Dive Brief:
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Ian Rogers, chief digital officer at LVMH, is leaving to serve as the chief experience officer at Ledger, a tech company that safeguards digital assets like cryptocurrency. The departure ends a five-year run at LVMH, according to an announcement on Medium.
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Rogers will oversee Ledger's business-to-consumer side, including product, marketing and sales. In the new role, Rogers plans to bring technical expertise and experience transitioning emerging technologies into the mainstream, according to the blog post.
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With Rogers out the door, Reuters reports that LVMH will promote Michael David to serve as its chief omnichannel officer, citing an internal memo the news service obtained.
Dive Insight:
Rogers noted in a blog post that traditional firms, including LVMH, saw the digital side of their operations as separate from the rest of their business. Rogers' time at the luxury fashion company was spent overseeing its implementation of data and artificial intelligence, which will increase customer satisfaction, reduce waste and grow sales in the foreseeable future, Rogers said in a blog post.
"After twenty years building software and never once using the word 'Digital,' I was suddenly 'The Digital Guy' in an industry built on selling physical products in physical stores," Rogers wrote.
As LVMH reshuffles its leadership roles, so have other brands over the past year or so. Multiple retailers, including Under Armour, Bed Bath & Beyond and J.C. Penney, have shaken up their executive ranks recently. Some retailers, such as Levi's, have hired executives specifically to modernize their digital strategies.
Though retailers have changed their leadership before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the crisis has underscored the importance of retailers' omnichannel strategies as in-store shopping remains disrupted. In-store foot traffic dropped by 52.1% on Black Friday, according to research from Sensormatic Solutions, a sign that consumers are wary of brick-and-mortar shopping amid rising coronavirus cases and deaths.
