Careers
31 August 2022
PVH Corp. sees C-level shifts at Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger
On The Move has the latest on hires and promotions at Hershey, Kellogg, JM Smucker and more.

(Illustration by The Current)
On The Move has the latest on hires and promotions at Hershey, Kellogg, JM Smucker and more.
(Illustration by The Current)
Welcome to On the Move. In this hiring-focused weekly feature, The Current is rounding up recent arrivals and departures at brands and retailers across the ecommerce, retail and CPG landscape.
This week, PVH Corp. sees a departure at Calvin Klein and the addition of a head of merchandising at Tommy Hilfiger. Meanwhile, Kellogg’s and Johnson & Johnson designate key leaders ahead of planned spinouts. Plus, meet new executives at Hershey, Mars Petcare and JM Smucker.
Check out all of this week’s leadership moves:
Trish Donnelly will be leaving her role as CEO of PVH Americas & Calvin Klein Global, PVH Corp. said Wednesday. Going forward, the Tommy Hilfiger parent intends to split the role into two positions. PVH Corp. CEO Stefan Larsson will serve in those roles while a search is conducted. The company also shared on Wednesday that it is planning layoffs, saying that it would “reduce people costs” by 10% by the end of 2023. In turn, it plans to invest in digital, supply chain and consumer engagement.
Nadia Azria was appointed to the role of chief merchandising officer at Tommy Hilfiger, effective Nov. 1. In the role, Azria will be the business lead for management and creation of all products at the brand. This includes overseeing merchandising, product development, buying and planning, operations and collaborations. Azria joined Tommy Hilfiger from Nike, where she most recently served as VP of merchandising for One Nike Market Place. She previously spent 13 years at Ralph Lauren.
Nadia Azria. (Courtesy photo)
Kellogg Company announced the leadership team for its new cereal company as it prepares to separate three of its businesses into standalone companies. The leadership team includes the following current Kellogg team executives:
Laurent Marteau is joining L’Occitane Group as managing director. Marteau brings experience from LVMH Group and La Prairie Group to the French beauty retailer. He will report to CEO André Hoffmann.
Larry Merlo was appointed non-executive chair designate of the new consumer healthcare company that is set to spin out from Johnson & Johnson in 2023. Merlo served as CEO of CVS Health from 2011-2021. The company previously announced that Thibaut Mongon will serve as CEO-designate of the company.
Aparna Chennapragada has been appointed to the board of directors at eBay. Chennapragada previously served as chief product officer of fintech firm Robinhood, and served as VP of AR and shopping at Google, where she led AI, visual search and product insights. With this move, former Facebook and Yahoo executive Katie Mitic is leaving the board.
Marlene Creighton. (Courtesy photo)
Marlene Creighton was promoted to global chief sales officer at The Hershey Company. Creighton will succeed Phil Stanley, who is leaving the confectionery leader after 26 years for another opportunity. Creighton joined Hershey four years ago, and has previous experience with P&G and Unilever.
Alex Cedeno. (Courtesy photo)
Alex Cedeno was hired as SVP of research and development at Mars Pet Nutrition North America. Bringing more than 28 years of experience, Cedeno previously served in a VP of R&D role at The JM Smucker Company. He also previously held innovation roles at Mead WestVaco and Procter & Gamble. He will succeed Michel Oostwal, who is retiring after 12 years with Mars Petcare.
Gagnesh Gupta. (Courtesy photo)
Gagnesh Gupta was named SVP of commodities and procurement at the JM Smucker Company, overseeing sourcing of ingredients and materials. Gupta brings experience from the The Kraft Heinz Company, Pinnacle Foods Inc., PepsiCo Inc., Whirlpool Corporation and Hudson's Bay Company. He is set to succeed Dan Nowicki, who is retiring in October.
Manish Choudhary was appointed president of SymphonyAI Retail CPG, a provider of AI-powered merchandising, marketing, and supply chain solutions for retailers and CPG manufacturers. The appointment comes as the company is changing its name to Symphony RetailAI. Choudary comes to SymphonyAI from Diebold Nixdorf, where he led a global software business for banking and retail customers. He succeeds Chris Koziol, who is leaving the company at the end of August.
The retailer's marketplace is expanding quickly.
When it comes to ecommerce growth, was the pandemic a blip or a new trendsetter?
As we move further from the height of COVID-related closures, it’s a question that will start to be answered through the lens of history.
So far, the narrative of ecommerce growth in the U.S. from 2019-2022 has gone like this: Ecommerce’s share of overall retail saw a huge spike at the height of the pandemic in 2020-21, when goods in general were in demand and online shopping was necessary to preserve health and safety. Experts looked out and saw a permanent exponential change in the penetration of ecommerce as a share of retail that would last beyond the pandemic. Then, in 2022, everyone went back to stores and the trendline came back to 2019 levels. Growth was no longer exponential. There was still growth, but it was not happening as fast as during the pandemic period.
With this in mind, it’s worth pointing out that 2023 is the first year that there likely won’t be a pandemic-influenced swing to influence ecommerce growth. It is also a year where demand has suffered challenges amid inflation and interest rate hikes.
So as we seek to determine the importance of ecommerce to overall retail, it’s worth it to continue taking a close look at what growth trends retailers are seeing now, whether ecommerce is remaining resilient amid consumer pullback and how retailers are preparing for the future.
The latest example arrived this week from Macy’s. It’s a fitting one for the times. Overall, Macy’s is seeing a slowdown as consumers pull back on discretionary purchases, with sales declining 7% in the first quarter versus the same quarter of 2022. Digital sales were down 8%.
Macy’s is particularly susceptible to the macroeconomic headwinds that many brands and retailers are facing, as spending among the middle-income consumers it counts as a primary customer base is particularly softening, said GlobalData Managing Director Neil Saunders.
But while ecommerce is slowing overall, the importance it gained to Macy’s business during the pandemic is remaining in place.
In 2019, ecommerce made up 25% of Macy’s revenue, CEO Jeff Gennette told analysts on the company’s earnings call. That jumped to a high of 44% in 2020. By 2022, digital reached 33% of sales after the pandemic boom. In the first quarter of 2023, it remained at 33%. So, while the trend line dipped after shoppers returned to stores, ecommerce share still settled in at a higher post-lockdown point than it was before the pandemic.
This came in a quarter in which traffic was “relatively good” across both online and in-store, Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette said. It was “flattish” online, and slightly up in stores.
“We do expect that this is the reset year with the penetration between them,” Gennette said. “But we do expect more aggressive growth in digital in the future versus stores as we think about '24 and beyond. And that's going to be foisted by a lot of ideas and strategies.
Over the last year, the retailer has made investments in boosting ecommerce, even as shoppers returned to stores. In a bid to boost the assortment of goods available online, Macy’s launched a marketplace in September 2022 that welcomes goods from third-party sellers.
The marketplace had an “outstanding” first quarter, said Macy’s President Tony Spring, who is poised to succeed Gennette as CEO next year. Gross merchandise value increased over 50% when compared to the fourth quarter of 2022, while the average order value and units per order for marketplace customers was 50% above those not shopping at the marketplace.
Macy’s is continuing to build the marketplace even as it racks up sales. The retailer added 450 brands, ending the quarter with 950 brands.
This is helping to draw in new customers, as well as younger existing customers who are buying more items, resulting in increased basket size.
“We're very excited as to how marketplace is really attracting the Gen Z customer, particularly in categories where it was not economically feasible for us to carry in the past,” Gennette said.
In the end, Gennette said a strong digital and social presence is key to attracting younger consumers. That's a different type of shopper than other age groups.
“We know the younger customer starts first online,” Gennette said. That behavior will still be in place as the generation gets older, and gains more buying power in the process.
Going forward, Macy’s is seeking to expand the model to other retail banners in its portfolio. Bloomingdale’s will open a marketplace in the early fall.
The Macy’s ecommerce trajectory isn’t that different from the wider U.S. ecommerce narrative detailed above. With one quarter of 2023 data, there is evidence that ecommerce share settled out at a higher point after the pandemic than where it started before COVID arrived. There is flattening now, but the retailer is taking it not as a sign of a slowdown, or a signal to change course. Rather, it sees changing consumer behavior as a reason to build for the future.