By Erik Holm and Andrew R. Johnson
Allstate Corp. (ALL) named Sanjay Gupta as chief marketing
officer on Wednesday, filling a senior management position that had
been vacant since the abrupt resignation of Mark LaNeve in
February.
Mr. Gupta joins Allstate from Ally Financial Inc., where he had
served as chief marketing officer since 2008, and helped usher in
major rebranding of the company after it received a government
bailout of over $17 billion. Detroit-based Ally, previously called
GMAC, is the former in-house financing arm for General Motors Co.
(GM).
Prior to Ally, Mr. Gupta spent seven years in a variety of
marketing roles at Bank of America Corp. (BAC).
Mr. Gupta takes over a role last filled by Mr. LaNeve, who was
considered a high-profile hire when he defected from GM to come to
Allstate in 2009. Northbrook, Ill.-based Allstate cited personal
reason for his departure in February.
Ally spokeswoman Gina Proia said the company will "restructure
its marketing activities to be more closely aligned" with its core
businesses--auto lending and direct banking--in lieu of having a
corporate chief marketing officer.
Mr. Gupta will join Allstate effective Sept. 1 and will report
to Chief Executive Tom Wilson. Mr. Wilson said in a statement that
Mr. Gupta's "successful experience in branded consumer financial
services, data analytics and electronic commerce will support
increased customer loyalty, innovative product offerings and
profitable growth in all of our businesses."
Write to Erik Holm at erik.holm@dowjones.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires