Another sign of the increasing importance of data, analytics and technology – and that staying across the sprawling ecosystem might be too much for a single person to handle.

It's also a sign that the elevation of marketing technology and data not just into the marketer's remit, but the executives making the decision to split the function.

Unilever CEO Alan Jope said last week that marketers need to hone technical disciplines and become specialists before making the leap to the most senior marketing roles. But it could be that the tech-side and technical specialists are evolving to become their own separate marketing species.