Facebook names Alex Schultz new global CMO

Facebook has promoted its vice president of growth and analytics, Alex Schultz, to lead marketing efforts as the social network's new CMO. Schultz, who has worked at Facebook for the past 13 years, has been responsible for expanding Facebook's growing user base and its push into more global markets.

Schultz will now add chief marketing officer responsibilities to his continued oversight of product growth, analytics and internationalisation. Reports have suggested this could signal Facebook may take a more analytical approach to promoting products in future. He will continue to report to Facebook’s vice president of growth, Javier Olivan, also working alongside chief product officer Chris Cox.

Schultz replaces Antonio Lucio, Facebook's well-liked former CMO who previous to Facebook served as CMO of HP. Lucio stepped down last month signalling his desire to focus on his advocacy for diversity and inclusion full-time.

In a Facebook post, Schultz paid tribute to Lucio hoping to fill his 'huge shoes'. "You have strengthened our ability to tell meaningful, culturally relevant stories with our family of brands," Schultz wrote of Lucio. "I hope to build on this and bring my experience in segmentation, targeting, and measurement to bear as we work to reach people more meaningfully through our product."

Of his non-traditional CMO background, Schultz explained that it is rooted in direct response online marketing and analytics. "I have grown up in online marketing and believe deeply in the economic empowerment it can bring, its ability to show people more tailored, relevant, less annoying ads, and the fact it allows us to serve everyone by offering our products for free," he said.

As as openly gay executive sponsor of Facebook’s Pride@ resource group, Schultz has also signalled a desire to continue Lucio's advocacy of diversity and inclusion.

(This article first appeared on CampaignAsia.com)