Where Does The Ecomm Team Really Belong? 3 Brand-Side Leaders Share Their Org Charts

In the world of e-commerce, where your team sits on the org chart can make the difference between smooth operations and daily friction. Is your Amazon team part of sales or marketing? Who owns the P&L? And does any of this actually matter for results?

I recently posed these questions to several brand-side leaders, and their responses show just how contextual e-commerce organizational structure has become. The placement of e-commerce teams seems to depend heavily on a company's history, existing strengths, and the gaps they need to fill. Still, it's always interesting to hear how other brands are set up.

Here's what three leaders shared about their approaches to structuring e-commerce teams.

The Sales-Integrated Approach

Alicia Ponzani, E-Commerce Manager at Premier Nutrition, offers insight into a sales-integrated structure that's evolved to address the complexity of modern retail media. At Premier Nutrition, the e-commerce team reports directly to the head of sales and is strategically divided into two specialized groups.

"We have an Amazon team and an Omni team," Alicia says. "I'm part of the Amazon team, and we manage both the marketing and the sales side of the business, and we have dedicated leads for each function, just because they both take up so much time."

What makes their structure particularly interesting is the recent restructuring of their Omni team. This group oversees everything non-Amazon—Walmart.com, Costco.com, Instacart, and other platforms—while working closely with sales leads to plan both online and in-store media strategies. They've also brought their shopper marketing lead under the Omni umbrella, creating what Alicia describes as alignment across channels and "that full funnel to make a holistic marketing strategy."

Despite reporting into sales, Alicia emphasizes the importance of maintaining strong connections with the brand team: "We'll send one or two representatives to make sure we're always staying tight with them despite being considered sales for our team."

The P&L Ownership Philosophy

Brea Keating, Director of E-Commerce at Wilton, champions a different approach centered around P&L control. Her philosophy is straightforward: give e-commerce leaders full ownership over their profit and loss.

"I love an org structure that gives the e-commerce leader full rights over their own P&L," Brea says. "I always want to be in a position where I can control my sales and marketing investments, whether that be staffing, resources, retail media, whatever it may be."

Brea's experience overseeing Amazon, omnichannel, and direct-to-consumer operations has reinforced her belief that combining sales and marketing levers under one leader drives maximum profitability. She points to a common organizational challenge: "When I see different tensions between sales and marketing teams at broader organizations, it's typically because the retail media has fallen in the cracks in between different departments."

Her solution is clear—retail media needs to be closely tied to the sales team, with the e-commerce leader having control over retail media spend to avoid interdepartmental conflicts.

The Sales-Rooted Structure

Luiz Antunes, National Account Manager for E-Commerce at Organica Health Products, represents another variation of the sales-integrated approach. Coming from a sales background himself, Luiz sees natural alignment between e-commerce and sales functions.

"I'm originally from sales," Luiz says. "Then I joined Organica in the sales department, and right now Amazon [team], we are under sales."

While housed under sales, Luiz emphasizes that collaboration with marketing remains strong: "We interact with marketing. I have several meetings with different groups of marketing regarding new creative, new items, social media, et cetera." He describes their setup as a "task force" approach while maintaining that the sales structure works best for their organization.

The Bottom Line

These perspectives demonstrate that there's no one-size-fits-all solution for e-commerce org structure. What matters most appears to be ensuring clear accountability, avoiding interdepartmental gaps (particularly around retail media spend), and maintaining strong cross-functional collaboration regardless of where teams officially sit.

Whether your e-commerce team reports to sales, marketing, or operates as its own P&L center, the key seems to be eliminating the organizational friction that can slow down decision-making in an industry that demands rapid response to platform changes and market opportunities.