The next evolution of DTC may not be a new channel or technology. It may be a new seat in the C-suite.
BY RYAN VANNI, FOUNDER AND CEO, GOODNESS
Sep 2, 2026
DTC is huge business. But you wouldn’t know it by the way many brands treat their DTC operations. Historically, it’s been seen as an experiment rather than the core of the business. And even when major companies launched digital storefronts, they still buried their DTC initiatives within existing departments.
When DTC responsibilities get broken up in this way—structured as a committee responsibility rather than an executive discipline—the problems start to pile up. First, there’s a breakdown in approvals. When everything you do requires sign-offs from marketing, IT, supply chain and finance departments, a simple task that should take a couple of days can take weeks or months.
Then there’s navigating conflicting goals. You can’t advertise “2-day fresh delivery” if the food keeps spoiling on the way to customers because the operations department keeps using ground shipping to save money.
More than that, innovation suffers. The types of sensory DTC experiences that work—custom unboxing, interactive flavor builders, or personalized subscriptions—get killed because no single executive is championing a vision for what drives growth.
It’s not that brands haven’t tried to fix this problem. Some have created roles like “director of DTC” or “head of e-commerce”—titles that sound good on paper but lack authority over operations or budgets to actually foster change.
Meanwhile, brands like Nike, Him & Hers and Bark (creator of BarkBox) have taken more drastic steps to reduce the friction, with roles and responsibilities that function more like a “Chief DTC Officer.”
Bark explicitly created dedicated executive leadership for DTC, bridging product development, subscriptions, and fulfillment under a single banner. Similarly, through its consumer direct acceleration strategy, Nike elevated direct-to-consumer and digital leadership to the C-suite, giving those DTC leaders direct control over both digital storefronts and physical brand stores to eliminate friction. And Hims & Hers was built from day-one with an integrated C-suite in which telehealth, fulfillment, and marketing answer to unified direct-to-consumer leadership, allowing it to earn $2.5B in revenue.
