Fashion Talent on the Move
2021-01-08
Notable companies in this week’s edition: Adidas, Aritzia, Columbia Sportswear, Converse (NIKE), Filson, Foot Locker, Harvey Nichols, J.Jill, J.M. Weston, JCPenney, Louis Vuitton (LVMH), Macy’s, NIKE, Ralph Lauren, SMCP, Steve Madden, Tailored Brands, Tiffany (LVMH), Tumi, Walmart, Wolverine World.
BOARD
As part of its bankruptcy, JCPenney has ousted its Board, replacing them with Chief Restructuring Officer Alan Carr and Secretary Steven Panagos. JCP is now known as Old COPPER Company, Inc. Yes, seriously.
Over at Columbia Sportswear, John Culver has joined the Board. Culver, who is white, is a Group President, International, Channel Development, and Global Coffee, Tea, and Cocoa, at Starbucks. Columbia Sportswear’s Board now has a 7:2 men/women ratio. I get it: they wanted “International” and Starbucks is pretty good in that department, but geezus, there’s probably a half-dozen women / diversity candidates at Starbucks that would probably fit that bill…
Former Tumi CFO Michael “Mike” Mardy has joined the Board of Newman’s Own, Inc. (the salad dressing company that gives 100% of its profits to charity).
Mariá Teresa Kumar, who is Hispanic, has joined the Board of Steve Madden. She is currently President & CEO (and Co-Founder of Voto Latino, “America’s largest Latinx voter registration and advocacy organization”).
EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP
After two years vacant, Harvey Nichols has finally filled its CEO position, opting to promote current COO Manju Malhotra to the role, reporting to Sir Dickson Poon, Chair & Owner of the retailer. Somewhat of a lifer, Manju has been at the company since 1998.
Footwear company J.M. Weston named Christian Louboutin exec Marc Durie to be its new President. Durie replaces Thierry Oriez, who had been there since 2014. Durie will report to Valérie Hermann, who is president of the fashion and luxury division of investment firm EPI. Hermann was Durie’s boss in a previous life back at YSL. #HireWhoYouKnow
Filson named Paolo Corinaldesi to be its CEO. Connecting the dots, he was working as a “global strategist” at one of Filson’s major investors, WP Lavori. Prior to that, Corinaldesi was CEO of Woolrich.
Wolverine Worldwide decided to give Jim Zwiers, the company’s current President, International, the added responsibilities of President, Global Operations Group, overseeing portfolio-wide sourcing, logistics, distribution, customer service, IT, and the kitchen sink (j/k). Zwiers succeeds Mike Jeppesen, who is retiring.
VACANT CEO TRACKER
Coach (Tapestry) - Mar’2020
Debenhams - Mar’2020
Escada - Jan’2020
Greats (Steven Madden) - Sep’2020
Hunter - Jun’2020
JCPenney - Dec’2020
Laura Ashley - Jun’2020
Mothercare - Jan’2020
Net-a-Porter (YNAP/Richemont) - Nov’2020
Outdoor Voices - Feb’2020
PSEB Group - Jan’2020
Roberto Cavalli - Sep’2020
Vince Holding - Aug’2020
This is the Year+, CEO-adverse Crew…
Aspinal of London - Nov'2018
Bonmarché (Peacocks) - Dec'2019
Destination Maternity - Jun'2019
Duluth Trading Co. - Sep'2019
Emilio Pucci - Jan'2019
Jack Wills - Aug'2019
Jigsaw - Jan'2019
Kookaï - Mar'2019
LXRandCo - Sep'2019
Monsoon Accessorize - Aug'2019
The Row - Oct'2019
TopShop (Arcadia) - Dec'2019
Wolford - Oct'2019
BANKRUPTCIES
This past week:
None.
Possibly in the hopper…
Apex Group
Aspinal of London
The Children’s Place
Christopher & Banks
Designer Brands
Destination XL Group
EXPRESS
Harvey Nichols
Iconix Brand Group (6 Jan 2021 - likely delisting)
J.Jill
Lands’ End
Nordstrom
River Island
Sequential Brands Group
Vince
STOCKS ON THE MOVE (+/-15%)
Boy, I tell ya—throw some stock traders a few financials right now that aren’t complete doodoo and they lose their minds (I’m looking at YOU, Miss Limited…).
BULK MOVES
Continuing with its pre-pandemic news about closing 125 of its stores, Macy’s, announced this week that it will be closing about 45 stores this year as part of that three-year plan (it closed about 30 of them in 2020).
Mon Dieu! With the finalization of LVMH’s acquisition of Tiffany, the new owners are wasting no time shuffling the entire management team, including:
Anthony Ledru: Named CEO, replacing Alessandro Bogliolo; was previously Louis Vuitton’s VP Global Commercial Activities.
Reed Krakoff, Chief Artistic Director is out; duties being taken over by LVMH Chair’s son Alexandre Arnault. (these Arnault kids are starting to get on my nerves…)
Daniella Vitale, Chief Brand Officer is out; duties also being taken over by young master Alexandre.
Michael Burke, Louis Vuitton CEO; joins the Board of Tiffany.
Adidas made a number of hires in the past few weeks, including:
Abhishek Rai: VP Engineering and Head of the company’s India Technology Hub; had been at advertising giant PublicisSapient for the last decade or so.
Zhao-Lun “Allan” Hong: VP/GM, Kids (China); earlier in his career worked at NIKE China.
Graziela Schultz: CFO (Mexico?); was in a similar role at Estée Lauder.
Hideki Azuma: VP Finance, Japan; was previously Finance Director APAC at Bose Corporation.
MERCH/SALES/P&A/PRODUCTION
Macy’s has promoted Nata Dvir, SVP & GBM, Beauty & Center Core Merchandise, to become its Chief Merchandising Officer, reporting to CEO Jeff Gennette and replacing Patti Ongman, who is retiring (she had been CMO for nearly two years). Dvir has been at Macy’s for about 15 years.
Gerardo Cortina is now VP Planning & Allocation at J.Jill. He had been at Chico’s White House Black Market for the last two years, having earlier in his career spent more than a decade at J.Crew.
CREATIVE/DESIGN
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MARKETING/DIGITAL
Wolverine Worldwide named Matt Blonder as its President, Global E-Commerce, reporting to soon-to-be-CEO Brendan Hoffman. Blonder was most recently at Adidas’ Reebok division, where he was Global Head of Digital. Blonder has had stints at Barnes & Noble, Toys R Us, and, earlier in his career, held a variety of buying roles at retailers including Urban Outfitters, Abercrombie, and Gap.
Salomé Aguilar has joined NIKE as VP Global Insights Product Management. She was most recently at Walmart.
Former Macy’s / Bloomingdale exec Raquel Wall has joined Ralph Lauren as SVP DTC Digital Technology. Prior to her most recent position, she worked a few years at Toys R Us and more than a decade at IBM.
Aritzia recruited Will Cashman to be its VP Data & Analytics. He had been at Rocky Mountaineer for the last few years. #HireLocal
Jason Brown (no, not me…) is now VP of Marketing at Foot Locker. He was most recently VP of Marketing for the company’s Eastbay division.
Felicia Levy has joined Tailored Brands as VP of Analytics. She’s been in a variety of Analytics roles through the years at various dot-coms, including Realtor.com and PayPal.
STORES/TECHNOLOGY/OPS/SUPPLY CHAIN
Jingyang Xu is now CTO for Walmart China. He had been Chief Strategy Officer at Chinese IT solutions provider WINIT.
FINANCE
In addition to last week’s CEO news, JCPenney has also technically ousted CFO Bill Wafford and Steve Whaley, Principal Accounting Officer & Controller, but they will be staying on at the new company, Old COPPER Company. (seriously, if I have to type “Old COPPER” one more time…)
SMCP named Patricia Huyghues Despointes as its Group CFO. She had been at LVMH for about 15 years, including CFO of its Givenchy brand.
Meal delivery company Blue Apron announced that Randy J. Greben has joined as CFO, reporting to CEO Linda Kozlowski (who, btw, sits on the Board of Ralph Lauren). Greben was most recently CFO of Ascena Retail’s ANN Inc. division.
NIKE promoted Joon Koo to be CFO, Converse Asia. He’s been at NIKE for several years.
HR/LEGAL
Jean He is now VP HR at LVMH’s Louis Vuitton division for China. She was at Richemont for the past two years, having earlier spent several years at Prada and Colgate-Palmolive.
ON COMPANIES (AND COUNTRIES) AND HOW THEY END…
So in 1838, young Abraham Lincoln, age 28, gave his famous speech to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois. His speech focused heavily on the threats that countries and their governments would face (with a heavy, unveiled nod to what slavery was doing to the United States, 20 years before the Civil War):
"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio [River] or make a track on the Blue Ridge [Mountains] in a trial of a thousand years.
“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide."
Apologies for the random topic—my mind is absolutely nowhere else but on what happened in Washington, DC, this week. Weakly connecting those events with what happens in our retail world, we have definitely seen brand after brand after brand die, with nobody to blame but themselves. Did Covid affect our fashion world? Of course. But many brands have survived and even thrived. Those that didn’t were already well on their way and, for most of them, will deserve the “Death by Suicide” epitaph.
ABOUT: I have 20 years of wide-ranging executive recruiting experience. As a consultant, my services include name generation, sourcing, industry talent mapping, crafting position descriptions, and developing thorough target lists. Connect with me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tjasonbrown.