Cordial adds accomplished retail leader as SVP of strategy and insights

Rob Garf joins enterprise marketing leader to accelerate AI innovation and help customers maximize ROI 

SAN DIEGO — Feb. 20, 2025 — Cordial, the leader in messaging for enterprise retail marketing teams, announces hiring Rob Garf as SVP of Strategy and Insights. Spending his 25-year career as a retail practitioner, industry analyst, strategy consultant and software executive, Garf has helped accelerate digital transformation for iconic brands from around the world. Now, he’ll lead the strategy to help Cordial customers like Levi Strauss & Co, REVOLVE, PacSun, and Boot Barn automate and personalize messages across channels — accelerating customer lifetime value and profitability.

“With Rob’s incredible pulse on the retail industry, our customers will immediately benefit from his addition to the Cordial team,” said Jeremy Swift, CEO and co-founder of Cordial. “Throughout his career, Rob has built trust with leading brands by delivering data and insights — guiding retail executives to embrace innovative technology and navigate through major transformations. With Rob, we’ll continue to develop our scalable AI-native product that eliminates marketing guesswork and accelerates brands’ AI transformation.”

Garf most recently served as VP and GM of Retail and Consumer Goods at Salesforce, which he joined in 2016 after Salesforce acquired Demandware. As VP of Industry Strategy and Insights at Demandware, his team defined the cloud e-commerce platform category, focused on educating the market about their solutions, and built relationships with digital leaders to enable their transition to the cloud. At Cordial, he’ll define a new era of consumer engagement, helping the world’s biggest brands build real connections with their customers through AI-driven messages that matter and deliver real value. A National Retail Federation (NRF) Digital Council member, Garf was recognized as an NRF Top 50 Retail Voice and a RETHINK Retail Top Expert. He also serves on the Executive Leadership Committee for the Retail AI Council.

Garf joins Cordial at a pivotal moment in retail AI innovation. Through Cordial Edge — the company’s groundbreaking multimodal AI technology — brands can generate custom AI models that optimize for outcomes focused on customer revenue and profitability, rather than relying on generic approaches. Combining Cordial Edge’s capabilities with Garf’s deep expertise, enterprise brands can create highly contextualized campaigns that respond intelligently to each customer’s actions and behaviors.

“What drew me to Cordial was the confluence of three critical elements: innovative technology that consistently delivers positive outcomes, highly satisfied customers, and most importantly, a team of passionate experts aligned around a common mission,” said Garf. “The marketing technology space has evolved rapidly, and Cordial is uniquely positioned to enable its customers to unify fragmented data, leverage embedded intelligence, and automate personalized messages across channels.”

For more information about Cordial, please visit cordial.com. 

About Cordial 

Cordial’s technology helps companies like L.L.Bean, Orveon Global, PacSun and Boot Barn automate high-conversion messages across email, SMS, mobile apps, social media, direct mail and more, driving scalable revenue and lasting customer connections. Recognized by Snowflake as a “one to watch” in their Modern Marketing Data Stack 2025 and by Gartner in their 2024 Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Hubs, Cordial was also named a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave™: Email Marketing Service Providers, Q3 2024, receiving the highest possible scores in six criteria, and named a fastest-growing company in the 2024 Inc. 5000. Connect with us at www.cordial.com.

Media Contact
Ryan Hecker
PANBlast for Cordial
cordial@panblastpr.com