Brands
Sperry
Sean McDowell was named vice president of design and product development of Sperry, a division of Wolverine World Wide Inc.
McDowell will report to Joelle Grunberg, a member of Wolverine Worldwide’s executive leadership team and global brand president of Sperry. In his new role, he will focus on driving product innovation and elevating the Sperry brand.
Most recently, McDowell founded Fountain Design and Innovation, a Boston-based boutique design agency serving a variety of consumer brands. Before that, he held design and product development roles at New Balance, Nike and Converse.
Sperry is distributed in department stores and independent retailers in North America, Asia, Europe and Latin America, as well as Sperry specialty stores and Sperry.com.
Richemont
Richemont announced that effective Sept. 1 Philippe Fortunato will assume the role of CEO of Fashion & Accessories Maisons and will join the company’s senior executive committee.
Fortunato will report to Jérôme Lambert, CEO of Richemont. He joins Richemont from Givenchy, where he has served as CEO since 2014.
Richemont fashion and accessories brands include Alaïa, Chloé, Dunhill, Montblanc and Peter Millar.
Cole Haan
Cole Haan Inc. said Andrew Rudolph joined the company as senior vice president, North American wholesale sales.
Rudolph joins the performance lifestyle brand from Adidas Group, where he was vice president of wholesale sales USA. He begins immediately and will be a familiar presence as Cole Haan begins its selling season for Spring 2021.
Textiles
AdvanSix
AdvanSix appointed Kelly Slieter as senior vice president and chief human resources officer.
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In this role, Slieter will be responsible for leading the company’s human resources organization, including talent management, leadership development and training, compensation and benefits, and communications. She will report directly to Erin Kane, president and CEO of AdvanSix, and be a member of the company’s executive leadership team.
Slieter joins AdvanSix having most recently served as vice president of human resources within the Performance Materials and Technologies division of Honeywell International.
AdvanSix is a manufacturer of nylon 6, a polymer resin used to produce fibers, filaments, engineered plastics and films that are used in such end-products as sports apparel, carpets, automotive and electronic components, food packaging and other industrial applications.
Retail
Lowe
Lowe, a national real estate developer, investor and manager, named Joel K. Mayer as executive vice president to lead the formation of Retail reVision, a new platform that applies company’s experience in real estate, including multifamily, office and hotel properties, to the assessment and repositioning of retail real estate.
Prior to joining Lowe, Mayer served as managing director for retail at Rockwood, where he oversaw retail property investment, strategy, development, acquisitions, leasing, management and dispositions. He will be based in Lowe’s headquarters in Los Angeles.
Retail reVision was formed to pursue the repositioning and redevelopment of underperforming retail properties that can benefit from a program that reinvigorates existing retail properties through modernizing and adding new, complementary uses to create a fresh and vibrant environment. The Retail reVision team will work with existing and new owners as a joint venture partner, an incentive-fee manager or as an advisor.
Technology
Stylitics
Stylitics, an AI-powered visual merchandising and outfit recommendation platform, announced the addition of Marnie Sudnow to its executive team as the vice president of client success.
As brands and retailers rapidly increase investment in e-commerce strategies, Sudnow will lead the company’s delivery of digital merchandising technology and services.
Sudnow joins the company from Mediaocean, a marketing and advertising automation platform, where she was the senior vice president of strategic accounts for North America. Previously, she held various positions at Donovan Data Systems, where she helped lead the organization after the merger with MediaBank.
Headquartered in New York City, Stylitics works with more than 50 brands, including Ann Taylor, Bloomingdale’s, Banana Republic, Chico’s, Gap, Hanna Andersson, Kohl’s, Loft, Macy’s, Puma and White House Black Market to engage shoppers with technology and content.
Sustainability
Climate Neutral
Climate Neutral, an independent non-profit organization engaging consumers and brands to decrease global carbon emissions, elected two new members to its board of directors–Gihan Amarasiriwardena, co-founder and president at Ministry of Supply, and Jane Franch, director of strategic sourcing and sustainability at Numi Organic Tea.
Ministry of Supply and Numi Organic Tea are both inaugural members of the first group of 129 companies to become Climate Neutral Certified. Each brand has fully measured, offset and reduced its 2019 carbon footprint.
Amarasiriwardena joins Climate Neutral’s board with deep experience in materials, manufacturing and design in apparel.
Franch joins Climate Neutral with a strong background in natural systems and the food and beverage industry. Franch and Amarasiriwardena will participate in the governance, oversight and strategic growth of Climate Neutral and its work across sectors and industries.
To become Climate Neutral Certified, companies must measure all of the carbon emissions they generate by making and delivering their products, and they must offset the entire footprint and implement plans to reduce it.