social, performance, integrated marketing, partnerships, and merchandising over the last 18 months. LinkedIn receipts back that up. The dual CMO structure fills the top. The machine still needs operators. Backfills and a clear center of excellence will determine how quickly the plans hit the street. Credit the interim leaders who set measurement and GTM frameworks earlier this year.

Jobseekers and partners should watch Broomfield and Westwood. New CMOs review agency rosters and leadership benches in the first 90 to 120 days. Social, performance growth, integrated brand, retail marketing, and merchandising are the roles to track. Our spreadsheet will flag them for paid-up members of the #CMOLadder

Bottom line, Crocs wants heat without coupons in North America and more sandals everywhere else. HEYDUDE wants a clean floor, a clearer voice, and a steady beat. Gomez brings community + commerce. Redmond brings culture + process. Reilly holds the spine. If the bench gets rebuilt quick and promo discipline holds, this twin-engine can fly through a choppy back half. No pressure, team.

UIPATH

Bobby Patrick leaves a record that will be hard for anyone to match. When he became C-level marketer in 2017, UiPath’s recurring revenue was in the single-digit millions. Less than two years later, it had already jumped past the $200 million mark, and by the close of fiscal 2025, it stood at $1.66 billion. That climb, from start-up pocket change to multibillion-dollar run-rate, set the cadence for one of software’s fastest growth stories.

Now the baton passes to Michael Atalla, named CMO on August 25. Atalla spent almost 15 years at Microsoft helping turn boxed Office into the cloud service now known as Microsoft 365. He later steered F5’s brand pivot from load balancers to application security. His own line on LinkedIn sums up the way he works:

In other words, every campaign must shave time off a deal, not simply add noise to the market.

That bias toward speed fits the job he walks into. UiPath is trying to expand its story from robotic process automation to a larger idea it calls “agentic automation.” Buyers have bots already; what they want next is proof that pairing those bots with generative AI will lift real dollars.

There’s work to be done on hiring. A quick sniff around LinkedIn reveals that UiPath recently saw top-level departures in Core Product Marketing and their TestCloud (to ObjectFirst and Clarivate).

There’s competition. Microsoft’s Power Automate arrives in every E5 renewal like a stowaway seatmate, undercutting price and stealing mindshare before UiPath’s reps even crack open a deck. Automation Anywhere, meanwhile, keeps waving its “born-in-the-cloud” flag at mid-market buyers who think UiPath still needs too much scaffolding. Those two threats explain why Michael Atalla is likely to open with a lightning-clear, one-page pitch that nails what “agentic automation” really delivers and showcases a handful of customers who are already banking the savings.

Patrick showed that sharp messaging can scale a company from near zero to the billions. Atalla’s task is to keep that engine running while updating the script for the age of AI agents with 100x more AI-first companies than Patrick had to compete with back in 2017. If he can turn his marathon shortcut mantra into measurable velocity, UiPath’s next chapter will start on pace with the last.

STRAVA

Strava just handed its global megaphone to Louisa Wee, a subscription-growth specialist who learned her craft at Netflix, eHarmony, Asurion, and FabFitFun. Her July start date slipped out in an August press note that also bragged about “more than 150 million athletes” and “almost $500 million in annual recurring revenue.” Those numbers look healthy until you remember the competitive landscape: Apple folds Fitness+ into every new watch, Nike Run Club and Garmin Connect still own the hardcore, and Peloton is rebuilding its app into an all-sport hub that chases the same casual crowd Strava needs for paid conversions.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a user of this app and love it, but if I could leave my phone behind and use Meta shades or an Oura Ring instead for the same functionality, I’d cancel.

Strava’s CEO, Michael Martin, already moved the company into a new San Francisco headquarters and bought two AI-training apps to placate advanced users. That spree raised eyebrows because 90% of Strava’s revenue still comes from an $80-a-year subscription, and growth has stalled as free users resist the paywall. Louisa’s first task, then, is blunt: she must prove to tens of millions of lurkers that “Athlete Intelligence” and the rest of the premium bundle are worth real money before Apple closes the gap.

Her back-catalog hints at the playbook. At Netflix she used performance media and ruthless test-and-learn loops to fuel global expansion; at FabFitFun she turned unboxing FOMO into a subscriber flywheel. Expect her to wrap Strava’s AI coaching, club features, and social bragging rights into a single, punchy value story that even a weekend walker can repeat. She will religiously measure conversion lift, and she will yank budget from anything that cannot shave time off that journey from free to paid.

Meanwhile, the platform risks losing its crown if it cannot keep hard-core cyclists and runners engaged. That is why Wee will need to balance splashy brand work with surgical retention nudges, likely leaning on athlete partnerships that stretch beyond the Tour de France set into sneaker culture and micro-creators. Get that mix right and Strava can out-sprint the bundled threat from Cupertino; miss the mark and those 150 million athletes will keep logging miles somewhere cheaper.

In short, the new CMO walks onto the track with fresh shoes, a proven pacing strategy, and a stadium full of free riders. The gun just went off.

SIGNET JEWELERS

Full Circle! The former Crocs marketing chief Lisa Laich now sits atop the Ladder at Signet Jewelers. She joins a house that still sells more diamonds than any rival and logged about $6.7 billion in revenue last year, even as sales slipped 6.5% and comps fell 3.4%, per Gurufocus. Cash flow stays strong…more than $400 million of free cash flow and over half-a-billion in cash on the balance sheet give her air to spend.

The story is not all sparkle, to be sure. Sources shared that management booked a $369 million write-down on Blue Nile and other online assets after growth stalled. Lab-grown diamond prices keep sliding, dragging ticket size, while digital natives like Brilliant Earth and Mejuri woo Gen Z with ethics and everyday prices. Mall traffic leaks, yet nine-in-ten Signet leases still sit in fading centers.

Laich’s Crocs playbook fits the gap. At Crocs she swapped coupons for creator buzz and let fandom lift margin. Here, she can leverage Kay’s recent Gen Z refresh into a network-wide push, framing mined stones as rare and lab-grown pieces as smart value. Expect sharper creator work, live-stream selling, and a first-party data spine that stops the five banners from bidding against one another.

She also inherits a talent hole. The EVP of analytics, Ian Phimister, just left for Publicis Groupe, the Senior Director of Merchandise Planning, Connie Boerkoel, followed a former CMO to Dollar General, and another merchandising director quit for Mad Engine Global. Those exits slice insight and planning muscle. Laich will need fresh hires: data scientists who can price fast-moving lab stones, planners who can juggle self-purchase lines, and social leads who can court creators without draining margin.

If she can refill the bench, use data to aim every dollar, and make love stories travel faster than price cuts, Signet’s vast fleet may shine again before the predicted wedding rebound. The cash is ready, the gaps are clear, and Laich’s track record shows she can turn fan energy into full-price sales.

CMO EMPTY SEATS

While some CMOs are busy unpacking their new business cards, others are bowing out, leaving inboxes unattended and corner offices temporarily unclaimed.

• Ericsson’s long-serving marketing chief, Stella Medlicott, will step down in March 2026 after more than a decade at the company, with a succession plan already in motion.

•  At Starco Brands, the CMO role itself has been scrapped altogether, leading to David Dreyer’s immediate departure and the redistribution of his duties across the leadership team.

•  And over at Vail Resorts, Courtney Goldstein announced her exit on LinkedIn after just 18 months in the role, following a long career at Comcast and American Express.

CMO ASCEND

Not everyone’s leaving the party; some are climbing higher, swapping job titles for ones with a bit more weight (and presumably, a better view from the corner office).

• At Sainsbury’s, marketing and data chief Mark Given has added technology to his remit, stepping into the role of Chief Technology, Marketing and Data Officer after just 8 months in his previous post.

• Meanwhile, at easyMarkets, former CMO Garen Meserlian has traded marketing for operations, sliding into the Chief Operating Officer seat barely a year after joining the company.

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