Zalando is strengthening its leadership team to accelerate its strategy as the leading pan‑European technology platform for fashion and lifestyle. From 15 July 2026, Ray Cao will join as Senior Vice President of Zalando Partner Marketing Services (ZMS) to scale the company’s retail media unit, further develop its data‑driven advertising solutions, and drive mutual growth for more than 7,000 brand partners across Europe.
ZMS is Zalando’s dedicated retail media unit. It leverages Europe’s most extensive fashion‑focused data and infrastructure—including billions of customer interactions and deep product insights—to offer brand partners powerful, data‑driven advertising solutions. By connecting brands with millions of customers across Europe, ZMS creates a positive cycle: it produces inspiring and personally relevant experiences that help brands grow efficiently while making the platform even more valuable to consumers.
Ray Cao brings strong experience building and scaling global organizations. A veteran of the ad tech industry, he has worked with some of the world’s most influential platforms. He was a founding member and leader of TikTok’s global revenue organization, helping scale the platform’s advertising business into a multibillion‑dollar operation. His expertise in scaling social commerce aligns closely with Zalando’s strategic focus on capturing major new opportunities across social and agency commerce channels.
His career also includes leadership roles in the early days of Google Shopping and in fintech at Intuit. Ray’s leadership style emphasizes transparency, a customer‑centric mindset, and a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion.
As Ray assumes his role, Joanna Rogers will focus fully on her responsibilities as SVP Propositions. Joanna has led ZMS with great success and dedication for the past 18 months. Since late 2025 she has also overseen the development of all of Zalando’s fashion and lifestyle propositions—including Sports, Beauty, Kids & Family and Designer—alongside the Partner Platform business. This change reflects significant growth in both areas, which now require fully dedicated leadership to reach their full potential.
“Ray will further unlock the huge commercial opportunity we have within ZMS, and elevate how our brand partners connect with more than 62 million customers across Europe. As our pan‑European platform scales, bringing in a world‑class leader of Ray’s caliber is the next natural step to drive our retail media business into its next phase of exponential growth,” said Robert Gentz, Zalando co‑CEO and co‑founder. “I also want to extend my sincere thanks to Joanna for her outstanding leadership and the strong foundation she built while holding a dual mandate. This new structure gives both ZMS and our consumer propositions the dedicated leadership they need to succeed.”
Ray and Joanna will work closely together on strategy and execution to ensure ZMS and Propositions continue to grow strongly in tandem, offering partners an integrated approach to retail media and assortment planning. Ray will also collaborate closely with James Rothwell, SVP Marketing, to align overall consumer brand strategy with partner marketing initiatives that drive mutual growth.
“As the leading technology platform for fashion and lifestyle, Zalando is uniquely positioned to unlock significant growth in retail media. With Zalando’s large and unique dataset in the AI era, we have an unparalleled opportunity to connect brands with highly engaged consumers at scale,” said Ray Cao. “I’m excited to immerse myself in the culture and make a tangible impact. I look forward to working with the entire team to deliver transparent, customer‑focused advertising solutions that drive our partners’ growth.”
About Zalando
Zalando was founded in Berlin in 2008 and is today Europe’s leading technology platform for fashion and lifestyle. We connect 62 million active customers with over 7,000 brands across 29 markets through infrastructure built on unique data and AI technology.
For customers, our multi‑app strategy—which includes Zalando, ABOUT YOU and Lounge by Zalando—delivers an inspiring and personalized shopping experience that meets different customer needs.
For partners, we build an e‑commerce operating system. Through ZEOS, Tradebyte and SCAYLE, we provide logistics, software and service capabilities that enable brands and retailers to scale their businesses across channels and markets.