Workday Poaches Google Cloud Marketing Chief as New CMO

Workday has hired Sarah Kennedy Ellis, Google's VP of Global Marketing for Google Cloud and Google Workspace, as its chief marketing officer, effective Oct. 5. The move, announced during the week of Sept. 5-11, 2026, is the highest-profile appointment in this week's round of Fortune 500 C-suite changes tracked by Fortune's Power Moves column.

Kennedy Ellis arrives from Google, owned by Alphabet (No. 5 on the Fortune 500), where she ran global marketing for the cloud and workspace businesses. Before Google, she held senior marketing roles at Adobe (No. 192). Her appointment fills a gap left by Emma Chalwin, who departed Workday in July to become CMO of Accenture (No. 204 on the Fortune Global 500).

The hire gives Workday (No. 430) a marketing leader with deep enterprise-software credentials at a moment when competition in cloud-based finance and HR applications has intensified. Workday is betting that Kennedy Ellis's experience marketing cloud platforms at Google and creative software at Adobe will translate directly to its enterprise customer base.

Equinix promotes from within for top marketing job

Equinix (No. 436) named DD Dasgupta chief marketing officer, promoting him from his role as VP of Product and Solution Marketing at the data-center company. Dasgupta previously held similar positions at Cisco Systems (No. 83) and Juniper Networks, which is now part of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (No. 133). He succeeds Adam Berlew.

The internal promotion signals continuity for Equinix's product-led marketing strategy. Dasgupta's mandate now spans the full marketing organization at a company that operates data centers underpinning cloud and AI infrastructure demand.

Sirius XM elevates a 26-year veteran

Sirius XM Holdings (No. 463) appointed Sean Gibbons SVP, Chief Product and Technology Officer. Gibbons has been with the satellite-radio and audio company since 2000, making him one of the longest-tenured executives in this week's roundup.

He steps into a role that has been in flux since Joseph Inzerillo left in December 2024. Inzerillo, who served as Sirius XM's EVP, Chief Product and Technology Officer until his departure to pursue other opportunities, is now President of Enterprise and AI Technology at Salesforce (No. 114).

The nearly two-year gap between Inzerillo's exit and Gibbons's appointment ends with a leader who knows the company's product stack intimately. Sirius XM is counting on that institutional knowledge as it fights for listeners against streaming rivals.

A quiet week for CEO and CFO chairs

This week's Power Moves roundup, which covers appointments, promotions, resignations, and retirements across the Fortune 500, featured no changes in CEO, CFO, COO, CIO, or CHRO seats. The action concentrated in marketing and technology leadership, where all three companies chose leaders with prior tenure in adjacent roles at their new employers or direct competitors.

Fortune's data partner for the column, S&P Global Market Intelligence, supplied the deal tracking. The pattern across the three appointments — an external hire from a tech giant, an internal promotion, and a long-serving veteran elevated — suggests Fortune 500 boards are prioritizing proven domain expertise over outsider disruption for customer-facing and product roles heading into the final quarter of 2026.