Want to know how to spend your next $1?
Don’t waste another dime on bloated channel reporting and vanity metrics.
Don’t waste another dime on bloated channel reporting and vanity metrics.
Plus, Loops Beauty gains a celebrity partner. It's the latest hiring news from brands and retailers.
(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 landscape.
This week, Saks names a VP of DEI, Keurig Dr. Pepper gets ready for a CEO transition and supply chain leadership changes are underway at PVH and Kohl’s. Plus, Loops Beauty adds a celebrity creative director as it gets ready to expand into retail.
Here’s the latest:
Dr. Alicia Williams (Photo via LinkedIn)
Luxury ecommerce platform Saks said it appointed Dr. Alicia Willaims as vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion.
Dr. Williams brings more than 15 years of leadership experience in talent and diversity, having most recently served as executive director and head of diversity and inclusion for US banks at Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and academic institutions.
“Delivering on our DEI commitments and ensuring an inclusive culture are priorities for our leadership team and our entire company, as they are the key to being a great place to work and best serving our diverse customers and partners,” Saks Chief People Officer Sarah Garber said in a statement. “Alicia has an exceptional track record in launching and implementing DEI initiatives, and we look forward to benefiting from her deep expertise as we build on the progress we have made to date and strengthen our efforts across our business.”
Nefertiti Greene. (Courtesy photo)
Mars Petcare named Nefertiti Greene as president of its newly-created science and diagnostics division.
Greene comes to Mars from Johnson & Johnson, where she served as head of enterprise strategy and chief of staff to the CEO. Leading the new division, Greene will work across multiple areas including nutrition, data science, dog and cat microbiome, and biomarkers of health and disease. Earlier this year, the company announced a new pet biobank.
"Nefertiti will play an integral role in the continued growth of our diagnostics business and accelerate the impact of our science,” Loic Moutault, Mars Petcare global president, said in a statement. “We recognize that shifting from curative to preventative veterinary care depends on being able to accurately predict and diagnose disease in pets."
Keurig Dr. Pepper is preparing for a leadership transition. Current CEO Bob Gamgort is preparing to transition to the role of executive chairman on July 29. At that time, current CFO Ozan Dokmecioglu will assume the role of CEO. Ahead of this previously announced move, the beverage company announced several changes to its executive leadership team. They are as follows:
Camila Mendes (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)
commons.wikimedia.orgSkincare brand Loops Beauty announced Tuesday that actress Camila Mendes is joining as creative director and partner. The role will see Mendes spearheading product development and sustainability initiatives.
The Riverdale star will also be featured in an in-store and online campaign as Loops Beauty enters 450 Ulta Beauty locations later this summer. It marks the two-year-old brand’s expansion into brick-and-mortar retail.
"I'm thrilled to join Loops to bring the brand into its next phase. I've always been a fan and love the face masks, so to be a part of its future development in this way is a dream," said Mendes, in a statement.
Rosalind Chevreuil. (Photo via LinkedIn)
Daily nutrition brand Athletic Greens said Rosalind Chevreuil joined the company in the newly-created role of chief people officer.
Chevreuil comes to Athletic Greens as the company is building culture and talent capabilities following a $115 million investment raise earlier this year. The fully remote company has more than 200 employees after doubling its workforce over the last year.
Chevreuil previously served as the chief people officer at hospitality software company REEF Technologies. She also spent more than 20 years on the human resources team at Best Buy, during which time the company adopted remote and flexible work arrangements.
Enhanced water brand Lemon Perfect has hired former Coca-Cola Company executive Jim Brennan as president and chief revenue officer.
Brennan moves to the role after more than a year as a board member and operating advisor to the company. Previously, he spent 32 years at Coca-Cola. Prior to his retirement, he served as EVP of national retail sales, overseeing a portfolio worth more than $8 billion.
Atlanta-based Lemon Perfect quadrupled revenue in 2021. In April, it closed a $31 million Series A round that included participation from Beyoncé Knowles-Carter.
Paul Gaffney is departing as chief technology and supply chain role at Kohl’s after three years in at the retailer, according to a regulatory filing.
With the departure, Siobhán Mc Feeney will be promoted to chief technology officer. Mc Feeney most recently served as EVP of technology, and has been with the company since 2020. Prior to joining Kohl’s, Mc Feeney served as VP of innovation and strategy at Pivotal Software from 2014-2020.
The news comes about a month after Kohl’s announced that chief merchandising officer Doug Howe and chief marketing officer Greg Revelle would depart the company. The company was in talks with the Franchise Group about a sale, but withdrew from the proceedings in late June.
David Savman (Courtesy photo)
PVH Corp., the owner of Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein, said it hired David Savman as EVP and chief supply chain officer.
Savman will join the company from H&M, where he worked for 19 years and most recently led supply chain functions including sourcing, procurement and warehouse operations.
He succeeds Sarah Clarke, who will be departing the company on October 31.
The transition comes as the company is set to embark on a multi-year strategy of digital and DTC-led growth, which it calls the PVH+ Plan.
Former Farfetch SVP of logistics Stuart Hill is the new COO at luxury ecommerce platform Matchesfashion.
Hill, who brings more than 25 years of experience in logistics, is assuming the role a week after the company named former Asos CEO Nick Beighton as its new chief executive.
“Having worked with Stuart at Asos, I have experienced firsthand the operational impact he can have on a business,” Beighton said, in a statement. “As a founder of two successful logistics companies, Stuart will also bring a valuable entrepreneurial mindset to Matchesfashion, helping it to remain agile, innovative, and customer centric.”
The Estée Lauder Companies said Angela Wei Dong was elected to its board of directors, and joined the company’s audit committee.
Dong is the global VP and general manager of China at NIKE, Inc.
“Angela’s impressive background and experience will provide our Board with valuable insights. In addition to her background in finance, Angela brings strong experience in strategic branding and marketing of consumer goods, in particular for Chinese consumers,” said Estée Lauder Executive Chairman William Lauder, in a statement.
Microservices architecture allows the company to give retailers ownership over omnichannel software.
With the growth of digital commerce, providing consumer choice is at the center of all of a retailer’s operations.
In recent years, that became especially evident in the area of fulfillment.
Ecommerce made the process of moving an order into place for delivery a crucial function, as the ability to source products close to demand quickly was an imperative.
“Retailers are looking to own more of their fulfillment destiny because consumer expectations have increased,” Chap Achen, VP of product strategy and operations at Nextuple, told The Current on the floor of the NRF Big Show 2023. “Fulfillment is now a competitive weapon.”
As digital operations increasingly blend with the physical store, a host of new fulfillment options are coming online. They can have an item delivered from the store on the same day, or they pick it up. Even a wider offering such as in-store pickup has a host of different choices inside of it. Consumers can pick up an item at a counter, or a locker. They can stop by anytime, or schedule a pickup on Saturday.
While this optionality helps retailers meet customers where they are, it also adds complexity to the systems that run them, and requires operational adjustments to put them in place.
It means the software that powers fulfillment operations must also meet retailers where they are, Achen said. Many retailers have specific setups and processes. They may have a store located in a mall with a nearby distribution center, or a series of small storefronts. At the same time, retailers need to have flexibility with the software that they use so they can provide options to consumers.
For Nextuple, the vehicle to provide this is microservices, which describes a software architecture in which the parts of an application work independently, but are also built to work together. The company harnesses microservices to offer an ownership-centered approach to deploying its software through a product called Nextuple Fulfillment Studio.
“Today, there are only two ways to buy software: [software as a service] or custom building,” Achen said. “You can do it yourself or with a partner. We are a third option. We will help you accelerate your time to market because we've already developed 80% of your requirements, and then we'll give you that as source code.”
The software is composable. Retailers own the source code, and they can iterate. Along the way, they have the ability to swap out components of the software for pieces that enable them to better respond to the needs of customers, if they choose.
It shows how composable commerce is spreading throughout retail operations. A first wave of development applied the approach to the “front-end” of commerce, such as operating an ecommerce store and marketing. With fulfillment software such as Nextuple coming online, there are signs it is being applied to backend operations, as well.
In all, Nextuple offers 14 microservices as part of the Studio, including engines for same-day delivery, storage, inventory management and sourcing.
At the NRF Big Show, Nextuple announced that it is live with five national omnichannel retailers. Together, they have $50 billion in annual revenue and 7000 store locations.
The company is aiming to serve a group of retailers that are widely known, but still looking to hone operations for omnichannel retail. When it comes to fulfillment technology, the retail landscape has distinct tiers.
The largest players have built their own fulfillment tech to power logistics networks that reach across the country.
Name brand retailers with a national presence also want to offer competitive fulfillment, but haven’t made the move to acquire platforms or developed their own software in-house. Typically, they would seek out a software provider that offers a set platform on a subscription model. But the particular needs of commerce require software that powers physical operations with digital tools. That requires a different type of solution, Nextuple believes.
“We want to level the playing field,” Achen said. “We're helping the mid-tier [retailer] compete with Target, Amazon and Walmart.”