CEO at CartStars | Cultivating an Empathetic & Resilient Community for eCommerce Leaders

Your team got smaller this year. Your decisions didn’t.

You need to know what actually worked at a company like yours before you commit. You don’t need another vendor pitch or another analyst report. You need the real answer from someone who already made the call.

That room is called CartStars. I started it with six people at a dinner table because I was tired of expensive decisions made on bad information.

Estèe Lauder, Steve Madden, Bombas, and MERIT Beauty are in it. So is the person who just solved the exact problem sitting on your desk right now.

It’s not a network. It’s the room you check before you commit.

If you’re making a high-stakes decision right now, your peers already made it.

Start at cartstars.com

Debbie Kemunto Pearce

Three versions of the truth.


Shopify says one thing, Amazon says another, and your ad platform says something else.

But Krishna P. asks one question first:
Who's accountable for what's actually true?

At Oracle, he watched companies pay millions for the answer.
Then, bootstrapped Saras Analytics with his cousins to bring it to brands who couldn't.

Today, it's 180 people. Working with brands like HexClad, Ridge, Athletic Greens, and KFC.

His take on being the calmest person in a messy data room?
Know that your tool isn't the problem.
It's that no one owns the question.

That's what Visionaries is.

Krishna Poda, Co-Founder & CEO, Saras Analytics.
February 24th in Palm Springs. He's in the room.

Who owns the question at your company?

Debbie Pearce

It’s a living room, not a ballroom.


No badge lanyard. No sad buffet chicken. No one on a stage pretending they figured it all out.

While you’re on the conference floor right now, there’s a Michelin-trained chef in a kitchen cooking for a group of executives who are just talking. Actually talking.

Breaking down how they think, not the version they’d give on a panel.

There’s also a photographer in that room whose work made me save his number for ten years. I waited for a moment worthy of him. Today was it.

This room doesn’t exist tomorrow.

Visionaries Day is happening right now, and there’s still a way in.

You can find it here: https://lnkd.in/gzRuHHqK

Steve has receipts.


He doubled revenue at NYDJ.
He 3X’d Kut from the Kloth in half the time with a quarter of the staff.
You ask him how things are going and the answer sounds like an earnings call.
He doesn’t do vague. He does results.

We had a conversation in the room once about identity resolution and whether it crosses a line. Steve didn’t miss a beat. “I’m head of growth, not ethics.”
I laughed. But that level of clarity is why he keeps winning.

This is someone who was building fan communities 23 years ago on Myspace. He was doing it before anyone had a word for it. He just understood something most brands still haven’t figured out: your customer has to believe they’re the only one in the room.

He’s funny. He’s real.

Everybody knows Steve. But do you know his best dad joke? Drop it in the comments. 🤣

"I don't expect to learn anything."


Esteban Restrepo said that from a hot tub. With three people present at the end of Day 1 in Palm Springs. Just one of those conversations that happens when nobody's trying to have one.

He wasn't being cynical. He was being honest. 
He's been at this long enough.... where you stop expecting someone to hand you a trick that changes your business overnight. 

But then he kept going.

"What I loved about today is that it was real. I watched someone actually share something that works for them. And it was a contrast to the big stages where it becomes performative."

And honestly? That hit me.
Because most people in this industry already know the difference. The stage version and the real one. They've been in both rooms. They know which one they walked out of and actually used something from.

They just don't have a place where the second version exists.....till now.

When's the last time you were in a room where you got what you really needed?

Most people listen to the women they admire.


Not enough people watch them.

Listening gets you inspired for a day. Watching changes how you move.

These 10 lessons didn't come from a stage. 
They came from paying close attention to what the women around me actually do when nobody's clapping, when the easier choice is right there, when stopping would be completely reasonable.

At the end of the day, it's the people in your life that make the life you live. 

If you're a woman in my life, I'm grateful for you. 

I'm learning from you, I'm inspired by you.

You flew home, and nobody said thank you.


You sat in someone's session, visited a partner at their booth, gave someone 10 minutes of real conversation, and flew home. Back to the inbox.

I think about that more than I should.

Colleen Waters did all of that at a conference. She won an all-inclusive vacation.
And for the first time in I don't know how long, she stopped. 
She came back and posted about how the pause gave her something the grind had been taking. 

I read it and thought, OK, so this is the room. The one where someone shows up, and it doesn't go unnoticed. This is where CartStars did something right.

I've been building this thing for three years, and Colleen explained it better in one post than I have in 300.

Showing up looks different every time. 
This time at Visionaries, it's about who you bring with you. Because every room like this started with someone saying, "you need to be here" to someone else.

Visionaries is next week. See you in Palm Springs, February 24-25


When's the last time you showed up for someone and nobody said a thing?

Never go back.


New company, new industry, new title. Because that's what gets the "excited to announce."
Nobody writes the post about going back.

Niva Singer, MBA keeps going back.

First hire at Native. Built the ops, the website, the emails with a team under ten. Then P&G bought it for $100 million.

She left. Then she walked back in.
Not for the title. Because there was always space for optimizations.
Worth a $580K annual revenue lift.
She tested the placement of one feature on the homepage. Build-Your-Pack, one test.
That's what going back looks like when you're paying attention.

Then she went back to the same category. MUD\WTR, now Auri Nutrition. Second mushroom wellness brand. Same lane but deeper.

Some people chase what's next. She goes back to what matters.

She brought that energy to fondue night at The Matterhorn in San Francisco.
Grateful to Klaviyo and Loop Subscriptions for making the night possible!

You make 100 decisions a week. You can't explain how you make one?


That's not a criticism. That's most of us.
We asked a small group of senior leaders to do something most people never take the time to do.

Write down the things they see before anyone else does. Their frameworks.

And I've been reading these Visionary questionnaires over the last few weeks.
We haven't even hit record yet, and it's already changing how I think.

Tomorrow:
Two chairs, a living room in Palm Springs, sixteen peers, a full camera crew.
No spectators. Real questions, real pressure.

I'm equal parts excited and terrified!

Visionaries, Feb 24-25.

Link in comments if this is the kind of room you want to be in.

Fractional Brand Building

I am a fractional Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Brand Officer for small to midsized businesses looking to transition from a performance marketing engine to a more sustainable brand-inclusive plan.

I work with companies to:
- Position their brands and their businesses for growth
- Develop a plan for integrating brand marketing into their performance approach
- Restructure and level up marketing their orgs
- Navigate the opportunities and pitfalls of AI
- Craft a creative strategy
- Create brands people actually care about

I am also a fractional CSO at creative agencies who need strategy oversight and a framework for how to present it to clients.

Fractional CMO | CBO | Agency Chief Strategy Officer

CartStars

CartStars is home to the world's most recognized leaders in eCommerce and retail, who collaborate with peers to foster collective growth through shared knowledge and insights. Learn more at cartstars.com.

Founding Member

ecoATM Gazelle

Rebranded ecoATM and Gazelle, restarted the brand marketing engines for both brands, honed owned channels, developed content for paid channels including CTV, paid social, YouTube, and site.

-Developed and executed comprehensive brand and marketing strategies across ecoATM and Gazelle.com.
-Managed a multi-million dollar brand marketing budget and overall marketing budget.
-Reported directly to the CMO and CEO, and collaborated closely with the VP of Growth, SVP of Product, and SVP of Sales.
-Owned all brand channels, including CTV, Paid and Organic Social, OLV,  OOH and Retail, PR, Influencer, and Experiential.
-Repositioned and Rebranded both ecoATM and Gazelle.com with a focus on new audience development, differentiated brand strategy, sustainability credentials, and best-in-class identity design.
-Owned all Creative Direction for both ecoATM and Gazelle.com, driving a ~50% YoY increase in organic customer engagement and a ~35% decrease in CPCs YoY.
-Led and optimized brand marketing initiatives and content programs that drove ~28% company growth YoY.
-Increased Brand Awareness roughly 2% monthly and achieved 30% organic growth across TikTok and Instagram.
-Onboarded and deployed new project management and creative tools like Monday.com, Air DAM, Creatopy, MidJourney AI, Sora, and crowdsourcing tools like Upwork, and Impact.com, improving efficiency, speed, and quality of execution.

Sr. Director Brand Marketing

Oversaw the rebrandings of FTD and Proflowers in the wake of a bankruptcy. Crafted a brand marketing plan that restored our standing amongst customers, and repaired relationships with the 8000+ independent florists in our network, paving the way for SaaS POS adoption.

-Joined the Executive Team post-bankruptcy, reporting directly to the CMO and CEO, and contributed to strategic decisions.
-Repositioned the FTD and ProFlowers brands, focusing on a stronger, more differentiated customer experience. and a strengthened marketplace relationship with local florists.
-Architected a successful merger with FromYouFlowers in 2023, fulfilling the primary objective of our Private Equity parent.
-Managed comms to 8,000+ independent florists.
-Developed and executed brand strategy, upper funnel marketing, site experience improvements, and partnerships with Milkbar, The Whitney Houston Estate, Baked By Melissa, The Kentucky Derby, the LA Dodgers, and Thirstie.
-Led marketing initiatives for the launch of our independent-retailer POS SAAS product, driving successful user adoption.
-Increased Brand Awareness ~15% YoY across both brands.
-Worked directly with the CFO to set and hit EBITDA and ROAS targets.
-Oversaw all consumer marketing, PR, partnerships, paid and organic social, and florist communications.
-Directed the naming, photography, and e-commerce deployment of over 250 SKUs annually, improving product presentation and ecomm/retail sales.

VP of Brand Marketing

The Woo

Ran the Strategy Department at The Woo, an independent boutique ad agency in Los Angeles, working with global, national, and regional clients. Rebranded and repositioned the agency, ultimately leading to an acquisition by We Are Social and inclusion within their architecture as 'Hello N. America'.

-Ran the Strategy department at The Woo, servicing Clients like Warner Brothers/DC, Heal.com, Lenovo, LG, Bosch Home Appliances, De’Longhi, WhipShots, and LA Fitness.
-Managed the repositioning and rebranding of the Agency, including relaunching the website and implementing a new PR strategy.
-Developed a proprietary research tool that measured and assessed consumer emotions.

Head Of Strategy

Roaming Hunger

Launched an Experiential Agency called RMNG inside a company known for food truck bookings. We focused on mobile marketing activations tied to digital and social campaigns, and worked with clients like ConAgra Foods, NatureSweet Tomatoes, Avocados from Mexico, and the Macao Tourism Board.

-Successfully established a full-service Experiential Agency (RMNG) within Roaming Hunger, focusing on mobile marketing campaigns and digital content creation.
-Led all business development activities and managed new business pipelines, resulting in new client acquisition and self-sustaining revenue growth.
-Developed budgets, estimates, SOWs, MSAs, contracts, and agreements.
-Designed campaign strategies (including KPIs) for clients, leading to successful outcomes and long-term relationships.
-Managed a team of 11 Account Managers, Production Directors & Managers, NewBusiness Managers, and Billing Managers, as well as teams of freelance creative talent.

Sr. Director of Strategy and Operations - Agency

Laurel & Wolf

Joined Laurel & Wolf pre-Series B to help finalize the deal, and then honed the brand positioning and content marketing efforts of the online interior design startup.

-Secured $25MM in Series B funding by developing a compelling brand narrative and brand marketing plan.
-Oversaw all creative, strategic, and tactical marketing, while managing 17 people, budgets in excess of $3MM, timelines, goals, and long-term strategies.
-Repositioned Laurel & Wolf from an unfocused interior design tech startup into an accessible luxury service brand, enhancing brand perception and market positioning, and establishing the business as the de facto category leader.

Director of Brand & Content Marketing

KBS (kirshenbaum bond senecal + partners)

Led Brand Strategy for BMW, Harman Audio, and Vanguard Financial. Worked on Biz Dev, leading to $65M+ in new client accounts.

-Co-led high-level brand strategy for BMW and Vanguard Financial, ensuring that projects were on-strategy, competitive actions were being monitored and assessed, and new campaigns were being slotted into the pipeline.
-Repositioned and developed marketing strategies for all consumer-facing brands for Harman Audio (JBL, Harman Kardon, Infinity, AKG, Lexicon, Mark Levinson, Revel).
-Owned all strategic positioning relating to Harman’s automotive brand partnerships.
-Oversaw creative development, measured KPIs, and redeveloped creative content for all Harman advertising (TV, Print, Social, Guerrilla, Event), enhancing campaign effectiveness and audience reach.
-Successfully brought in $65M+ in New Business, including Monster jobs and Keds shoes.

Senior Brand Strategist / Associate Director, Brand Strategy

Mucca Design

As the Brand Strategist and Brand Director at Mucca, a boutique branding agency specializing in Hospitality and Food & Beverage brands, I oversaw strategic development for all of our Clients, as well as coordinated new business, managed our individual Client relationships, and ensured profitability on a per-project and overall company basis.  

I maintained a diverse book of Clients such as Whole Foods, Bacardi, Remy Cointreau, Runa Tea, Barnes & Noble, the NFL, Conde Nast, McKinsey & Co, Commune Hotels, Warburg Realty, and Waterworks, as well as many small independent restaurants and companies.

Brand Strategist / Brand Director

Emblem

As a freelancer at Emblem, I conducted comprehensive brand audits, created client presentations, developed packaging solutions, and assisted in the creation of brand identities.

taplio

The Battle

Debbie Kemunto Pearce

Andrew Cagan

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreDebbie Kemunto Pearce's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Debbie Kemunto Pearce

Andrew Cagan

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Debbie Kemunto Pearce's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreDebbie Kemunto Pearce's LinkedIn Performance