Kohl's Unifies Marketing and CX with Chief Customer Officer

Kohl’s is bringing marketing and customer experience under one umbrella. 

The company has announced that Arianne Parisi, currently serving as Chief Digital Officer at Kohl's, will be taking on the newly created role of Chief Customer Officer. 

In this role, she will be responsible for enhancing the customer experience across marketing, brand and creative, loyalty, personalisation, media and digital commerce – with a focus on strengthening the full customer lifecycle and modernising the company’s omnichannel experience.  

This work, the company says, will help connect the Kohl’s brand promise more directly to the way customers discover, shop, engage and – most importantly – return. 

As Arianne takes on this new role, Christie Raymond, the company’s Chief Marketing Officer, is leaving the company, effective September.

“I want to thank Christie for her nine years of service at Kohl's and congratulate her on her esteemed career,” says Michael Bender, CEO of Kohl’s. “We appreciate the impact she's made on our business, both in enhancing our customer insights and strategy and in identifying and advancing new opportunities. 

“She's led with wisdom and heart, and we wish her all the best in her next chapter.”

Streamlining the customer experience

Arianne has more than 20 years of experience in the retail sector, and has spent just over a year at Kohl’s as the company’s Chief Digital Officer. 

“As we continue to drive the business forward in service of our customers, I am excited for Arianne to take on the new role of Chief Customer Officer,” says Michael. 

“Bringing marketing and digital together under one leader will help foster a greater focus on the full customer lifecycle and how Kohl's shows up across customer touchpoints.”

In her time at Kohl’s, Arianne has been driving the company’s digital business through the Kohl’s website and app, with a focus on helping to enhance the omnichannel customer experience. 

This is a huge area of growth for Kohl’s, with its app having 20 million active users and digital channels accounting for 27% of the company’s total sales, as of its Q2 2026 results. 

“Arianne always starts with the customer – making sure that how we position ourselves as a brand and how we execute as a business both deliver on our customer promise,” says Michael. 

“She has an excellent ability to work collaboratively with a variety of functions across the business to accomplish shared goals. 

She has shown agility in anticipating evolving customer expectations and translating them into action, an approach that will help Kohl's build for the future.”

Merging CX and marketing

Kohl’s has been looking to reduce friction in the online shopping experience for some time – announcing in late July that it was launching an AI shopping assistant designed to make shopping “simpler, fun and more intuitive from start to finish”.

The tool offers personalised recommendations, product comparisons and image search, among other features. 

“Kohl's plays a meaningful role in customers' lives, serving families with value, convenience, trusted brands and inspiration across so many moments that matter,” says Arianne. “As customer expectations continue to evolve, we have an opportunity to bring our brand, digital experience, loyalty and marketing together in a more connected way. 

“I'm thrilled to support our talented team of associates as we bring our brand vision to life.”

Who are Kohl’s key partners?

• Amazon: E-commerce giant Amazon established a landmark operational alliance with the US department store retailer by introducing free unboxed merchandise returns across all physical store locations nationwide. This strategic alliance leverages valuable real estate to boost foot traffic whilst providing digital customers with unmatched convenience.
• Sephora: By integrating dedicated shop-in-shop destinations inside hundreds of storefronts, prestige beauty retailer Sephora has helped transform Kohl’s customer demographics. This venture blends Sephora’s curated product range and beauty technology with Kohl’s suburban accessibility, and modernises the in-store experience. 
• Google Cloud: Google Cloud accelerates the department store’s cloud migration and data analytics infrastructure. Through this strategic cloud partnership, the retailer processes massive customer datasets to refine real-time inventory management alongside personalised marketing campaigns. 
• Salesforce: To drive customer engagement, Salesforce supplies the enterprise software powering Kohl’s marketing strategies and loyalty operations. Using these cloud-based solutions allows the retailer to unify customer profiles, deliver targeted promotional offers and manage millions of rewards members efficiently.