Ms Materazzo, who succeeds 32-year Toyota veteran Ed Laukes, was previously vice-president of Lexus marketing, and has held leadership roles at Toyota in marketing, media strategy and digital engagement.

Ms Materazzo, who first joined the company in 1998 as a senior product planner, will now run the entire Toyota division market planning, advertising, merchandising, sales promotions, incentives, NASCAR and motorsports, and all social and digital media.

In 2019, Toyota spent $US1.51 billion ($A1.93b) on advertising alone, behind General Motors and Ford.

She was appointed vice-president of marketing for Lexus in January 2019. Prior to that, she served as vice-president, vehicle marketing and communications for Toyota North America, and corporate manager, media strategy and digital engagement.

From 2008-2014, Materazzo took a hiatus from Toyota, spending a year at AOL as director of automotive category marketing. Before AOL, she was at Ridemakerz LLC as vice-president of marketing and business development, and Brand Sense Partners, as senior director of business development.

Earlier, she spent 10 years at Toyota, ascending from senior product planner, to truck product planning manager, to national manager of long-range planning and to national marketing and communications manager of Scion.

With Scion, Materazzi devised the division’s youth marketing strategy and oversaw the execution of print, TV, radio and digital advertising as well as engagement marketing and media planning.

She will be replaced at Lexus by Vinay Shahani, currently vice-president of Toyota integrated marketing operations.

Lisa Materazzo

By Neil Dowling