Can Shopify Please Hire a CMO
By any standard, what Shopify has done in the last 10 years is remarkable. The combination of Craig Miller, Tobi Lutke, and Harley Finkelstein have hit all the right buttons to create one of the largest, fastest-growing eCommerce businesses on the planet.
It's not without cracks and issues. Recently, Craig announced his departure. To him I say bravo.
For Shopify, I expect not a lot will change. Shopify (from afar) seems a lot like Amazon in that a lot of most senior positions last a long time. Which means I expect someone to step up internally. In the meantime, being without a Chief Product Officer and a Chief Marketing Officer in such a large company for any time is difficult.
Who steps up could tell you something about their direction. Will it be someone more technology-focused, or marketing-focused? Will the new CPO be from a payments background, or someone like Satish Kanwar with deep experience across multiple lines?
I expect the former, perhaps even for both roles. Perhaps a new role for Loren Padelford is in order as the CMO.
Tobi Lutke shared this on Shopify’s blog, explaining what transitions are ahead for Shopify leadership. The TL;DR of it is that Tobi will be acting as both CEO and head of product, with no plans in sight to replace the CPO role. Other leadership shuffles and a few encouraging words excerpted here:
Harley Finkelstein will be moving from his role as COO to President so that he can apply even greater focus on Shopify’s growth and our external affairs…Toby Shannan, currently Chief Support Officer, [will] become the new COO of Shopify…Brittany Forsyth, Chief Talent Officer, and Joe Frasca, Chief Legal Officer, will join Toby’s org and continue their important work to support our business and employees. With these changes, plus Amy Shapero’s continued ownership of our finances, I will be able to focus on product…
Yes, that’s a lot of change. But Shopify comes with a warning label on the box: “thrive on change” is our most important cultural value in 2020. Thriving on change means we strive to be antifragile. The best systems and organizations in the world aren’t just robust, they actively embrace disruption because it makes them better. This is what we trained for. This is how we rise to the next challenge.
