CarMax has created a new executive role that puts one person in charge of the entire customer experience, from first ad click to signed paperwork. Elizabeth Dirgins joins as executive vice president, chief digital and customer officer, effective October 5, per the company's September 29, 2026 announcement. She will oversee marketing, product and the Edmunds teams, and report directly to President and CEO Keith Barr.
The appointment matters beyond CarMax because of what the structure signals. The company says the role exists to unify the end-to-end customer experience across online and in-store channels. That is a structural answer to a problem most large retailers still split across several executives: whoever owns digital does not own the store, and whoever owns marketing does not own the transaction. CarMax is consolidating all of it under one seat. This connects to our earlier piece, The path women take to the CFO seat in large companies.
For women watching executive hiring, the move is also a data point. Dirgins arrives with more than two decades of digital product and customer experience leadership, most recently as chief digital officer for the North American region at Volkswagen Financial Services, with earlier roles at Capital One, Wells Fargo and Marriott. That is a finance-and-loyalty résumé, not a retail one, which suggests the company prioritized customer-experience depth over sector experience.
What does the new role actually cover?
Dirgins controls the digital tools that support both the online and in-store experience, plus the marketing, product and Edmunds teams. CarMax describes the mandate as unifying the journey from customer acquisition through the vehicle transaction. In practice, that means one executive now answers for how a customer finds CarMax, shops for a car, and completes the purchase, whether that happens on a phone or in one of the company's more than 255 store locations.
Her own framing, quoted in the release, focuses on simplicity: she said her focus will be making every step in the car buying and selling journey simple, fast and connected. She also noted the company's hybrid model, where customers shop online and confirm their choice in person.
Why did CarMax centralize strategy, data and pricing too?
The second appointment tells you what the first one is for. Jeff Campbell, who joined CarMax in 2016 from Boston Consulting Group, was promoted to senior vice president of strategy in August. He now leads a newly centralized function that brings together the company's strategy, data science, AI and pricing teams, with the stated goal of accelerating key decisions. He will report to Barr beginning in January 2027.
Read together, the two moves are a reorganization of decision rights. Dirgins owns the customer-facing path. Campbell owns the analytical machinery that sets prices and priorities. Both report straight to the CEO rather than through intermediate layers. That flattening is usually what companies do when they want execution speed from a new strategic plan, and CarMax ties both appointments explicitly to its new Shift into GEAR strategy for growth.
Campbell's own quote in the release makes the logic plain: bringing strategy, data and pricing teams together, he said, gives a clearer, shared view of the business that will enhance decision making.
What should readers watch next?
The company will host a virtual Strategic Update on November 3 at 8 a.m. ET to detail the growth strategy, key initiatives and milestones. That event is the first hard test of whether the new structure produces visible decisions. The scale involved is real: in the fiscal year ended February 28, 2026, CarMax sold approximately 780,000 used vehicles and 540,000 wholesale vehicles, and CarMax Auto Finance originated $8 billion in auto loans, per the company's announcement. The lending arm alone means Dirgins inherits financial-product decisions alongside marketing. For related coverage, see What the first 90 days as a new manager should actually cover.
There is also a reporting-structure detail worth noting. Campbell's appointment was effective in August, but he does not report to Barr until January 2027, while Dirgins reports to Barr from her first day. Sequencing like that usually reflects transition planning, and it means the strategy function operates without a direct line to the CEO for one quarter.
The honest caveat: this is a company announcement, and the claims about unification and decision speed are the company's own framing, not independent assessment. What the appointments establish is intent and structure. Whether the structure changes outcomes will show up in later results and in the November update. For readers tracking how large retailers assign executive authority over digital and store experience, the CarMax model, one chief over the full customer path reporting to the CEO, is the part worth borrowing attention from.
Sources: morningstar.com · investors.carmax.com
