Sumaiya Balbale

Sumaiya Balbale, chief marketing officer of Sequoia Capital, long faced bias for being an observant Muslim woman. The prejudice fueled a fierce drive that landed her at the prominent venture-capital firm. Ms. Balbale stepped into Sequoia’s top marketing spot in June 2020, 16 months after she quit a vice presidency at the U.S. arm of retail giant Walmart Inc.

Sumaiya Balbale has served on the Board of Directors of Shake Shack since February 2019. Sumaiya was the Vice President of E-commerce, Mobile and Digital Marketing for Walmart US from January 2017 to February 2019. In her role she helped deliver two consecutive years of +40% growth for the e-commerce business while also leading and transforming the digital media, social media, marketing analytics and marketing technology capabilities of the organization.

Sumaiya joined Walmart after the retailer purchased Jet.com in September 2016. An early member of the Jet team, she led all consumer marketing for the startup including brand, acquisition and retention efforts. In addition to growing the Jet business to a $1B run rate in its first 12 months, she also created award-winning advertising for the brand which won the Cannes Media Grand Prix in 2017. Sumaiya served as VP of Marketing at Jet from September 2014 through October 2017.

Prior to Jet, she held leadership roles at multiple Amazon e-commerce verticals including GM of Diapers.com and Casa.com. Before venturing into eCommerce, Sumaiya spent time as a brand strategist and account planner in advertising, working at FCB and Deutsch for clients such as IKEA, Novartis, and SC Johnson.

Sumaiya is a graduate of Harvard Business School and Brown University. She was named one of Fortune’s 40 under 40 in 2018.