Brands
VF Corp.
VF Corp. announced organizational changes to strengthen and accelerate the company’s business strategy in the Asia Pacific Region, while at the same time adding enhanced leadership support for its emerging brands platform.
With a specific focus on advancing its stated strategy of growing its business in China, VF has created the new position of president, Greater China. VF will announce the leader appointed to this position later this summer. Greater China represents about 65 percent of VF’s total business in the Asia-Pacific Region. The company expects that percentage to grow to nearly 80 percent by fiscal 2024.
Kevin Bailey, executive vice president and group president, APAC, will continue leading the company’s Asia-Pacific Region, but will relocate to Denver from Hong Kong, where he will also assume leadership of the company’s emerging brands platform, which includes the Altra, Eagle Creek, JanSport and Smartwool brands, and the Kipling and Icebreaker brands in the Americas Region. Bailey will continue reporting to CEO Steve Rendle and serving on VF’s executive leadership team.
Adidas
After 23 years at Adidas, Karen Parkin, executive board member responsible for global human resources, has informed Adidas AG’s supervisory board that she will step down and leave the company.
The supervisory board, in mutual agreement with Parkin, approved the termination of her appointment as an executive board member. Adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted will assume responsibility for global human resources on an interim basis until a successor is appointed.
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Parkin first joined Adidas in 1997 as sales director for Adidas U.K. Since that time, she has held a number of positions of increasing responsibility at the company across customer service, business development, supply chain and human resources, culminating in leading global human resources over the past five and a half years. She was appointed to the executive board in 2017.
Retail
Genesco
Genesco Inc. announced that Mimi E. Vaughn, the company’s president and CEO, was named to the additional position of chair of the board of directors.
Vaughn succeeds Robert J. Dennis, implementing the final step of a transition plan that began in 2018. Dennis served as Genesco president and CEO from 2008 to 2020 and most recently as executive chairman. He has retired from the board, after serving as chairman for the past 10 years.
Matthew C. Diamond, a veteran of Genesco’s board, and former CEO of Alloy Media and Alloy Inc., will continue to serve as the company’s lead independent director.
In October, Vaughn was elected to Genesco’s board and named president and CEO, effective on Feb. 1. She joined Genesco as vice president for strategy and business development in 2003, was promoted to senior vice president for strategy and business development in 2006, and was named senior vice president of strategy and shared services in 2009.
Vaughn became chief financial officer (CFO) in 2015 and was named Genesco’s chief operating officer in January 2018. Prior to joining the company, Vaughn was executive vice president of business development and marketing, and acting CFO for Link2Gov Corporation in Nashville.
Genesco, a Nashville-based specialty retailer, sells footwear and accessories in more than 1,475 stores throughout the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Ireland, principally under the names Johnston & Murphy, Journeys, Journeys Kidz, Schuh, Schuh Kids and Little Burgundy, and on the brands’ internet websites. In addition, Genesco sells wholesale footwear under its Johnston & Murphy and Trask brands, and the licensed Dockers, Levi’s and Bass brands.
David’s Bridal
David’s Bridal appointed Danny Luczak as chief technology officer.
Luczak comes to David’s Bridal from Public Storage, where he was vice president of application development. Prior to his four years at Public Storage, he served as senior director of enterprise architecture and data services at DSW.
In his role at David’s Bridal, he will lead the ideation, implementation, execution and operations of the company’s technology strategy. Luczak will report into Kelly Cook, chief marketing and IT officer of David’s Bridal.
David’s Bridal has more than 300 stores located across the U.S., Canada and the U.K., and franchise locations in Mexico.
Trade
U.S. Department of Labor
The United States named panelists for the Rapid Response Labor Mechanism, a key tool for the enforcement of the United-States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) labor protections. The U.S. national panelists are Janice Bellace, Lance Compa, Peter Hurtgen, Ira Jaffe, Kevin Kolben and Ed Potter.
The Rapid Response Labor Mechanism, a bilateral annex of the USMCA between the U.S. and Mexico, allows the U.S. to take expedited enforcement actions against individual factories in Mexico that fail to comply with domestic freedom of association and collective bargaining laws.
Bellace is the Samuel A. Blank professor emeritus of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Compa is a former senior lecturer at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, where he focused on U.S. labor law and international labor rights.
Hurtgen is a partner working in labor and employment law at Curley, Hurtgen & Johnsrud LLP. He has served as the chairman of the National Labor Relations Board and the director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. Jaffe has served as a full-time arbitrator and mediator primarily hearing labor and employment and benefits disputes. He serves on over 60 permanent arbitration panels in the private and public sectors and Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama appointed Jaffe to serve on or chair four Presidential Emergency Boards addressing emergency disputes arising under the Railway Labor Act.
Kolben is an associate professor at the Rutgers Business School and an expert on transnational labor regulation and labor governance in supply chains. Potter is an International Advisory Council Member at the Institute for Human Rights and Business.
Sustainability
Cradle to Cradle
The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute announced the election of Gerrit Bruggeman as its new board chair. He succeeds outgoing chair Warner Philips.
As a chief executive and key advisor, Bruggeman has introduced and embedded the Cradle to Cradle principles into the culture and operations of leading companies around the world. He became acquainted with Cradle to Cradle during his tenure as CEO of Royal Auping, a Dutch bedding firm.
Technology
Digital River
Digital River, a global e-commerce enabler for brands, appointed Ted Rogers as chief marketing officer. Rogers will report directly to Digital River’s CEO, Adam Coyle.
Rogers has been a key executive at Digital River for three years, serving first as vice president and general manager of MyCommerce, Digital River’s full service e-commerce platform for subscriptions, software and services clients. He then became Digital River’s vice president of global expansion and fulfillment operations, responsible for leading global expansion strategy and managing solutions for physical and digital fulfillment worldwide. In early 2020, Rogers took on the position of vice president of strategic marketing before being promoted into his current role.
Digital River announced last August it has fully transitioned its product to a modular approach, enabling brands to combine best-of-breed solutions from multiple providers to create a flexible e-commerce offering designed to meet increasingly complex shopper demands globally.