Ralph Lauren bulks up leadership in 'Way Forward' plan

Dive Brief:

Ralph Lauren has poached Coach CFO Jane Hamilton Nielsen to take the CFO position at the company effective Sept. 6. Once Nielsen arrives the CFO role will expand to include store operations, procurement, IT, and investor relations, according to a press release.
Robert Madore, who has been CFO at Ralph Lauren since April last year, will remain at the company until Sept. 30.
The company also said it has named Bill Campbell, who most recently worked with Amazon in distribution, inventory and logistics roles for the past 11 years, as corporate senior vice president of global supply chain and inventory management.

Dive Insight:

These appointments come days after Ralph Lauren presented its "Way Forward" turnaround plan, which Larsson says will do away with three levels of management to create a more nimble organization that might help it compete in an always-shifting retail market.

That plan includes ambitious moves to speed up the retailer’s supply chain and drastically change its dependence on faltering department store sales. The retailer will close 50 company-owned stores and eliminate 1,000 jobs and consolidate its sprawling dozen or so labels to focus on its essential Ralph Lauren, Polo, and Lauren efforts. Its plan to reduce the supply chain process from its current snail’s pace of 15 months to nine has been characterized by experts speaking to Retail Dive as a “no brainer.”

The addition of Nielsen, seen as playing an important role in Coach’s recent turnaround, may help the struggling retailer with these plans. After nearly three years of negative results, Coach fashioned a reversal of fortunes recently by emphasizing trendier styles, closing stores and reducing discounting.

Ralph Lauren's similar turnaround plan is fraught with risk, according to Howard Davidowitz, chairman of New York City-based retail consulting and investment banking firm Davidowitz & Associates Inc., who called Ralph Lauren “the most powerful apparel brand in history, end of sentence.”

“This is not going to be a straight forward thing to do because the department stores are going to have things to say about this, and they’re not easy to deal with, and this guy Larsson has no experience in wholesale,” Davidowitz told Retail Dive. “He put together all these numbers and it sounds okay, but what if sales start to drop much faster than he projects because the department stores stop cooperating with him?"

It these problems do arise, Neilsen's experience dealing with department stores (Coach also has a large wholesale wing) may help smooth out some wrinkles.