CMO Moves Mid-September Update

In the first two weeks of September, 25 new CMOs were announced globally: 11 women plus 14 men. Only one of these appointments came from within, while the other 24 were external hires. So yes, internal promotions remain the exception…

9 of the newly appointed CMOs are stepping into the C-suite for the first time - a decent showing for fresh leadership. And cross-industry hires? Still a rare move, with just 2 people coming in from unrelated sectors.

In the U.S., 13 CMOs were hired across 7 states. California led the way with 5, followed by New York and Texas with 2 each. Outside the U.S., England saw 3 new CMOs announced, while Germany and India added 2 each. Australia, France, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, and Sweden all welcomed one apiece.

By industry, Tech continues to dominate with 7 new appointments. Professional Services and Retail followed with 4 each, while Financial Services and CPG both logged 3.

• Tech: 7

• Professional Services: 4

• Retail: 4

• Financial Services: 3

• CPG: 3

• Restaurants: 1

• Construction:1

• Hotel and Travel: 1

• Media, Sports & Entertainment: 1

The pace of CMO hiring isn’t slowing down, and neither is the appetite for fresh talent from outside.

COINBASE

Crypto circus, meet your new ringmaster.

As trading rival Robinhood breaks the S&P 500, Coinbase just hired Catherine Ferdon as CMO, reporting to trusted thought partner of the CEO, Emilie Choi, after a long tour at Block’s Cash App where she learned how to sell complex money stuff without giving consumers a migraine. The brief is obvious. Make crypto feel like a utility again, not a mood swing, not ‘dangerous’.

The last widely Coinbase CMO, Kate Rouch, decamped to become OpenAI’s first CMO earlier this year. That left a vacuum in a brand that lives in the crossfire of finance, tech, and politics. Coinbase just filled it with a marketer who has actually shipped growth at consumer scale. I reckon that should tell you how they see their next chapter.

The job is spiky. On Monday you are explaining self-custody to normies. On Tuesday you are navigating Washington, where Coinbase has been building a bipartisan advisory machine and importing big-name strategists.

This is a brand that needs to sell safety to regulators, freedom to crypto diehards, and convenience to everyone else. The advisory buildout is real, and it shows how political the category has become. A senior adviser to Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign also recently joined Coinbase’s global advisory council, which already includes several former U.S. senators and President Donald Trump’s ex-campaign manager, as the cryptocurrency exchange broadens its political reach.

Internally, the culture is wired for speed. Brian Armstrong has been crystal clear about how he wants teams to use AI, and what happens when they do not. Translation for marketing? The content and lifecycle engine will be automated wherever possible, so creative that earns attention becomes the scarce asset.

Why her, specifically? Cash App trained Ferdon for this moment. She knows how to make risk feel simple, how to build trust without turning the brand into oatmeal, and how to keep growth math honest in a category that loves its own reflection. Coinbase does not need a museum curator. It needs a builder who can move volume, clean up the narrative, and survive Crypto Twitter without rage quitting.

One more thing. Anyone still workshopping “is the CMO role dead” can sit this one out. Coinbase just moved from a vacancy to a heavyweight. That is the opposite of a funeral. And if you want an early tell on the strategy, check Ferdon’s own intro and Coinbase’s socials.

Welcome to the funhouse, Catherine. Try to keep the number of users going up and the number of congressional hearings going down.

DRISCOLLS

Driscoll’s just named Jiunn Shih its first Global CMO, effective September 15. I think this is late by design. The role reports to the CEO. He will be based in Hong Kong. That tells you the plan is global scale with one playbook.

Why him, specifically? His own bio says it best: “Good growth or no deal.” He builds brands that win and make the world better. “Purpose in the P&L. Proof in the results.” That fits Driscoll’s right now. The company sells in 40 countries and is coming off double-digit gains in both units and dollars. It needs brand leadership that can carry performance and values at the same time.

Camera-ready Shih has the toolkit. At Zespri he ran marketing, innovation, and sustainability and turned kiwifruit into a brand people ask for. Earlier roles at Unilever, Syngenta, and L’Oréal gave him retail muscle, agri-science fluency, and premium craft. He has led teams across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. He knows how to ship campaigns and manage complexity.

He is also clear on how he leads. Businesses should be a force for good. More whole foods, fewer ultra-processed ones. Fair rewards for growers. Packaging, supply chains, and innovation that help the planet. He says he leads with conviction, not consensus drift. He rallies teams to rebel with a cause – and to evolve without wrecking what works. Facts matter as much as craft. Data sharpens judgment. Distinctive storytelling makes it stick. High standards, warm heart.

This is a guy who made an already lovable fruit (A kiwi) into something even more loved. Turns proprietary flavor and breeding into simple consumer promises. Protects price and preference in every aisle. Gives retailers one creative and retail media system across regions. Brings sustainability and IP into the core story.

Driscoll’s has engineered berries for taste and shelf life for decades. Now, after 100+ years in business, it’s hiring its first CMO; Engineering the brand with the same rigor. With Jiunn Shih, the brief is clear - Good growth or no deal.

Berry Good Hire, Driscolls!

MONTE CARLO

Wayne Jin just stepped into a role with a ‘background’ B2B SaaS you might not know or care about, but you should. 

He’s joining Monte Carlo, a fast-growing startup solving a problem that every company has and no one talks about: Can we trust our data, and by extension, the AI built on top of it?

In 2025, CIOs (and many CMOs) are fighting to keep the numbers behind the scenes accurate. Monte Carlo is becoming the company that helps teams spot when dashboards go dark, when AI goes off the rails, or when customer data gets corrupted before anyone notices. Think of it as quality control for the entire data + AI pipeline. Now they’ve brought in their first-ever CMO to tell that story to the world.

Wayne Jin isn’t a household name, but he’s built the muscle behind some of tech’s most beloved infrastructure companies. He helped scale Grafana, a developer favorite in system monitoring, and held senior roles at developer staple GitHub, AppDynamics, and Google Cloud. In other words, he knows how to make complex, invisible software into something buyers understand and trust.

This move signals that Monte Carlo is graduating from technical favorite to strategic partner. It also shows that in the race to make AI reliable enough for the enterprise, marketing isn’t just part of the plan…it is the plan.

Jin is going to be helping define what “AI you can trust” actually looks like, and he’s doing it before the cloud giants flood the zone.

For CMOs watching this space: it’s a masterclass in brand-building from zero, at the exact moment a new category is being carved out of the AI hype cycle.

Don’t be surprised when Monte Carlo shows up in your board deck six months from now. That’s Wayne Jin doing his job.

Wondering who the other 22 CMOs are that didn’t make today’s spotlight? Join Premium and you’ll get the full rundown: not just the 25 hires from the past two weeks, but also 328 earlier this year and another 310 from last year.

Plenty of moves to track, and we’ve got them all in one place.

Have a great week!

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