BuzzFeed's Chief Marketing Officer to resign

Ben Kaufman will soon cease to be the Chief Marketing Officer of BuzzFeed, an American Internet media, news and entertainment company.

He will now move into an advisory role at the company with the planned expansion of Kaufman’s Camp retail stores.

CEO Jonah Peretti mentioned in a memo to staffers that Kaufman will shift into an active advisory role from January, next year, as Camp continues to expand and require more of his day-to-day attention

Camp is an independent startup, in which BuzzFeed has a minority stake. But for Kaufman it shall now be the key focus. With first Camp experiential toy store opened in December 2018, BuzzFeed expects to open five more Camp stores, including in Dallas and Brooklyn.

As for the new marketing head, BuzzFeed has already started working on a transition plan for the CMO role.

Since, Kaufman was associated with the company from 3 years now,  it would be interesting to see who the leadership chooses as new marketing leader. Would they prefer someone who is been with the company for a while or hire a veteran from another organization?

Kaufman had joined BuzzFeed in 2016 as Chief Commerce Officer. It was only a few months back, in January 2019 that he was named as CMO. During his tenure at the digital-media company, he helped develop the Tasty line of products for Walmart and the Goodful brand at Macy’s.

Before joining BuzzFeed, Kaufman was an internet entrepreneur. He has also served as Founder and CEO of Quirky, a startup that creates products based on ideas submitted by inventors.

As Kaufman prepares himself to move on from the old responsibility, he tweeted and extended his gratitude for the company and the team.

“Very thankful for & proud of my time at BuzzFeed. Lucky and excited to continue to be a part of the BF family as I shift my focus to scaling @CAMPSTORES.”

While for Kaufman the key priority will be to scale up Camp Stores, for BuzzFeed the scope of responsibilities is much larger. How they create a team that helps them achieve the great plans and projections for the rest of the year and the next year, is to look forward to. 

Image Credits: Forbes