(Bloomberg)—GameStop Corp. ousted its chief operating officer, Jenna Owens, seven months after recruiting her from Amazon.com Inc.
The company declined to comment on the reason for her departure, and Owens didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Her severance will include six months of base pay and health-care premiums, as well as the remainder of her signing bonus, GameStop said in a statement Friday. GameStop is No. 53 in the 2021 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000.
Owens was part of a new executive team under the direction of chairman Ryan Cohen, who’s seeking to turn around a flagging business that has attracted significant interest from retail investors. The video-game seller replaced its entire executive team this year as part of a company-wide revamp.
Before GameStop, Owens held various senior-level roles at Amazon (No. 1). Many members of Cohen’s new team, including the CEO, have experience at Amazon. Cohen is aiming for GameStop to compete more directly with the world’s most valuable online retailer with a broader array of digital products and services.
Other members of the company’s management team will absorb Owens’s responsibilities, GameStop said.
In other personnel news:
- A key vice president at Amazon.com Inc. who worked on the Echo and Alexa devices is leaving the company, according to people with knowledge of the situation. Miriam Daniel served in her role since 2018, and her last day at the Seattle-based retail and technology giant is Friday, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter isn’t public. An Amazon spokesman confirmed her departure but declined to elaborate. Daniel is stepping down as one of the top executives in Amazon’s device and voice-control engineering group. She is also one of the most senior female managers within the division. Daniel has taken on a higher profile in recent years, representing Amazon in media interviews and product announcements.
- Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey will step down in 2022, marking a changing of the guard at the grocery chain Amazon acquired four years ago. Jason Buechel, who joined the company in 2013 and has been serving for the last two years as chief operating officer, will succeed Mackey in September 2022, Mackey said in a note to employees, posted on the company’s website. Before joining Whole Foods, Buechel was managing director with consultant Accenture’s retail operations practice. Earlier this month, Whole Foods said it would start charging a $9.95 delivery fee across the U.S., ending a perk the chain had offered Prime subscribers. The charge is a sign that even Amazon continues to struggle with the economics of food delivery.
- Lululemon Athletica Inc. is looking for a new CEO for its Mirror unit as its leader steps down just over a year after the at-home fitness company was acquired. Brynn Putnam is leaving her role as Mirror CEO but will continue to work as an adviser to the company through July 2022 helping to find a replacement, according to an internal memo Tuesday obtained by Bloomberg News. Putnam founded Mirror, an workout device that displays workout routines users can take at home, in 2016 and stayed on as CEO after the Vancouver-based company acquired it last year. Lululemon named three internal executives to lead Mirror on an interim basis while it seeks a permanent successor: chief technology officer Kristie D’Ambrosio-Correll, operations chief Olivia Lange and Tess Hales, the head of customer.
- Fashion brand Burberry Ltd. chose Jonathan Akeroyd from Italian fashion house Gianni Versace SpA as its new CEO, tapping a proven turnaround expert to continue the trench coat maker’s push to become a top-tier luxury label. Akeroyd will take over in the midst of a turnaround at Burberry, with outgoing CEO Marco Gobbetti’s plan to elevate the label’s image showing progress but still incomplete.Burberry is No. 94 in the Digital Commerce 360 Europe 500.