Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ: WDAY), the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance, and IT, today named Sarah Kennedy Ellis chief marketing officer, effective October 5, 2026, reporting to Aneel Bhusri, Workday co-founder, CEO, and chair. Kennedy Ellis will lead Workday’s global marketing and communications organization and will be responsible for championing the company’s brand narrative and growth strategy for the AI era.
Kennedy Ellis brings more than 20 years of marketing expertise to the role. She joins Workday from Google, where she led global marketing for Google Cloud and Google Workspace and helped build the engine behind one of the fastest growing businesses in enterprise technology. Prior to joining Google, she was chief marketing officer of Adobe Experience Cloud, and chief marketing officer of Marketo, playing a critical role in Marketo’s successful acquisition by Adobe in 2018.
“I couldn’t be more excited to welcome Sarah to the Workday leadership team,” said Aneel Bhusri, co-founder, CEO, and chair, Workday. “She’s driven growth at scale for some of the biggest technology companies in the world, and has spent the last decade at the center of enterprise AI. As every organization actively navigates the future of AI to better manage their people and their money, Sarah’s unique ability to translate complex technological shifts into compelling, customer-centric stories is exactly what we need.”
“I am incredibly honored to join Workday at such a pivotal moment for enterprises and the humans that power them,” added Kennedy Ellis. “We have entered an era where AI is fundamentally redefining how businesses operate and Workday sits at the center of that transformation, uniquely positioned to help organizations harness the power of their most vital assets—their people and their money. I look forward to working with the team to tell that story and fuel our next phase of global growth.”
