CMO Moves July Summary

July saw 39 new CMOs step into the spotlight worldwide: 23 women + 16 men.

Internal promotions remain rare, with just 7 rising through the ranks. The vast majority, 32, were external hires, and for 17 of them, it’s their first time at the C-suite table.

The U.S. continued to lead the charge, accounting for 25 of the new appointments across 16 states. New York was first place with 5 hires, followed by California with 4, and Massachusetts and Virginia with 2 each.

Across the pond, England added 3 new CMOs to its roster, with France and the UAE close behind at 2 apiece. Other countries making moves included Canada, Denmark, India, Ireland, Japan, the Philippines, and Spain.

On the industry front, Tech remains the biggest appointer of CMOs, bringing in 15 new marketing leads. Professional Services followed with 6, Retail with 5, and both CPG and Healthcare welcomed 3 new CMOs each.

CMO Appointments by Sector

• Tech: 15

• Professional Services: 6

• Retail: 5

• CPG: 3

• BioTech, Pharma, Healthcare: 3

• Construction: 2

• Manufacturing: 2

• Financial Services: 2

• Government: 1

OLLIE

Ollie, the fresh-dog-food scale-up that wants to own the wellness bowl, has hired its first CMO: Allison Stadd, the marketer who built Shipt Pass and once shaped Shake Shack [my fave burger joint, fyi] cult brand voice. Her remit stretches from performance growth to customer service, giving her control of every lever that turns a one-time bag of kibble into a lifelong subscription for pupper parents everywhere. The PR launch note points out that she inherits growth, lifecycle, creative, insights, and support all in one seat, so it’s a big role.

A dog's dinner scales up to a king’s ransom! U.S. pet spending cleared $152 billion last year, and private equity keeps scouting for the next chewy-level exit. But competition has some bite. Freshpet recently posted 20% profit gains. Purina and Mars are piloting fresh or semi-fresh lines, and analysts expect category competition to intensify over the next two years.

Why did she make the cut for 1^st time CMO?

Stadd has been doing C-suite work for years, just without the title. Her Linkedin headline is people leader, she’s not just a practitioner. People ask me all the time what skills CMOs need to succeed, and motivating and leading talent is at the top of my list.

At Shipt, she pulled every storytelling piece (social, influencers, events, even culture) into one tight team so everyone told the same story in synch. She also ditched the old split between “brand” and “performance”. Her rule of thumb, getting the order right before you get it fast…made accuracy and customer smiles the main scorecard.

For job seekers, watch Ollie’s hiring grid; CRM analysts, influencer wranglers, and retail activation leads could be on her near-term recruiting list. If you can prove you have both loyalty chops and cross-channel fluency, this is the bowl to sniff around.

SENDBIRD

What is Sendbird? They are the invisible wiring behind the chat boxes in apps like DoorDash and Reddit. More than 4,000 apps lean on its software, moving about 7 billion messages every month. Now the company wants to move from “nice-to-have messaging” to “agentic AI,” a fancy way of saying bots that spot a customer issue before the customer even knows it exists.

Enter our 2^nd first-time CMO of this edition: Charles Studt. At Qualtrics he doubled the sales pipeline by turning dense experience-management tech into stories a CFO could love. His background, Product Management, Cloud Comms, and Go-To-Market work across brand-new SaaS categories and surely fits Sendbird’s next act perfectly.

Studt says the contact-center software market is worth about $40 billion, but the real prize is the trillions companies pour into human-staffed support desks. If Sendbird’s AI agents can shift service from reactive fixes to proactive care, every saved minute and happier customer becomes proof of value.

Why give Studt the top job now? He can translate that lofty vision into plain English and land the early case studies that turn “agentic AI” from buzzword to must-have line item.

GEMS EDUCATION

GEMS runs one of the planet’s biggest private K-12 networks, and it just handed the microphone to Suad Merchant, a first-time CMO plucked from Mashreq Bank’s brand machine. She inherits a portfolio of 60-plus schools and 130k students that already print trust like textbooks.

I listened to Suad Merchant on Campaign Middle East’s podcast and I noticed she already thinks like a CMO. She broke down Mashreq’s “Rise Every Day” re-brand the way a strategist would tear apart a business case: what the old promise was, why it had expired, how the challenger-bank mindset needed a fresh story, and, crucially, how that story had to be told through real customers, not influencer veneers. I felt her grasp of positioning and narrative discipline puts her ahead of most first-timers who sometimes arrive armed only with channel tactics.

I think her comfort with AI and data privacy seals the case. She framed generative tools as accelerators, not magic, then mapped out the guardrails a regulated bank must keep around customer data. She also stressed that employees need coaching before tech hype lands. A leader who can weave regulation, tech, and culture into one plan is already playing at C-suite altitude. Aspiring CMOs should note the pattern: clear narrative, rigorous measurement, and a pragmatic view of emerging tech. That mix is exactly what convinced GEMS Education she was ready for the top job on her first swing.

Timing matters. The UAE’s 2025 federal budget puts an unprecedented focus on education and social development, with education set to benefit from a significant share of the AED71.5 billion total allocation. Investor activity in ed-tech, parent demand for STEM, and regulatory push for impact proof are all intensifying.

Merchant’s signature move is purpose storytelling with performance discipline. In banking she fused emotive campaigns with hard metrics on deposit growth. At GEMS she gets a sandbox rich with alumni data, parent affinity scores, and real-time classroom outcomes.

We will be watching for a global brand refresh, possible Martech upgrades, and a push into thought-leadership on AI-for-learning, a topic already on the CEO’s podium.

CMO EMPTY SEATS

While some are settling into the corner office, others are making their exit, leaving the swivel chair spinning and the inbox wide open for what's next.

• Poppi’s Andy Judd has bowed out just 3 months after PepsiCo snapped up the brand for a tidy $1.95 million. The marketing helm now belongs to Chief Growth Officer Jeff Rubenstein, who’s also overseeing international expansion - though Poppi hasn’t said whether they’ll be naming a new CMO anytime soon.

• Reddit’s Roxy Young has also stepped down after 4 years in the top marketing seat, part of a broader leadership reshuffle in the wake of the company’s IPO.

• Over at Virgin Group, Claire Hilton is moving on after 6 years as Chief Brand and Marketing Officer. In her place, the group is trying something new - handing the reins to Sam Kelly as its first Chief Experience Officer.

• Tata Motors is saying goodbye to Shubhranshu Singh, global CMO of its commercial vehicles division, closing the door on a lengthy stint at one of India’s automotive giants.

• Meanwhile, Jiunn Shih has left his role at Zespri International after nearly a decade, where he led the brand’s global marketing, innovation, and sustainability efforts - all while championing the humble kiwi fruit to international fame.

CMO ASCEND

As we track the comings and goings, we’re just as tuned in to those climbing the next level of the ladder and claiming a bigger slice of the pie through role expansion or CEO promotion.

• At IO Interactive, Olivier Perbet has been promoted to Chief Marketing and Revenue Officer, a newly beefed-up role that adds sales, biz dev, and go-to-market strategy to his remit. It’s a savvy move as the studio gears up for its next big growth spurt beyond the HITMAN franchise.

• Over at Depop, Peter Semple is moving from CMO to CEO - a familiar path if ever there was one. Semple’s been steering the ship as interim CEO since May and will officially take the top job on August 1. His resume reads like a Depop directory: CMO, chief brand officer, then CMO again before stepping into the CEO role. Not bad for a bloke who started in marketing.

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