Former head of marketing at Klaviyo and Dropbox joins Lightspeed as chief marketing officer

Lightspeed Commerce continues to add to and overhaul its executive team, announcing the appointment of Kady Srinivasan to the position of chief marketing officer (CMO).

It’s been a year of sweeping change in Lightspeed’s executive offices, beginning in February when company founder and CEO Dax Dasilva stepped down from his position as CEO. Lightspeed has made more than half a dozen executive-level changes to its team so far this year, and the new CMO is the “last big piece.”

Srinivasan comes to Lightspeed from Klaviyo, where she worked as SVP, global head of marketing.

Srinivasan comes to Lightspeed from Klaviyo, a SaaS marketing automation technology provider. There, she worked as the SVP, global head of marketing. Her previous positions include working as Owlet Baby Care’s chief marketing officer, and as Dropbox’s global head of marketing. She is also currently a venture advisor at Relay Ventures.

Lightspeed claims that at Dropbox, Srinivasan was instrumental in launching the Dropbox product brand and played a key role in the company’s IPO.

Prior to Srinivasan’s appointment, it appears that the CMO role at Lightspeed had been vacant for some time. A spokesperson for Lightspeed told BetaKit that Srinivasan replaces Lory Ajamian who was executive vice president of marketing before she departed from Lightspeed in April.

Srinivasan will lead Lightspeed’s overall marketing strategy and build on the company’s position in the market to help drive growth and innovation for Lightspeed.

“I look forward to bringing my tech industry marketing experience to advancing Lightspeed’s position as one of the world’s most innovative and fast-growing commerce companies,” Srinivasan said. “I can’t wait to get started.”

Lightspeed said with the announcement of Srinivasan’s position, the company has recruited some of the tech industry’s leading talent to help drive forward its growth strategy.

The year of sweeping changes within Lightspeed kicked off in February when Dasilva stepped down and was replaced by then-president JP Chauvet.

Since then, the changes haven’t stopped. Lightspeed appointed CFO Brandon Nussey to the newly created role of COO, Asha Bakshani as CFO, and Rani Hammond as chief people officer, all in March. At the time, Chauvet told BetaKit that Lightspeed has grown dramatically in recent years, adding thousands of new employees around the world along with new capabilities, and strong revenue growth.

“Our executive leadership team also needs to evolve to support the company we are becoming,” Chauvet said.

Then the company announced the appointment of Google veteran and former executive Ryan Tabone as chief product and technology officer in October. Lightspeed also promoted JD St-Martin to president in October, which the company said was an expansion of his current role as chief revenue officer. At the same time, Lightspeed said chief business officer Michael DeSimone would leave the company at the end of this year. DeSimone joined Lightspeed in 2020 through its acquisition of ShopKeep, where DeSimone was CEO.

At the time of Tabone’s hire, Chauvet declared the company wasn’t done hiring yet, and said that the firm was seeking a chief marketing officer, which Chauvet called the “last big piece” of the company’s executive team.

Despite all the shifting in the executive offices, Lightspeed hasn’t made much headway as it navigates the current turbulent markets. The company managed to post total revenues of $183.7 million (all numbers are in USD), an increase of 38 percent year-over-year for fiscal second quarter of 2023.

But while Lightspeed’s losses lessened considerably in the second quarter, the company still posted a net loss of $79.9 million compared to a net loss of $59.1 million for the same period last year.

At presstime, Lightspeed shares on the New York Stock Exchange sat at $16.03 USD, down from a 52-week high of $51.61, but up from a 52-week low of $13.93. Lightspeed’s sahes on the TSX, mirrored that high-low trend.

Nonetheless, following the earnings report, Chauvet posted to Lightspeed’s website, outlining three goals it needs to deliver on in order to drive value for their business.

The first is combining Lightspeed’s acquisitions into one company with one brand and two core products. The second is to drive payments adoption, and the third is for the company to reach profitability.

Founded in Montréal, Canada in 2005, Lightspeed is dual-listed on the New York Stock
Exchange (NYSE: LSPD) and Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: LSPD). With teams across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, the company claims that it serves retail, hospitality, and golf businesses in over 100 countries.

Feature image courtesy Lightspeed.