Mayur Gupta has joined Gannett as its new chief marketing and strategy officer.
In this new role, Gupta will be responsible for driving the vision and strategy as the company transforms to a subscription-led content business. This continuous evolution in a digital economy will strengthen Gannett’s mission to build trusted local communities at the intersection of the organization’s direct-to-consumer and business-to-business endeavors. He will also lead the marketing and growth functions, connecting data, technology and storytelling to deliver original content through apps, audio, video, live events and emerging technologies to an audience of nearly 175 million in the U.S. and U.K. In conjunction with his hiring, Gupta has resigned as a member of the Gannett board of directors.
“We are very excited to have Mayur transition from his role as a board member to join our leadership team,” said Michael Reed, chairman and chief executive officer of Gannett. “Mayur has a strong track record as a growth and content marketer at big CPGs like Kimberly Clark as well as disruptive start-ups like Spotify and Freshly that have re-shaped their categories. Mayur has already played a key role on our board over the past year and we are excited to leverage his unique capabilities to continue to transform our business model and drive purpose-driven growth. His experience building content driven subscription models and his ability to execute on a vision and strategy with speed and agility align well with our goals for this role. In addition, given his board service he has intimate knowledge of the company following our recent acquisition.”
“I am thrilled to join Gannett, especially at a time when the need for trusted, independent journalism and digital content could not be greater for local communities,” Gupta said. “Over the last year serving on Gannett’s board, I have witnessed two companies come together for a common mission and purpose to empower these local communities. I feel honored for this opportunity to lean into Gannett’s future as a digital content leader and contribute my experience to an already dynamic legacy.”
Gupta is an engineer turned marketer who has spent more than 20 years driving digital transformation and scaled growth. Most recently, he served as the chief marketing officer at Freshly where he led a team of marketers, growth hackers and analysts to make Freshly an iconic household subscription brand. Prior to Freshly, Gupta was the global vice president for growth and marketing at Spotify. He was responsible for growing the free and premium user base for the company with growth hacking and data-driven, always-on experiences; testing new growth strategies, business models and partnerships. He drove the vision and strategy to establish a connected marketing ecosystem and growth machinery for Spotify’s multi-sided marketplace that connects the right artist with the right fan through programmatic discovery and accessibility.
Prior to Spotify, he led Marketing, OmniChannel Solutions business and Digital Capabilities at Healthgrades, where he successfully drove the digital transformation of the company while being responsible for the vision, strategy and activation of one of the largest digital marketplace platforms in healthcare. He was the first ever chief marketing technologist at Kimberly Clark, responsible for the vision, strategy and development of all digital and eCommerce capabilities across KC's global iconic brands.
In 2019, Gupta was recognized by Forbes as one of the Top 50 CMOs in the country. In 2014, he was recognized as one of the “40 under 40” leading marketers in the industry by Brand Innovators and also received the CMO Programmatic Award by the CMOClub. Harvard Business Review and the Economist profiled him as the model chief marketing technologist in the same year.
Gupta joined Gannett’s board of directors in October 2019. Gannett’s board of directors has begun a search process for replacing his seat on the board.
