Dive Brief:
- The North Face has filled two key positions with Nike executives: Both its new chief marketing officer and chief product and merchandising officer have extensive experience at the athletics giant, according to details emailed to Retail Dive.
- Sophie Bambuck, who was named The North Face’s chief marketer, spent more than a decade at Nike and its sister brand Converse, as well as serving a stint as Everlane’s first chief marketer — a role she took on just last year.
- Jennifer Ingraffea, who was named chief of product and merchandising, spent almost 20 years at Nike, according to her LinkedIn, and before that spent time at Gap and Williams-Sonoma.
Dive Insight:
The North Face is turning to Nike veterans to fill its C-suite as it pursues a strategy focused on digital improvement and retail expansion. Bambuck and Ingraffea both join the brand’s leadership team, where 16-year Nike veteran Nicole Otto serves as The North Face’s global brand president.
“Sophie and Jennifer are the perfect consumer-centric leaders with deep experience driving both marketing innovation and product growth to help lead The North Face through its next phase of growth,” Otto said in a statement. “As we continue to focus on consumer connections through innovative product, I know Sophie and Jennifer’s expansive industry expertise will help accelerate our own business and elevate our world-class global marketing and product development efforts to strengthen The North Face.”
The North Face reported sales growth of 31% in its most recent quarter, and the company emphasized digital capabilities and store expansion as top priorities. DTC is one of parent company VF Corp’s “key strategic pillars,” CEO Steve Rendle said on the company’s Q1 earnings call in July, and The North Face is one of the company’s largest DTC businesses. Rendle mentioned Otto by name on the call, adding that the company has “the right leaders in the right place” to pursue the strategy and share learnings across its brands.
Nike and its executives certainly know a lot about direct to consumer. The athletics giant has pursued a strategy that emphasizes exiting undifferentiated wholesale partnerships and bolstering its own channels. That has included building out its own store fleet with a series of store concepts that often rely on data for localized assortments and usually feature a number of tech elements as well.
“At my core I am consumer-obsessed, and believe our work starts and ends with our audience,” Bambuck said in a statement on her appointment, praising The North Face’s “legitimate presence both in performance and within broader culture.”
Ingraffea emphasized The North Face’s history of “launching first-of-its-kind, innovative performance products” and promised to build on that momentum.
