Manulife Promotes From Within and Puts Customer Experience in the CMO's Title

Manulife has appointed Sarah Chapman as Global Chief Marketing & Customer Experience Officer, effective January 1, 2027. She will report to president and chief executive Phil Witherington and join the company's executive leadership team.

Chapman takes responsibility for Manulife's global marketing organization, covering brand, marketing, and enterprise customer experience strategy. The combination is the story. Insurance and wealth management are industries where the brand promise is only tested at the moment of a claim or a withdrawal, which means marketing and service quality are the same discipline wearing two budgets.

"Sarah is a proven global leader with deep knowledge of our business, customers and enterprise strategy," Witherington said, framing the move as the output of succession planning rather than an outside rescue. He credited her track record of leading transformation as support for the company's stated ambition to be the number one choice for customers.

Internal promotions into a global CMO seat read differently than external hires. An outside appointment usually signals a reset — new positioning, new agencies, new architecture. An internal one signals continuity plus acceleration, and it tends to buy speed, because the incoming executive does not spend two quarters learning the P&L.

The seat also comes with a broader remit than most marketing chiefs get. Adding enterprise customer experience gives Chapman authority over the touchpoints that actually generate the sentiment marketing is later asked to advertise. For a financial services brand competing on trust, that is the more defensible place to spend.