Dive Brief:
- Dr. Martens CEO Kenny Wilson will step down from the top position at the footwear company by the end of the fiscal year, according to a Tuesday press release.
- Ije Nwokorie, chief brand officer, will succeed Wilson, and the two “will work together to ensure a smooth handover,” while Nwokorie continues in the chief brand officer position for the remainder of the year.
- The company announced Wilson’s departure on the same day it released its anticipated fiscal year 2025 outlook, which projects U.S. wholesale revenue to decline by double-digits year over year.
Dive Insight:
Wilson’s departure comes as Dr. Martens faces a backdrop of weak financial performance in the U.S., its largest market. In the outlook press release, Wilson referred to the coming fiscal year as “challenging.”
“[T]he whole organisation is focused on our action plan to reignite boots demand, particularly in the USA,” Wilson said in the earnings release. “The nature of USA wholesale is that when customers gain confidence in the market we will see a significant improvement in our business performance, but we are not assuming that this occurs in FY25.”
If wholesale customers become more optimistic, the company said it could receive in-season reorders but said this was hard to predict. Because of the anticipated U.S. wholesale results, the company will continue to pay for storage facilities to hold its inventory.
“We have built an operating cost base in anticipation of a larger business, however with revenues weaker we are currently seeing significant deleverage through to earnings,” Wilson said. “Against this backdrop, we will be laser-focused on driving cost efficiencies where possible...We continue to believe in our DTC-first strategy and the considerable headroom for growth.”
Dr. Martens will release its FY2024 results on May 30, and it expects those results to be in-line with previous expectations.
Wilson has been with the company for six years, and in the CEO succession release he said he felt “that the time is right to hand over” the position.
Nwokorie has held the chief brand officer position at Dr. Martens since February, per his Linkedin. Prior to that he served on the company’s board as an independent, nonexecutive director beginning in 2021. He previously worked as a senior director at Apple.
“Ije is an inspirational leader and his experience in helping drive DTC-led growth at Apple will be highly relevant in the coming years,” Lynne Weedall, senior independent director and chair of the nomination committee of Dr. Martens, said in the release. “He knows the Company well, having been a Non-Executive Director for three years and we are already benefiting from his brand expertise since he joined as CBO in February. We are delighted that he will be the next CEO."
Last month, Dr. Martens launched two initiatives as part of its sustainability goals. It partnered with sustainability tech company Gen Phoenix for a recycled leather collection and partnered with Archive for a U.S. resale platform called ReWair.
The resale platform was part of the company’s DOCS Strategy, which also includes putting its DTC line first. In its most recent earnings report in January, the company reported declines in both wholesale and revenue channels due to weak performance in the U.S., and overall revenue fell 21% year over year.
