Brands
Outdoor Voices
Activewear brand Outdoor Voices announced that Gabrielle Conforti joined the company as CEO.
Conforti will be focused on making new products for customers, doubling down on the brand’s recreationalist community and architecting the future vision for Outdoor Voices.
Conforti has more than 15 years of retail and apparel industry experience in brand, merchandising and consumer building to drive growth at the company. She has spent the past six years at Urban Outfitters, where she has held senior management roles, including chief merchandising officer and president.
Conforti’s new position will build on the company’s momentum, having recently become profitable, and give Outdoor Voices a leader who is passionate about the mission, the products, and the recreationalist community.
Gildan Activewear
Mike Hoffman, president of sales, marketing and distribution, announced that effective Feb. 28, he will be retiring from Gildan Activewear.
Hofman played a significant role in Gildan’s growth and success over the last 20 years, developing and growing sales, marketing and distribution activities out of Barbados. He also assumed responsibility for all similar retail-related activities with the initiation of the company’s Back to Basics strategy.
With Hoffman’s retirement and in line with the succession plan the company had in place, effective March 1, Chuck Ward will assume the role of president of sales, marketing and distribution, based in Barbados. In parallel with these changes, Arun Bajaj has been elevated to executive vice president and chief human resources officer. Bajaj has extensive global human resources experience and joined Gildan 16 months ago to support Gildan’s Back to Basics focus and long-term growth strategy.
Kontoor Brands
The board of directors of Kontoor Brands Inc., with a portfolio led by Wrangler and Lee, named Robert Lynch, president and CEO of Papa John’s International, as a director, effective March 5.
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Lynch will serve on the audit and the talent and compensation committees of Kontoor’s board.
Lynch was appointed as president and CEO of Papa John’s in August 2019. He joined Papa John’s from Arby’s Restaurant Group, where he served as president since August 2017.
Retail
Maurices
Maurices, a nationwide women’s apparel specialty retailer, announced today that long-time CEO George Goldfarb will transition to chairman emeritus and serve on the company’s board of directors.
With Goldfarb’s move, David Kornberg was named president and CEO of Maurices, effective March 15.
With inclusive sizing from 0-24, Maurices operates 900-plus stores in communities across the U.S. and Canada, and offers even more fashion at maurices.com.
Boot Barn
Boot Barn Holdings Inc. announced that Gene Eddie Burt, executive vice president (EVP) and chief supply chain officer of Big Lots Inc., was appointed to its board of directors. With his appointment, the board now consists of eight directors.
Burt previously served as the EVP of merchandising and supply chain for GNC, senior vice president of real estate and development for PetSmart, Inc., and director of domestic distribution for The Home Depot Inc.
Boot Barn is a retailer of Western and work-related footwear, apparel and accessories for men, women and children. It operates 267 stores in 36 states, in addition to an e-commerce channel bootbarn.com. The company also operates sheplers.com, a pure-play online Western and work retailer, and countryoutfitter.com.
Compliance
SCS Global Services
SCS Global Services, a provider of sustainability standards development and third-party certification of environmental, social, safety and quality performance, announced the addition of five new experts to its senior management staff.
Industry veterans Carey Allen, Henning Bloech, Jenny Oorbeck, Vik Ahuja and Tom Ehart have joined the fold.
Allen, an experienced business leader in the food safety and quality certification arena, is the new vice president and managing director for its Food and Agriculture division. Allen comes to SCS from NSF International, where she led the global Supply Chain Food Safety Certification division.
Bloech comes on board as the new executive director of European operations, where he will focus on scaling up the company’s client engagement and Europe-tailored service portfolio. Before joining SCS, he was global sustainability director for Invista Performance Surfaces and Materials, helped start the GreenGuard Environmental Institute, served as commercial director of building performance programs for UL Environment, and launched his own sustainability consulting agency, Sustaineer Consulting.
Oorbeck has joined the team as the executive director of SCS Consulting, the business solutions arm of SCS Global Services focused on guiding companies to continuously improve their sustainability performance. Prior leadership positions include general manager of sustainability for NSF International, program director for the Clean Energy Coalition and environmental manager for the City of Richmond.
Ahuja was named director of sales and marketing in the Environmental Certification Services division. Previously, headed business development and sales in industries as broad as the automotive, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, logistics and building products industry sectors, in positions with Thinkstep, Sphera Solutions and the GreenGuard Environmental Institute.
Ehart rounds out the suite of new senior executive hires as corporate marketing director. He formerly provided marketing leadership for companies such as Blue Pillar, an energy IoT software solutions firm, Bloomberg BNA Tax and Accounting, ISS Corporate Services focused on corporate governance, and MarketResearch.com.