RetailMeNot taps Nordstrom vet as chief product officer

Dive Brief:

RetailMeNot hired former Nordstrom executive and Microsoft veteran Joshua Platt as chief product officer. The company also announced internal promotions of two executives, according to a RetailMeNot press release.
Platt worked for Nordstrom for four years, most recently serving as vice president of product for Nordstrom.com. Prior to that, he worked at Microsoft for 11 years in various product leadership roles, which included director of product for Microsoft.com and director of product for the cloud and server business Azure.
Additional internal promotions include Scott Sundheim, who was promoted to senior vice president of North America marketing, and Seth Randle to chief counsel and compliance officer.

Dive Insight:

These moves come just months after the RetailMeNot named former Amazon executive Vivek Sagi as chief technology officer, and Sharon Brogdon, as director of diversity and inclusion.

Platt comes into a job once held by Mausam Bhatt, a onetime Flipkart executive who joined RetailMeNot in 2017 and was named chief product officer in April 2018. However, he departed the company just two months after being appointed CPO, a RetailMeNot spokesperson confirmed to Retail Dive via email. Bhatt's LinkedIn profile now shows him working as a director of product management at Google.

"Josh brings a wealth of knowledge in the consumer mobile retail space that will help frame his impact areas at RetailMeNot," a RetailMeNot spokesperson said.

While Platt was at Nordstrom the company made significant strides in how it supported mobile shopping and personalization, with some of those efforts assisted by acquisitions of mobile technology startups.

Use of discount and coupon-focused mobile apps of the kind offered by RetailMeNot has surged in recent years, from 10% in 2014 to 38% last year, according to a 2018 Forrester Research study that was commissioned by RetailMeNot. The company also has enabled other capabilities, such as in-store cash-back offers that could supplement retailers' loyalty strategies.