(Bloomberg)—Lands’ End Inc. CEO Federica Marchionni has stepped down less than two years into the job, leaving the apparel retailer without a permanent leader as it struggles to revive sales growth.
Co-interim CEO duties immediately fall to chief merchandising and design officer Joseph Boitano and chief operating and financial officer James Gooch have been named co-interim CEOs, the Dodgeville, Wis.-based company said Monday in a statement. The board has engaged executive-search firm Heidrick & Struggles International Inc. to help with finding a permanent CEO.
Boitano became chief merchandising and design officer in June 2015. Prior to Lands’ End, he worked with Saks Inc. from 1999 until February 2014 becoming Saks Fifth Avenue’s general merchandise manager. He previously worked at Bergdorf Goodman and I. Magnin, according to Lands’ End.
Gooch joined Lands’ End in January. He had most recently been o-CEO at Demoulas Supermarkets until December 2014. Prior to that, he was an independent consultant to apparel and retail companies on operational and financial management. He had been president and CEO and chief financial officer of RadioShack Corp. from 2006-12.
In June, Lands’ End named Becky Gebhardt, a longtime employee, as chief marketing officer and Mike Zhang as vice president for e-commerce, digital marketing and innovation.
Lands’ End, spun off from Sears Holdings Corp. in 2014, hired Marchionni in February 2015 from Dolce & Gabbana’s U.S. unit to help transform the maker of upscale, outdoorsy casualwear into a global lifestyle brand. Marchionni worked to expand distribution while upgrading the company’s product design and development, but results still faltered as consumers pulled back on apparel purchases and retail traffic waned. Sales have continued to slide, and Lands’ End, No. 44 in the Internet Retailer 2016 Top 500 Guide, has posted three straight quarterly losses.
“Apparel in general has struggled; Lands’ End is definitely not unique to that situation,” said Poonam Goyal, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “Maybe the leadership change happened simply because the brand wasn’t able to gain traction.”
Lands’ End is grappling with issues that are vexing many apparel retailers in the current environment, Goyal said. In a world where clothing has become a commodity, brands need to keep their merchandise precisely in tune with the desires of their core customers and speed up their supply chains to meet shoppers’ ever-changing desires, she said. Even companies that execute well are struggling as consumers skip visits to the mall in favor of other pursuits.
“Apparel retailers are still trying to figure things out,” she said. “Traffic is the biggest problem.”