Retail
J.Jill Inc. appointed two new executives to the company’s senior leadership team.
Brian Beitler will join the company as executive vice president and chief marketing and brand development officer. Shelley Liebsch comes on board as senior vice president and chief merchandising officer. Both new roles begin in September.
Beitler joins J.Jill with more than 20 years of experience as a marketing, strategy and business development executive. He is the former chairman for the Global Retail Marketing Association and previously held executive vice president and chief marketing officer positions at Lane Bryant and Catherines, as well as David’s Bridal Inc.
Liebsch previously held senior vice president of merchandising and design positions at maternity retailers Destination Maternity and A Pea in the Pod. Liebsch has also held senior merchandiser and buyer roles at Urban Outfitters, Victoria’s Secret, InStyle Magazine and Bloomingdale’s.
L Brands Inc. announced that Denise Landman, CEO of Victoria’s Secret Pink, will retire at the end of this year after building the business to a nearly $3 billion brand.
Amy Hauk, currently president for merchandising and product development of Bath & Body Works, will replace Landman. Hauk joined Bath & Body Works in 2008 as senior vice president and general merchandise manager. Prior to that, she held senior merchant leadership positions at The Children’s Place, The Disney Store, Gap Inc. and Macy’s.
Landman will remain in the business through the end of the year to onboard Hauk and facilitate the transition.
Debenhams
Debenhams appointed Rachel Osborne as chief financial officer (CFO), effective Sept. 17.
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Osborne was formerly CFO of Domino’s Pizza Group and has a strong retail background with previous roles at John Lewis and Kingfisher. She will assume the role behind Matt Smith, who informed the company in April that he would leave on Aug. 31.
Shoe Carnival
Effective Sept. 10, Mark Worden will join Shoe Carnival as executive vice president, chief strategy and marketing officer, a new position for the retailer of mid-priced footwear and accessories. Worden comes to the Evansville, Ind.-based company from SC Johnson, before which he served in various roles with consumer goods giant Kimberly-Clark.
Textiles
Huntsman Textile Effects appointed Rajiv Banavali as global vice president of research and technology. Banavali succeeds Sarada Namhata, who is retiring after five years in the role.
Banavali joins Textile Effects as part of its global senior management leadership team. He reports directly to Textile Effects president Rohit Aggarwal.
Banavali joins Hunstman from Honeywell International, where he held several research and development leadership roles. He was most recently vice president and chief technology officer with its Advanced Materials division.
Footwear
OrthoLite
OrthoLite, a leading manufacturer of branded comfort and performance insoles, hired Marty Greenwald as global sales director.
The company said this new position will expand OrthoLite’s reach geographically, while providing additional support to brand partners and the entire OrthoLite sales organization in the U.S., Asia, Europe and South America.
Greenwald spent the last 23 years working within the footwear component industry at MacNeill Engineering, a supplier of branded athletic traction systems.
Technology
Project44
Logistics and technology provider Project 44 made four key appointments.
Andrew Grygiel was named chief marketing officer, Vernon O’Donnell was hired as chief customer officer, Jeanette Johnson was brought in as vice president of people and Mateen Khadir as vice president of product.
Grygiel will lead the company’s global integrated marketing, demand generation, product marketing, brand strategy and corporate communications efforts. He was formerly senior vice president of Marketing at Uptake, an industrial IoT and analytics company.
O’Donnell, most recently chief customer officer for STATS, will focus on scaling project44’s customer success function, developing and implementing cutting-edge approaches to customer interaction.
Johnson will lead efforts to promote wellness and values within project44, as well as spearhead the company’s recruiting strategy as they seek to hire an additional 200 team members. She also serves as marketing director for the Society for Human Resource Management’s Chicago chapter. Previously, she was vice president of People at SPINS, a company that uses data to provide insights into natural, organic, and specialty brands.
Khadir has held product leadership roles at Relativity, Oracle-Textura and Accenture. At project44, he will oversee the maturation of project44’s existing product portfolio, while helping the company expand into new geographies and capabilities.
These key additions come on the heels of project44’s recent acquisition of an additional $35 million in funding and its move to a new 40,000-square-foot office in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart.