Zalando appoints ad tech veteran Ray Cao as Senior Vice President to further scale Partner Marketing Services 

Zalando appoints ad tech veteran Ray Cao as Senior Vice President to further scale Partner Marketing Services 

• Ad Tech executive Ray Cao joins as SVP ZMS, bringing a deep global track record of building and scaling multi-billion dollar advertising powerhouses.
• Cao brings extensive experience from some of the world's most influential tech platforms, having previously held key leadership roles at TikTok, Google Shopping and Intuit.
• Joanna Rogers to focus exclusively on her ever-growing remit as SVP Propositions, overseeing all Zalando fashion and lifestyle offerings and platform business, following her dedicated stewardship of ZMS over the past 1.5 years.
• Rogers and Cao to provide focused leadership for both Zalando Partner Marketing Services and Zalando's consumer fashion and lifestyle offerings and the platform business to capture the huge commercial opportunity ahead of Zalando.

BERLIN, 13 May 2026 // Zalando is strengthening its leadership team to accelerate its strategy as the leading pan-European technology platform for fashion and lifestyle. Effective 15 July 2026, Ray Cao will join the company as Senior Vice President of Zalando Partner Marketing Services (ZMS) to scale the company's retail media unit, elevate 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 the richest fashion-specific data and infrastructure in Europe, including billions of customer interactions and deep product intelligence, to provide brand partners with powerful, data-driven advertising solutions. By connecting brands with millions of customers across Europe, ZMS powers a virtuous cycle: creating inspiring, personally relevant experiences that help brands grow efficiently while making the platform even more valuable to consumers.

Ray Cao brings an incredible track record in building and scaling global organisations. A true veteran in the Ad Tech space, he has worked with some of the most influential platforms in the world. He served as a founding member and leader of TikTok’s global monetisation team, where he helped scale the platform's advertising business into a multibillion-dollar powerhouse. His specific expertise in scaling social commerce aligns perfectly with Zalando's strategic focus on capturing major new opportunities in social and agentic commerce channels. His journey also includes key leadership roles during the early days of Google Shopping and in the FinTech space at Intuit. Ray brings a leadership style deeply rooted in transparency, a customer-first mindset and a strong commitment to championing diversity and inclusion.

As Ray steps into this role, Joanna Rogers will dedicate her undivided focus to her remit as SVP Propositions, a scope which includes all Zalando's consumer fashion and lifestyle offerings, as well as partner platform business. Joanna has led ZMS with huge success and dedication over the past 1.5 years. Since late 2025, she has also overseen the development of all Zalando fashion and lifestyle offerings, including Fashion, Sports, Beauty, Kids & Family, Pre-Owned, Lounge and Designer, alongside the Partner Platform business. This transition reflects the substantial growth of both business areas, which now require fully dedicated leadership to thrive and unlock their full potential.

“Ray will further unlock the massive commercial opportunity we have in ZMS, elevating how our brand partners connect with over 62 million customers across Europe. As our pan-European platform scales, bringing in a world-class leader of Ray’s calibre is the natural next step to drive our retail media business into its next phase of growth,” said Robert Gentz, Zalando co-CEO and founder. “I want to extend a huge thank you to Joanna for her outstanding stewardship and the strong foundation she built while managing a dual mandate. This new structure provides both ZMS and our expansive fashion and lifestyle offerings with the dedicated leadership they need to win.”

Ray and Joanna will work in close partnership on strategy and execution to ensure ZMS and Propositions continue to thrive together, offering partners an integrated approach to retail media and assortment planning. Ray will also collaborate closely with James Rothwell, SVP Marketing, to align the overarching consumer brand strategy with partner marketing initiatives and drive mutual growth.

“As the leading technology platform for fashion and lifestyle, Zalando is uniquely positioned to drive strong growth in retail media. Given Zalando's incredibly rich and unique data set in the age of AI, we have an unparalleled opportunity to connect brands with highly engaged consumers at scale,” said Ray Cao. “I can’t wait to immerse myself in the culture and drive real impact. I look forward to working with the entire team to deliver transparent, customer-centric advertising solutions that fuel our partners' growth.”
 

ABOUT ZALANDO
Founded in Berlin in 2008, Zalando is the leading European technology platform for fashion and lifestyle. Connecting 62 million active customers with more than 7,000 brands across 29 markets, our operations are built on a unique AI-powered data and infrastructure platform. For our customers, our multi-app approach - comprising Zalando, ABOUT YOU, and Lounge by Zalando - delivers an inspiring, highly personalized shopping experience, serving different customers with different needs. For our partners, we are building the operating system for e-commerce. Through ZEOS, Tradebyte, and SCAYLE, we open our logistics, software, and service capabilities to brands and retailers, enabling them to seamlessly scale their businesses across borders.

For further information, please visit: corporate.zalando.com/en
 

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