Brands
PSEB Group
PSEB Group, an operating company composed of Pacific Sunwear of California and Eddie Bauer, announced that Mike Egeck will be stepping down as CEO, effective Feb. 4, to pursue a new opportunity outside of the apparel industry and be geographically closer to his family.
PSEB director Jim Gulmi, a 30-year specialty retail veteran, will serve as interim CEO of PSEB while the board conducts a search for a permanent replacement. Egeck will remain a PSEB shareholder and an active board member following the transition.
Gulmi has served as a PSEB director since its formation in 2018. Prior to that, he was interim CEO of Pacsun from March 2017 through October 2018, as well as a member of its board. Gulmi previously worked for Genesco, a leading specialty retailer, from 1971 to 2015, where he most recently served as chief financial officer.
Eddie Bauer is an outdoor brand offering performance outerwear, apparel, footwear, accessories and gear. Eddie Bauer products are available online at eddiebauer.com, and at more than 300 stores in the U.S., Canada, Germany, Japan and other international markets.
Pacsun sells a combination of branded and proprietary casual apparel, accessories and footwear designed to appeal to teens and young adults. The company operates approximately 400 stores in all 50 states and Puerto Rico.
Logistics
Volker Ratzmann will take over the function of executive vice president for corporate public policy and regulation management for DHL Group, effective May 1. He will report to CEO Frank Appel.
Related Stories
Most recently, Ratzmann was Secretary of the State Ministry and authorized representative for the State of Baden-Württemberg in Berlin. In this capacity, he successfully contributed to negotiations between the federal and state governments on various legislative projects and their implementation.
Ratzmann takes over from Rainer Wend, who has headed the function since 2009 and retired at the end of 2019.
Retail
Retail Industry Leaders Association
The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) announced that Ulta Beauty CEO Mary Dillon will serve as the new chairperson of its board of directors, following an election that took place at RILA’s semi-annual board of directors meeting in Palm Beach, Fla.
Dillon, who succeeds Brian Cornell of Target, will serve a two-year term.
Technology
Optym
Optym, a privately held optimization software solutions company, appointed Dallas-based Vic Keller as CEO, and Ravi Ahuja, founder of Optym, was appointed chief science officer.
Keller was appointed to the Optym board of directors in July. Most recently, Keller founded KLV Capital, a Dallas-based private equity firm.
Ahuja founded Optym in 2000 and served as its CEO. In an academic career spanning more than 35 years, he taught at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and the Sloan School of Management at MIT and is currently a professor emeritus at the University of Florida, Gainesville.
Optym has developed software solutions for some of the most complex problems in transportation, including determining airlines’ most profitable flight schedules, calculating railroad train schedules that increase network capacity, and optimizing the routing plans for less-than-truckload companies to reduce their drivers’ cost.
Dsco
Dsco, a distributed inventory network for online consumer purchases, named Vance Checketts as CEO and appointed him to the company’s board of directors. Founder Jeremy Hanks will remain focused on Dsco in his new full-time role as executive chairman.
Since joining Dsco as chief operating officer in August 2018, Checketts has overseen all operations and played a defining role in developing and executing the company’s strategy to address the accelerating demand for Dsco’s products and services.
Checketts has more than 25 years of experience in the technology sector, in both Silicon Valley and Silicon Slopes. He was previously vice president and general manager at Dell EMC.
Headquartered in greater Salt Lake City, Utah, Dsco’s top enterprise retailers include Nordstrom, Kohl’s, REI, Neiman Marcus, Luxottica and Finish Line, along with thousands of their brand partners that use Dsco to sell more efficiently through strategies such as drop shipping.