Vans announced that Kristin Harrer had joined the company as global chief marketing officer. As CMO, Harrer will lead the company’s global marketing and creative teams across action sports, art, music, and street culture.
“In addition to being an outstanding leader with a proven track record at other global brands, Kristin is a passionate and true brand expert in digital and direct to consumer experiences,” said Doug Palladini, global brand president, Vans. “As we continue to accelerate our digital transformative thinking, Kristin will spearhead our brand’s ability to connect with our global consumer base through the creation of meaningful and authentic consumer touchpoints.”
Harrer will report directly to Palladini. With this, Harrer will be responsible for setting vision, strategy and driving global planning, creative development, and execution for marketing across retail, brand and digital, with the objective to drive deep consumer connectivity, generate brand heat and create demand for the brand with existing and potential worldwide audience.
“It has long been my belief that the role of a CMO is to set a north-star vision for a brand’s future and to then empower, coach and support teams in forging a path to make that vision a reality,” said Harrer. “The Vans brand has a deep history of being authentically engrained in local creative communities across the world. The dedication, thoughtfulness and creativity I am seeing from the Vans family worldwide has been truly inspiring, and I look forward to helping to harness that energy as we continue to grow the Vans brand globally.”
Harrer joins Vans from Dollar Shave Club where she served as CMO leading core marketing functions including integrated go-to-market, creative, design, insights, and media. Harrer brings over 20 years of experience leading marketing teams and leveraging data and insights to drive brand growth and innovation across consumer tech, sports and fitness brands including Samsung and Nike. Harrer has also been involved in Adweek’s Executive Mentor Program which connects senior-level marketers with CMOs, CBOs, CEOs and more to evolve the face of the C-Suite. She was also named to Forbes’ ‘CMO Next 2019: 50 Game-Changing Marketing Leaders.
Photo courtesy Kristin Harrer/AdWeek
