Dive Brief:
- Qurate Retail Group on Wednesday announced that CFO Jeffrey Davis resigned from his position. He is expected to remain with the company for a transition period, according to a press release. In a separate announcement, Dollar Tree stated that Davis was joining its organization as CFO.
- The company has named James Hathaway as interim CFO. He has been with Qurate since May of last year and has served as CFO for QVC U.S. and HSN.
- Qurate Retail also created the position of chief transformation officer and named William Hunter to the role. Hunter was previously the senior vice president of business transformation and shared services.
Dive Insight:
Leadership is changing at Qurate Retail following a hard quarter.
The company, which owns a number of brands including QVC, HSN, Zulily and Garnet Hill, reported in early August that revenue decreased 16% year over year to $3 billion during the second quarter.
Its Zulily brand was particularly hard hit, with revenue down 45% compared to a year ago, and an operating loss of $51 million, compared to a loss of $15 million last year. In May, the brand reduced its corporate headcount by 15%, which is expected to generate an annual savings of around $18 million.
The company is in the middle of a three-year turnaround strategy, dubbed Project Athens, in order to “correct executional weaknesses throughout the organization,” according to CEO David Rawlinson. The plan has a number of objectives including improving customer experience, examine pricing and assortment, improving liquidity, and optimizing its brand portfolio, among other goals.
The focus of the company’s new chief transformation officer is to execute on Project Athens.
"We are accelerating the pace of change at Qurate Retail and Bill [Hunter] has consistently demonstrated his ability to lead initiatives that are important to our near- and long-term success," Rawlinson said in a statement. "Project Athens is the combination of five key pillars that span nearly every facet of our business. Bill's deep institutional knowledge of our core processes and his experience in global business transformation will be instrumental to the successful execution of this strategy."
Qurate was among those companies that grew during the first part of the pandemic as brands turned to its television outlets to reach customers when stores were temporarily closed.
