Get to Know Lisa Roath, Target’s New Chief Marketing Officer

Meet Lisa Roath, the new CMO of Tarzhay, bringing innovation, brand growth, and affordable joy to customers. Exciting times ahead!

What is it about Tarzhay that makes visitors refer to us as their happy place? Every guest experience is created with inspiration, connection, and delight, and our marketing staff is crucial to making it all come to life.

As of today, Lisa Roath will serve as our new chief marketing officer (CMO), it was revealed. She will be in charge of our key marketing operations, including creative, guest marketing, retail brand experience, social media, paid media, and marketing strategy.

Lisa has been with the Bullseye for 17 years and has held several leadership positions, most recently managing our food and beverage merchandising team. She guided the team during a period of significant development and contributed to making Target into a company that loves food during that time. Our food and beverage sales have increased by more than $5 billion since 2019, and Lisa’s commitment to innovation has enabled us to treble the number of emerging brands we offer.

We questioned Lisa about herself, her background, and the aspects of working with her new colleagues that she was most looking forward to.

Thanks, Lisa! What about taking on the CMO position most excites you?

Thanks! There is much to be happy about. Marketing plays a crucial role in how we interact with our customers, and in many respects, we’re still in the early stages of helping people discover the inexpensive joy that characterizes our shopping experience. I’ve been working at Target for almost 20 years, and the convenience, inspiration, and value it provides to so many families keeps me motivated for the future. I’m excited to work with Target’s amazing marketing team, whose imagination, kindness, and dedication to fostering brand growth are unrivaled.

You’ve held a variety of leadership positions at Target. Is there a particular task that you can point to as a turning point in your professional life?

I had the chance to oversee a company-wide merchandising makeover in 2017. The aim was to find areas to invest in to improve our merchandise experiences, such as speeding up the launch of new products and enhancing retail fundamentals like strong discounts and eye-catching displays.

It was a significant undertaking that required me to work closely with several teams and organization leaders and comprehend the role that each department plays in the overall operation. That job has been a career high point for me because it challenged me to advance both personally and professionally. I gained a lot of knowledge about managing large-scale change in teams, and I’ll use that knowledge as my teams take on new tasks.

Everyone has superpowers. What’s yours?

Over the course of my professional life, I’ve learned that one of my most valuable skills is simplifying difficult ideas. When I was in charge of the merchandising department, for instance, we made a long list of priorities that reflected all the ways we might spend money on expanding our product line. The list was useful, but it lacked the precision we needed to turn up the volume and lock in on the special sauce that is uniquely Target. So, we narrowed it down to the top three: cost-effectiveness, accessibility, and unique selling proposition. By having a crystal-clear idea of what we wanted our selection to be, we were able to unite the team behind a common goal and produce excellent outcomes for both our customers and our bottom line. This is another one of our marketing team’s superpowers. You can see it in the way our brand’s personality shines brightly through in every interaction with our guests, and I can’t wait to see what we come up with together.

Why is something usually in your Target cart?

Target is one of my favorite places to go with my loved ones. There’s always food in our cart, from treats for our dog to energy drinks to keep my kids going during their countless hours of sports practices and games. We’re always looking for ways to improve our boating and swimming experiences because we enjoy being on the water so much.