Uber Marketing Leadership Has a Shake-Up as CMO Thomas Ranese Exits

Uber’s chief marketing officer Thomas Ranese has left his role after nearly three years with David Mogensen taking over as vp of marketing, reporting to Jill Hazelbaker. Based in San Francisco, Ranese joined the ride-share technology company in September 2019 from Google where he spent almost a decade, latterly holding the position of vp of global hardware marketing. At Uber, his role included steering the marketing strategy and go-to-market execution across 60 territories, overseeing a team of more than 300 product and demand generation marketers. That included leading social impact and corporate initiatives for the company “to rebuild trust and reputation for the brand,” his LinkedIn profile explains. He joined Uber a year after it spent $500 million on an apology campaign to repair its image following a number of scandals that eroded trust in the brand. He left the company in January, Uber has revealed. He will be succeeded by Mogensen, who is based in Amsterdam but will relocate to the U.S. who joined Uber in 2020 as senior director and head of Marketing EMEA. Like Ranese, he is also a Google veteran of a decade, leaving after holding the post as director of marketing for Northern Europe. Ranse told Adweek that he had decided to resign from Uber to “pursue new opportunities more aligned to my interests.” He added “I'm extremely proud of the accomplishments the marketing team made over the last 2.5 years under my leadership.” An Uber spokesperson confirmed the changeover and added: "We are grateful for Thomas' contributions to Uber and wish him all the best." The rebuilding of the brand Talking to Adweek in November about the work and messaging Uber had done during the pandemic including campaigns such as “Move What Matters,” “No Mask, No Ride” and “Delete Uber,” Ranese said the company has moved to no longer just being about transportation. “We’re about delivery as well, and our delivery business is now as robust as our mobility business,” he explained. “We’re no longer this brand who’s thought of and defined by our past. We’re a brand that can show up and be a responsible corporate citizen at a time of need. The role that marketing plays is helping to tell that story, helping to stitch together all the elements of our service.” One campaign, which included an ad fronted by film director and activist Spike Lee, highlighted Uber’s promise to donate 10 million rides for Americans to receive their vaccinations. Ranese also cited the communications Uber produced in response to the murder of George Floyd in 2020 as examples of some of the work he was most proud to see the company take a stand with. The company pledged to become “anti-racist” and followed that up by pledging $11 million to support Black-owned small businesses over two years and another $1 million towards criminal justice reform organizations the Equal Justice Initiative and Center for Policing Inequality. “We acted very quickly and committed to a number of organizations with funding, but we actually became very introspective,” he explained. “Obviously, it’s a journey. And we have a lot of work to do to get to a place that we feel great about. But we’ve done the work to look at ourselves and put those commitments on the table. Now we have a plan to move forward so that we can stand by the things that we said.” At the time of writing, Uber had not responded to Adweek’s approach for comment. Uber Said Not to Use Uber During the Pandemic, and Found Its Purpose in the Process