OpenAI Hires ServiceNow CMO to Lead Business Marketing

OpenAI has appointed Colin Fleming, formerly the CMO of ServiceNow, as its new Chief Marketing Officer for its business unit. 

He joins the company following the departure of former Chief Marketing Officer Kate Rouch, who announced that she was stepping down in early April to focus on her health as she recovers from breast cancer. 

While Colin shared on LinkedIn that the decision to leave ServiceNow after two years was a “gut-wrenching” one, he said that he “would have regretted not taking the swing”.

“The gap between ‘what if?’ and ‘it works’ is getting smaller by the day,” he wrote. “That is the work I’m excited to help do.”

Marketing leadership amid ‘extraordinary growth’

Colin joins OpenAI from ServiceNow, where he spent two years as its EVP and Chief Marketing Officer – playing a key role as part of the executive leadership team to help transition the company into the AI era. He led brand, go to market strategy and narrative evolution across platform, agentic AI and autonomous workflows as the company scaled beyond US$15bn in annual revenue.

Prior to that, he spent 13 years at Salesforce, initially joining as a Director of Product Marketing before progressing to a role as Executive Vice President of Global Marketing. 

In this role, he said he was part of the leadership team during a period of “extraordinary growth” as Salesforce “became one of the world’s most valuable enterprise technology brands”. 

As the company scaled, he led global brand and product storytelling, sharing on LinkedIn that he helped evolve the company narrative beyond customer relationship management into a broader cloud and platform during the rise of enterprise SaaS and AI. 

Before his marketing career, Colin spent six years as a professional racing driver, driving in Formula 2 and competing in more than 20 countries. 

“Businesses are moving quickly to make AI central to how they operate, grow and serve their customers,” OpenAI said in a LinkedIn post. 

“Colin Fleming is joining us as Chief Marketing Officer, Business, to help us meet that moment. From the racetrack to some of the world’s leading enterprise companies, Colin has never taken the conventional route – and we’re looking forward to the energy and ideas he'll bring as we help businesses navigate what comes next.”

Branding shifts ahead of IPO

Colin joins OpenAI as it undergoes significant change – with the company reportedly looking to go public later in 2026. According to Reuters, it could be the second largest IPO in history, potentially raising more than US$60bn. This would fall shy of SpaceX’s estimated US$75bn raise, however, which is projected to take the top spot when it goes public later this year. 

The company has been raising its public profile ahead of the rumoured IPO. 

In February, OpenAI spent around US$14m on a 60-second ad spot to market Codex, its AI-powered coding and workflow agent. The advertisement was created to drive further awareness of the Codex tool and position OpenAI’s products as essential infrastructure for modern businesses. 

As CMO, Business, Colin will be responsible for the business unit’s marketing strategy during this critical transition period. With the company approaching this IPO, his leadership will be pivotal in evolving the company’s narrative and scaling its go-to-market efforts to meet the demands of being a public entity.