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10 January
New year, new CEOs at Designer Brands, Cotopaxi, Vitamin Shoppe
On the Move has the latest C-level hires at Impossible Foods, Build-A-Bear and Provi.

Doug Howe is the next CEO of Designer Brands, Inc. (Courtesy photo)
On the Move has the latest C-level hires at Impossible Foods, Build-A-Bear and Provi.
Doug Howe is the next CEO of Designer Brands, Inc. (Courtesy photo)
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, the CEO role is seeing transition at Designer Brands, Rite Aid, Vitamin Shoppe, Cotopaxi and Compana Pet Brands. Meanwhile, Impossible Foods hired a CPG leader as its first chief demand officer and Build-A-Bear is bringing on a CTO.
Here’s the latest leadership hires:
Doug Howe, the current president of DSW, is set to step into the CEO role at parent company Designer Brands Inc. On April 1, he will succeed Roger Rawlins, who will become a board member and advisor. Howe currently serves as EVP of Designer Brands, and brings prior leadership experience at Kohl’s, Qurate Retail Group, Gap Inc. and Walmart. A search will be conducted for the next DSW president.
Davis Smith is set to transition out of the CEO role at outdoor gear brand Cotopaxi, effective July 1. At that time, company president Damien Huang will assume the CEO role. Huang was hired last year from the CEO role of Eddie Bauer. Smith will transition to the position of chairman of the board. For the next three years, he is set to serve in a mission president role for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Recife, Brazil.
Sharon M. Leite (Courtesy photo)
Sharon M. Leite is the next CEO at aesthetics brand Ideal Image. Leite comes to the brand after serving as CEO of The Vitamin Shoppe, and was previously president of Godiva Chocolatier and Sally Beauty. Among her work at The Vitamin Shoppe, Leite launched a tech-driven format and introduced personalization, while increasing innovation in private brands. Ideal Image has a network of more than 800 doctors that perform services such as laser hair removal, body sculpting and Botox.
Heyward Donigan will step down as CEO of Rite Aid. Board member Elizabeth “Busy” Burr will step in as CEO of the drug store chain on an interim basis, while an executive search is conducted. Burr brings executive experience in health from Carrot, Inc. and Humana. Donigan, whose departure was effective immediately on Monday, served in the CEO role since 2019. The move comes as Rite Aid is forecasting a net loss of $551-584 million for the current fiscal year.
Bob Robbins. (Courtesy photo)
Bob Robbins is joining alcoholic beverage ecommerce marketplace Provi as president and chief operating officer. Previously, Robbins held leadership positions at Juul Labs, Constellation Brands, Beam Suntory, McKinsey & Company. Provi aims to simplify wholesale alcohol ordering by connecting buyers, distributors and suppliers.
Greg Pearson started the new year in a new role as CEO of Compana Pet Brands, the pet care and nutrition company. Pearson succeeds John Howe, who is transitioning to a new role as senior advisor. Pearson most recently served as CEO of Pretzels, Inc., a pretzel manufacturer that was sold to Hershey in 2021. He also established Chewy’s private brands business during a stint at the pets-focused ecommerce platform.
Sherene Jagla will be the first chief demand officer at plant-based meat brand Impossible Foods. Jagla will be responsible for bringing sales, marketing, insights and product development into one function. Jagla brings 25 years of experience, including most recently as SVP and GM of Newell Brands, where she oversaw a $2 billion business across 50 brands. She was also a sales leader at Kellogg’s and held senior roles at Kimberly-Clark.
Sherene Jagla. (Courtesy photo)
Dara Meath is heading to Build-A-Bear Workshop to assume the CTO role. Meath brings 20 years of experience, most recently as the head of data, digital and ecommerce at beauty brand Conair. "This hiring demonstrates our continued focus to advance our digital capabilities which have been a fundamental part of our business success contributing to record-setting profitability in 2021 and thus far in 2022,” CFO Voin Todorovic said.
Natalie Knight is set to depart the role of chief financial officer at Ahold Delhaize. Knight served as CFO of the Netherlands-based grocer since 2020. In six months, Knight told the company that she will pursue another career opportunity in the U.S. after 25 years in Europe. Ahold Delhaize started the search for a successor.
Natalie Knight (Courtesy photo)
Lands’ End is making a series of leadership changes, which are effective Jan. 28. These come as Andrew McLean is set to step in as CEO in a previously-announced move. The changes are as follows:
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.