Chase taps Citi's Carla Hassan as CMO

Carla Hassan is cashing out of one bank and joining another. The marketing veteran was named chief marketing officer of JPMorgan Chase today, following a nearly-one year stint as CMO at Citi, one of Chase’s top financial rivals. She will be based in Chase’s New York office beginning in October. Hassan has had a long history in marketing—she was appointed the top marketer at Citi last September after joining the bank two years prior as chief brand officer. At Citi, Hassan was tasked with merging branding and marketing into one unit. She also focused on building the brand’s diversity when it comes to hiring and promoting equity. Before Citi, Hassan worked as CMO at Toys R Us, leading one of the brand’s final large-scale marketing pushes before its bankruptcy, and also held marketing roles at PepsiCo. Now, she’ll be taking her talents to Chase, replacing Leslie Gillin in the top marketing role. Gillin, who was appointed CMO just last year, left in March, a spokesman confirmed. It’s a fair amount of turnover for a role that was occupied for several years by Kristin Lemkau, a marketing leader who rose through the ranks at the brand to become CEO of U.S. Wealth Management in late 2019 after starting with the bank in global media relations in 1998. She was CMO for five years and became a well-known figure in marketing industry circles. Hassan carries a similar reputation as a highly regarded executive among marketing peers. Hassan will also have a heftier marketing budget to manage. Last year, Chase spent about $295.1 million on measured media, a 2% rise over 2019, according to Ad Age's Datacenter. By comparison, Citi spent $112.8 million on media in 2020, a 12% decline over 2019, Datacenter reported.

Chase taps Citi's Carla Hassan as CMO

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