Dive Brief:
- Foot Locker on Monday announced its first president of global brands, naming Samantha Lomow to the role. Lomow joins the retailer from toy manufacturer Hasbro, where she was the president of branded entertainment.
- In her new role, Lomow will report to Foot Locker's Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Frank Bracken, according to a company press release. Lomow will have responsibility for Foot Locker's brand portfolio and its operating divisions in North America; Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and Asia-Pacific.
- Lomow has more than 25 years of experience in consumer products, entertainment and licensing, and currently sits on the board of managers at Claire's.
Dive Insight:
Foot Locker is in the midst of transforming several parts of its business, including its executive structure. In November, the company created the chief operating officer role, naming Bracken to the post. At that time, Foot Locker introduced other executive changes, including the expansion of the duties of its chief commercial officer and plans to hire for another new role: chief strategy, innovation and development officer.
With the appointment of Lomow, Foot Locker is further building out its executive team and creating another new leadership position at the company. In discussing Lomow's role, Bracken praised her growth mindset and called her a "tremendous addition" to its leadership team.
"Samantha has a track record of successfully driving insight-led business strategy, operational excellence, and transformational priorities and initiatives to deliver sustainable growth," Bracken said in a statement. "As we look towards the future and our purpose to inspire and empower youth culture, Samantha's fresh perspective and experience will further accelerate our consumer-led strategies and the development of our omnichannel value proposition."
The brand portfolio Lomow will be overseeing has gotten bigger in recent months as Foot Locker searches for new growth opportunities. In August last year, the athletics retailer spent $1.1 billion on two separate acquisitions, bringing West Coast-based WSS and Japanese retailer Atmos into the fold. Two of the company's existing brands, Champs Sports and Eastbay, also recently merged to become one joint brand, Champs Sports x Eastbay.
Outside of organizational changes, Foot Locker is also working to upgrade its assortment. The company launched a number of private labels in the past year or so, including lifestyle apparel line Lckr in October and women's brand Cozi in December. Foot Locker's third-party brand partners are also shifting as the retailer looks to be less reliant on Nike in the future. Nike made up 75% of the company's purchases in 2020 and 70% in 2021. Due to Nike's DTC strategy and Foot Locker's desire to diversify its offerings, that number will fall to 60% in 2022 and 55% thereafter.
In place of Nike, Foot Locker is planning to ramp up the amount of product it gets from other partners, including a recent expansion of its relationship with Reebok.
