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On the Move has updates from Shein, L'Oreal USA, Keurig Dr. Pepper, Prada and more.
Welcome to On the Move. Every week, The Current is rounding up the comings and goings of leaders at brands and retailers across the ecommerce, retail and CPG landscape.
This week, we’ve got details on how the CEO role will be changing hands at The Prada Group and Hain Celestial, while Glossier’s former CMO rises to the leading executive role at Loop. Meanwhile, there are key C-level and VP hires at L’Oreal USA, Keurig Dr. Pepper, Shein and Faire.
Ali Weiss was appointed as CEO of baby gear rental startup Loop. Weiss previously served as chief marketing officer of beauty brand Glossier, leading marketing, brand and community initiatives that shaped the direct-to-consumer playbook. Founded in 2021 by DVx Ventures, Loop operates on a membership model that allows families to rent toys and baby gear.
The Prada Group has set a management succession plan that will see Andrea Guerra positioned to become the next CEO of the luxury house. Guerra, a former senior advisor at LVMH Moët Hennessy, is set to be recommended at the group’s board meeting on Jan. 26. At a shareholders meeting, current co-CEO Patrizio Bertelli will be recommended as chairman, while co-CEO Miuccia Prada will remain creative director of Miu Miu and Prada. Meanwhile, current chairman Paolo Zannoni will be suggested as executive deputy chairman of the board of directors of Prada S.p.A. and, at the same time, chairman of Prada Holding S.p.A.
“This is a fundamental step we have decided to undertake, while completely engaged in the company, to contribute more to the evolution of the Prada Group and to ease the succession of Lorenzo Bertelli, the future leader of the group,” said Bertelli and Miuccia Prada, in a statement. “We thank Andrea Guerra for being willing to take the job, with the aim of achieving a steady and sustainable growth.” Lorenzo Bertelli is the son of the current co-CEOs.
Andrea Guerra. (Courtesy photo)
Hain Celestial, the natural food group, announced a leadership succession plan, effective Jan. 1, 2023. Wendy P. Davidson will become the CEO of the company, bringing executive experience from Glanbia Performance Nutrition, Away from Home, Kellogg Company, McCormick and Company and Tyson Foods. She will succeed Mark L. Schiller, who will serve as a nonexecutive member of the board going forward.
Francis Pierrel departed Urban Outfitters Group as company president, according to an announcement from parent company Urban Outfitters, Inc. Pierrel gave few details about the move, but said, “We appreciate the contributions he made during his tenure and wish him well in his future endeavors.” Pierrel joined Urban Outfitters in February following work at Club Monaco.
Jessica Liu will join fast fashion giant Shein as VP of global brand operations, according to a LinkedIn post. Liu is joining Shein from ecommerce company Lazada, where she served as president. She also worked at Alibaba, which is the parent of Lazada, and Amazon. "Jessica brings rich experience in the ecommerce sector across global markets, and we look forward to having her join the Shein growth story," said Shein, in a statement.
Ami Vora. (Courtesy photo)
Ami Vora will join Faire as the B2B ecommerce marketplace’s first chief product officer. Vora previously spent more than 15 years at Meta, joining when the company was at 100 employees. She had stints leading the largest product team at the company, and helping to create ads for Facebook and Instagram. Vora most recently served as VP of product and design for WhatsApp.
Dr. Karin Rotem-Wildeman was hired as chief research and development officer at Keurig Dr. Pepper. She is the successor to David Thomas, who is retiring after 16 years in the role. Bringing 25 years of experience, Rotem-Wildeman previously served as chief scientific officer at plant-based startup Livekindly Collective, and served in R&D leadership roles at Godiva and PepsiCo. She will lead product development, packaging innovation, flavor technology and associated R&D capabilities.
Foot Locker announced a series of executive changes under new CEO Mary Dillon that are designed in part to separate commercial activities from supply chain and IT functions:
Rahquel Purcell will become the first chief transformation officer for North America at L’Oreal USA. With more than two decades of supply chain management experience, Purcell previously served as COO for North America, leading the beauty company’s pandemic response. “The development of the Transformation Office under Rahquel’s leadership is an opportunity to continuously drive an ambitious, strategic evolution of our business model across operations and functions, organizational design, core business tools and more,” said said David Greenberg, L’Oréal USA’s CEO and president of North America, in a statement.
Kady Srinivasan is joining Lightspeed Commerce as chief marketing officer. Srinivasan is a former marketing executive at Klaviyo and Dropbox, as well as infant health platform Owlet Baby Care. Lightspeed provides a one-stop commerce platform for omnichannel sales and operations, as well as expansion, payments and finance.
Eric Shellenback is joining freeze-dried fruit snack brand Crispy Green as chief operating officer. Shellenback brings more than 25 years of experience form The Quaker Oats Company and Nestlé, and served as a divisional president of Haagan Daz Retail and Preferred Meal. Shellenback will oversee day-to-day operations at the company, reporting to founder Angela Liu.
Ray Silva was tapped to become executive vice president of stores at Dick’s Sporting Goods. Silva is joining Dick’s from Best Buy, where he served most recently as chief people officer, and previously as president of retail, where he oversaw sales across all customer touchpoints. He will served as a member of the company's executive leadership team.
Sarah Piper was promoted to chief human relations officer at McCormick and Co. In this role, she will be responsible for the global people strategy at the Maryland-based spicemaker, including talent management, learning, total rewards, diversity, equity and inclusion, employee engagement and wellbeing and employee relations. Piper initially joined McCormick in 2007, and rose to the role of SVP for global human relations business partners.The cuts amount to 4% of the ecommerce platform's workforce.
On ebay's campus. (Photo by Flickr user Kazuhisa OTSUBO, used under a Creative Commons license)
eBay is set to become the latest ecommerce platform to conduct layoffs.
The company announced plans on Tuesday to lay off 500 employees, which amounts to about 4% of its workforce. Layoffs were set to take place over the next 24 hours, the company said Tuesday evening.
In an SEC filing, CEO Jamie Iannone said the decision to make layoffs came after consideration of the macroeconomic environment and where the company could best invest for the long-term.
Iannone said the moves “are designed to strengthen our ability to deliver better end-to-end experiences for our customers and to support more innovation and scale across our platform.”
“Importantly, this shift gives us additional space to invest and create new roles in high-potential areas — new technologies, customer innovations and key markets — and to continue to adapt and flex with the changing macro, ecommerce and technology landscape,” Iannone wrote. “We’re also simplifying our structure to make decisions more effectively and with more speed.”
eBay is one of the oldest ecommerce platforms, and remains an active marketplace for both new and resale items. The San Francisco-based company has yet to report results for the fourth quarter of 2022. In the third quarter, the company said gross merchandise volume was down 11%, and revenue was down 5% year-over-year.
Yet the company has also continued to invest. In 2022, it acquired collectibles platform TCGPlayer and myFitment, which provides parts and accessories for automotive and powersports. It also opened a secure vault for trading cards, and launched livestreaming.
eBay is also seeing a boost from advertising, with revenue driven by promoted listings up 19% in the third quarter.
With the layoffs, eBay joins other tech companies that provide the infrastructure of ecommerce in making layoffs. Amazon, Shopify, Salesforce, BigCommerce and Wayfair have all recently announced layoffs. Technology giants like Meta, Google and Microsoft have also made job cuts.
It comes as inflation is weighing on consumers’ discretionary spending, and the return to more in-person shopping throughout 2022 led to a correction following aggressive hiring during the pandemic.