Shopify’s chief marketing officer, Jeff Weiser, is out as the company restructures its marketing strategy and department, according to an internal email to employees obtained by BetaKit.
In the email, co-founder and chief executive officer of Shopify, Tobi Lütke, wrote that Weiser will no longer be with the company and went on to explain how the company has been failing to achieve anything worthy out of its marketing strategies for the past couple of years.
“The rebooted marketing team will operate less like an agency and more like one company,” Lütke noted. “At one point in the past, marketing and product were integrated and growth was planned into the product work from the build phase onwards. We need to get back there.”
The company will now be merging its marketing department with its product department, which is currently headed by Craig Miller, the chief product officer at Shopify. Prior to that, Miller was the former chief marketing officer at the company from 2011 to 2018.
In addition, Shopify will also be moving various sections of its marketing team to its different organizational departments, with the chief operating officer — Harley Finklestein — in charge of brand and communications, creative, and Shopify Studios. Parts of the marketing team will also be led by Aaron Brown, vice-president of international, and Bruno Roldan, vice-president and general manager of product sourcing.
“This is a lot of change to take in all at once,” Lütke said in the email. He also added that the merged teams “will be active in shaping the next version of growth at Shopify.”
Weiser led the marketing team of Shopify from its New York office and had joined the company as its chief marketing officer around two years ago, states his LinkedIn profile.