Deborah Wahl, Cadillac Global Chief Marketing Officer.
What do the Golden Starches and Cadillac have in common? Well, Cadillac has appointed Deborah Wahl as Global Chief Marketing Officer, effective March 26. Wahl will be based in the company’s New York headquarters and report to Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen*. In a release Cadillac said Deborah will lead the strategic marketing for the Cadillac brand around the world, “building on the transformational work that has been done over the past several years.”
While it’s true that General Motors has spent a lot of money on the faded, once leading luxury brand, global sales of 157,000 during 2017 (-9%) show that the transformational work has yet to take hold, and a revolving door at the top continues. Moreover, this ain’t fast food.
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“Deborah’s diverse experience, as well as her proven track record of building successful global brands, makes her a natural addition to our leadership team,” claimed Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen. Wahl, has more than 20 years of experience with high-level marketing and brand work, serves on the Boards of Directors of Groupon and media software company Mediaocean. She led marketing for three years as Chief Marketing Officer at McDonald’s, “where she played an instrumental role in transforming the business and increasing brand perception,” a dubious distinction in AutoInformed’s view.
Previously, Wahl served as the first-ever CMO at PulteGroup, a homebuilder. Additionally, Wahl brings some automotive experience in passing, having served as VP and CMO at Chrysler, VP of Marketing at Lexus, and having held multiple Marketing and Communications roles at Ford.
*Johan de Nysschen
Johan de Nysschen was appointed President, Cadillac on August 18, 2014. de Nysschen is responsible for all aspects of Cadillac globally including sales, pricing, and network development; strategic brand development and marketing; product portfolio planning, including providing critical input for product engineering and design; and overall business results. de Nysschen joined GM from Infiniti where he served as President, Infiniti Motor Company Limited since July 2012. In this role he oversaw all corporate functions, based at the firm’s global headquarters in Hong Kong. Prior to Infiniti, de Nysschen was President of Audi of America Inc., from December 2004, also serving as a member of the Executive Board of Volkswagen of America, Inc. de Nysschen joined Audi of America after many successful international assignments at Audi, including serving as the President of Audi Japan from April 1999 to December 2004. During that time, he oversaw what was claimed to be significant development of the Audi business, establishing an exclusive Audi dealer network and re-configuring the vehicle lineup.
