Snap has appointed Grace Kao as its new chief marketing officer. She is being promoted after serving for less than six months as the company’s vice president of consumer and business marketing.
She will take the place of chief creative officer Colleen DeCourcy, who joined Snap in May 2022. DeCourcy will stay on as an advisor to help with the transition before departing the company later this year.
Kao previously held marketing leadership roles at Spotify, Instagram, and Yahoo. She also worked at ad agencies TBWA\Chiat\Day and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners from the late ’90s through early 2010s, where she led projects for major commercial clients including Pepsi, Apple, Sony, and HP.
She was behind Spotify’s Spreadbeats B2B campaign, which took home multiple Cannes Lions last year, including a Grand Prix in digital craft.
The announcement, made in an internal company memo from Snap CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel, comes just two weeks ahead of the social media company’s Q1 earnings report and three weeks out from its NewFronts presentation.
“Since joining Snap in December, Grace has already demonstrated significant impact across the marketing organization, and I’m excited to deepen our work together in her new role,” Spiegel said. “At the same time, we are incredibly grateful to Colleen for her contributions leading our brand work over the past three years, for her energy and creativity, and for her instrumental role in building our talented in-house creative team.”
Snap hasn’t had a CMO role since Kenny Mitchell departed in April 2023 to lead marketing at Levi Strauss & Co. DeCourcy has been leading the platform’s marketing since then.
A spokesperson said Snap does not plan to fill the CCO role.
