Mars Petcare hires marketing guru to build brand and consumer experience

Mars has announced the appointment of Najoh Tita-Reid as its new Chief Brand & Experience Officer (CBExO) for Mars Petcare starting 20 November.

Tita-Reid will be responsible for leading the company’s growth agenda and creating a seamless brand and consumer experience across the portfolio.

The multinational says that creating the new role signals Mars’s “continued focus” on digitalization and technology to accelerate its business transformation and drive growth. 

Leonid Sudakov, President of Growth, Digital & Platforms at Mars Petcare, says that Tita-Reid will help the firm “better meet the needs of pet owners and transform the experience of pet ownership.”

More than 25 years of experience

Najoh Tita-Reid has experience in the technology, healthcare, pharmaceutical and consumer-packaged-goods sectors and has held positions at Bayer, Merck, GlobalHue and P&G over the past 25 years. 

She is the current Chief Marketing Officer at computer accessory maker Logitech, where she looks after global marketing, brand equity, creative, branded and direct-to-consumer (DTC) e-commerce sites. 

Tita-Reid appeared on Fortune’s list of the Top 50 Entrepreneurial CMOs and co-founded the Black Executive CMO Alliance for Black marketing C-suite executives.

$300 million fund

The appointment comes just a few weeks after Mars and venture capital firm Digitalis Ventures launched a $300 million (€282.9M) venture to support pet care innovations.

The Companion Fund II will provide venture capital to companies developing technologies to improve the lives of pets, like veterinary diagnostics, veterinary medicine, information technologies, online platforms and more.

“Our goal is to support pet care founders accelerating the trajectory of startups, helping to fuel the growth of pet care businesses and to contribute to the future of the pet care industry,” says Loïc Moutault, Global President of Mars Petcare.

The first Companion Fund worth $100 million (€94.3M) was launched in 2018. It has since supported the growth of many innovative companies, including Smalls, MySimplePetLab and Scratch.