Gymshark creates Chief Digital Officer role in preparation for its 'biggest year'

Gymshark, the sportswear brand set for its "biggest year ever", has today promoted Carly Natalizia to the newly created role of Chief Digital Officer.

Natalizia joined the company back in June 2022 as VP of marketing and was promoted to Global Marketing Director in January 2023. Now, In her new post as Chief Digital Officer, Natalizia will join the cohort of Chiefs at Gymshark and report directly to Founder and Chief Executive Ben Francis.

In a statement, the company said: "Gymshark has moved to bring its entire digital customer journey into one place across digital marketing and digital experience, and we're thrilled that Carly will head up this new function. She will be responsible for scrutinising and optimising the digital journey to better serve Gymshark’s audience and ensure digital growth for the brand for years to come.

"Since joining us almost two years ago, Carly has made a huge impression on Gymshark and has brought so much knowledge, insight and impact to the brand. This new function will need very strong leadership. And we can think of no better person to lead this than Carly."

Prior to joining Gymshark, Natalizia was the Chief Marketing Officer of The Very Group. Before this, she held similar leadership marketing roles at Virgin Money, Natwest Group and Bank of America.

This appointment comes after, Gymshark's Founder and CEO Ben Francis said that 2024 will be the fast-growing gym wear brand's "biggest ever year", with further retail expansion, a pop-up store in New York and the introduction of a new premium product range that will first launch exclusively with Selfridges.

Francis's comments come after the brand revealed that sales had jumped 15% to £556 million in FY23 and EBITDA was also up in line with sales growth (to £40.4m). Meanwhile, it has improved its balance sheet by reducing its stock balance by £25 million and improving its cash balance by £50 million.