Taco Bell Corp. announced that David Ovens has been appointed Chief Marketing Officer of Taco Bell effective August 6, 2007. Ovens will be responsible for leading Taco Bell’s food marketing, brand planning and communications, consumer insights, media services and entertainment, public relations and field marketing functions.

Ovens will replace Bill Pearce who left the company to found a start-up venture in medical technology. Duties of the CMO position in the interim are being filled by Bob Fulmer, Vice President of Field Marketing, who is temporarily reporting directly to Greg Creed, President.

Ovens is currently Chief Marketing Officer, Yum! Restaurants International (YRI) SOPAC (Australia and New Zealand). Since joining YRI in 2001, he has provided exceptional marketing thought leadership throughout SOPAC and the broader YRI organization. Performance highlights include his leadership of the team responsible for producing over half the worldwide KFC product innovation the past couple of years, and his championing KFC’s “Taste positioning,” which has since become the global brand position.

Prior to Yum!, David led many successful marketing initiatives with companies such as Unilever, Kimberly Clark and Johnson & Johnson.