CMO Moves October Summary

This edition of CMO Moves comes to you from Inner Mongolia.

Yes, you heard that right - we’ve traded the Great Firewall of Beijing for the wide-open skies of the steppes. And while we’re here, we can’t help but notice a little irony. Back home in the States, there’s a lot of buzz about division, about DEI bans, and lines in the sand. Here, in this corner of China, which officially recognizes 56 ethnic groups, we’re seeing a sincere and sustained commitment to bringing different communities together. It’s a reminder that leadership and inclusion can look very different depending on where you are peering in from…

But let’s jump into what you’re really here for - October was a busy one, with 51 CMO appointments globally: 31 women + 20 men. Internal promotions remain rare (11 in total), with the vast majority (40) hired from outside. Interestingly, 26 are stepping into the CMO role for the first time. Although only 3 made the leap across industries, earning the “industry traveler” badge and reflecting a highly conservative market that favors deep sector expertise.

In the U.S., 38 new CMOs were appointed across 20 states. California and New York led with 7 each, followed by Illinois with 3. Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, and North Carolina each added 2.

Europe saw a smaller wave: England welcomed 2 CMOs, and France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, one each. India added 3, Australia 2, and New Zealand one.

On the industry front, Tech led with 13 new CMOs. Financial and Professional Services each added 8, while Biotech, Pharma, Healthcare & Wellness, and Manufacturing came in tied with 5 apiece.

• Tech: 13

• Financial Services: 8

• Professional Services: 8

• BioTech, Pharma, Healthcare & Wellness: 5

• Manufacturing: 5

• Retail: 4

• Restaurants: 2

• Media, Sports & Entertainment: 2

• CPG: 2

• Construction: 1

• Automotive: 1

There’s plenty of momentum heading into year-end.

KENVUE

Kenvue's appointment of Jonathan Halvorson as its new Chief Marketing Officer is easily one of the most critical marketing moves of the month. A decisive shift toward data fluency, digital commerce, and crisis navigation. It’s also a huge leadership role. We estimate that the Kenvue marketing team is a sprawling global organization of more than 1,300 people. The consumer health giant is navigating a challenging post-spinoff period, compounded by a CEO transition and significant legal pressure surrounding marquee brands, especially Tylenol.

Halvorson is not replacing a single long-tenured CMO, but rather filling a crucial top-tier marketing leadership vacancy, making his move an urgent "Rescue CMO" hire, capable of stabilizing brand perception while modernizing infrastructure. The existence of a Chief Growth Officer (CGO), Charmaine England, alongside the new CMO is key here. Kenvue appears to be formally layering its C-suite talent to manage the complexity of its challenges simultaneously. Halvorson's expertise in Digital Commerce, Media, and Consumer Experience from Mondelēz is the urgent, necessary antidote to falling stock prices and the erosion of brand trust.

This organizational structure dictates that CMO Halvorson will focus intensively on brand defense and digital execution, while CGO England maintains focus on corporate strategy, product portfolio expansion, and overall revenue velocity. This means the firm is explicitly prioritizing Halvorson’s data-driven, commerce experience to provide a shield and a path forward for its challenged brands.

As we see it, Halvorson’s arrival is less about a creative overhaul and more about a systemic strategic upgrade and defense mechanism. His immediate focus will be on plumbing: tightening media strategy, unifying consumer data to prove product safety and efficacy, and building a marketing firewall capable of handling future market volatility and MAHA attacks. Kenvue’s marketing and brand teams face aggressive scrutiny and narrative challenges fueled by MAHA advocacy and associated litigation efforts, requiring a robust defensive posture. We reckon this is a hire designed to think and act like a Chief Operating Officer of Brand Trust.

SEATGEEK

We view Matt Herman's appointment as CMO at SeatGeek on October 28^th as a strategic investment in future-proofing the core product experience and inspiring a small but mighty team of about 30 people.

Herman is an Engineer's marketer, with an MBA from Harvard and a BS from MIT. His background is in building scalable, data-driven systems, having helped Wayfair scale from $1 billion to over $12 billion in revenue during his 12-year tenure. He most recently led Search, Recommendations, and Marketing Technology, putting him at the cutting edge of AI-driven customer journeys.

The hire is directly tied to overcoming the industry's market dominance hurdle. Herman's expertise in AI-powered search, discovery, and personalization is the new weapon to counter rival dominance; Ticketmaster controls an estimated 80% or more of the major concert venues' primary ticketing market.

SeatGeek CEO Jack Groetzinger framed the appointment, noting that Herman's experience "sits right where modern marketing is headed, at the crossroads of personalization and data-driven growth".

In fact, Herman's approach is rooted in an early, visionary philosophy. Back in 2016, he was already detailing a playbook to achieve "hyper-personalization at scale". He championed the idea of owning your platform and using complex in-house models to "value every impression", viewing the prevailing programmatic solutions of the time as often "black box" and lacking control. This is the mindset SeatGeek is buying: a search expert who will ensure the company's ticketing platform is "more personal, more intuitive, and more fan-first" as AI reshapes live-event discovery.

This is reinforced by the reorganization that sees brand veteran Sarah Kettler named Executive Vice President of Marketing & Communications, reporting directly to Herman. This creates a powerful tandem: Herman builds the sophisticated AI-driven growth engine, and Kettler manages the narrative and high-value partnerships (like the Dallas Cowboys and MLS).

Herman might be reimagining the team through hiring as well. Several mid- and senior-level departures in growth marketing earlier this year remain only partially backfilled

ITERABLE

Priya Gill has taken the marketing helm at martech and CX platform Iterable, stepping into the CMO role following Adriana Gil Miner's departure. While not as headline-grabbing as Kenvue, this ‘dual hire’ is announced alongside that of Nick Beil as Chief Product Officer, which we see as a coordinated worthy of note.

Gill brings a rare hybrid of operational experience and customer perspective. Just like the new SeatGeek CMO, she's a computer engineer by background. She led growth at Box, rose to head marketing at SurveyMonkey, and used Iterable's platform in both roles. She arrives already fluent in the product's language and value.

Her mandate is to translate its AI capabilities into a compelling global growth story, but she carries a crucial insight: AI-driven efficiency can backfire. She's pointed to recent HubSpot research showing that 1 in 4 customers can tell when a company uses AI to communicate with them and actively dislike it. This awareness positions her to champion AI that feels more human.

This is truly ‘the leadership package’ and a smart dual hire in our view. Iterable has effectively bought a single, integrated brain for product and marketing. Gill and Beil are tasked with a joint mission: to ensure every product innovation has a clear market story, brand and tech are working together harmoniously and every marketing promise is grounded in legitimate capability. This eliminates the typical lag between what R&D builds and what marketing can sell.

Iterable has placed a decisive bet. In Gill, they gain a leader who understands the platform as both a strategist and a former user, and who now has a direct partner in the CPO to ensure the story they tell is the product they build.

MASTERCARD

This late-October cycle was defined by a generational passing of the torch at Mastercard, underscoring the market's demand for leaders who can monetize data and manage monumental brand stakes.

Perhaps the most significant news is the leadership change at Mastercard, which named Accenture veteran Jill Kramer its new Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, effective December 1, 2025. She succeeds marketing powerhouse Raja Rajamannar, who transitions to a Senior Fellow role after a legendary 12-year tenure. This shift signals Mastercard's acceleration into an era where its data, technology, and B2B capabilities will drive its next chapter of growth.

Rajamannar's legacy is profound: he is credited with pioneering multisensory marketing, creating Mastercard’s sonic identity, and expanding the iconic "Priceless" campaign. His focus was squarely on building brand equity, driving measurable business, and creating a sustainable competitive edge. He was a great talent developer – I’ve personally interviewed many world-class marketers who grew under him.

Kramer's profile, however, is tailor-made for Mastercard's current strategic needs. She joins from Accenture, where she spent a decade, most recently as the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer leading a global, integrated, and tech-driven marketing function. CEO Michael Miebach explicitly valued Kramer's "deep expertise in B2B marketing" as invaluable to accelerate their growth and innovation. This B2B focus is deeply personal for Kramer, who stated, "I've worked in B2B really my whole career” and loved when Cannes Lions added the B2B creativity category.

Kramer's mandate hinges on fully embracing the technological shift, which she believes makes marketers "smarter," "faster," and "more creative". In her own words, she was once intimidated by data, but now says, "I am a major Advocate". She views generative AI and data not as tools that perform the task, but as technologies that "enable human creativity" by clearing away the clutter.

At Mastercard, she will likely apply this view to initiatives such as Mastercard Commerce Media, which leverages 160 billion processed transactions to deliver personalized advertising. Kramer's approach to complexity is also telling: she wants marketers to stop using complexity as an excuse to lower the bar and instead to bring a lot more "humanity" and creativity to the B2B space. Her philosophy is to relentlessly challenge the "wash rinse repeat cycle" of marketing by constantly using technology to ask, "what if we didn't?".

The integration of Kramer's B2B and data philosophy signals that the CMO of tomorrow must be an architect who can fluidly translate brand purpose into enterprise and B2B platform scale.

CMO EMPTY SEATS

A trio of CMOs have packed up their desks this month, each departure carrying its own brand of boardroom drama.

•  Alison Hiatt has exited Vera Bradley just as the retailer faces a steep downturn: the share price is down over 60%, revenue is in retreat, and cash is burning fast. Her departure comes with a standard severance package and a sense that she may be dodging a bullet rather than leaving a legacy.

• Samantha Saturn is leaving SESAC Music Group after 7 years at the helm of marketing. Praised for steering a brand transformation and boosting digital strategy, her departure seems amicable, more a quiet curtain call than a crisis.

• Amy Campbell is stepping away from her role at Paramount (CMO for for Showtime & MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks), citing a desire to follow “the rhythm of change.” It’s the kind of exit note that reads part soul-searching, part PR polish - but signals a clean break nonetheless.

CMO ASCEND

Not everyone’s heading for the exit, some are climbing the ladder, swapping CMO badges for even shinier titles.

•  Suzy Deering, former CMO of Ford and eBay, has officially traded brand-side for agency life, stepping in as CEO of Publicis Sports. After two years consulting for the Groupe, and helping orchestrate key acquisitions and the launch of Women’s Sports Connect - she’s now leading the charge to scale its sports marketing practice alongside President Jon Tuck.

• Lauren Sallata, previously at Panasonic and Ricoh, has been named Chief Growth & Marketing Officer of Jakala North America. With two decades of experience steering digital and brand transformations, she’s now set to drive growth for the global consultancy’s U.S. arm.

• Jenna Habayeb, former CMO of Ruggable and IPSY, has joined Posh Peanut as President. Known for building beloved brands, she’s now diving into children’s fashion, calling the new role a perfect blend of her passions: customer connection, bold vision, and scaling with heart.

• Vinayak Hegde, once CMO of T-Mobile’s consumer business, will take the reins as CEO of Credit Acceptance Corp. He steps in as Kenneth Booth prepares for retirement, promising innovation, long-term value, and presumably fewer acronyms.

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