How CareerMaker Found a Superstar Who Turned a New Division of a Major Fashion Apparel Profitable
Understanding what makes a division successful is key to hiring the right people to accelerate growth. CareerMaker identified the company culture disconnect and helped them find executives who would merge the divisions to work cohesively with each other.
Challenge:
A major fashion apparel company needed to hire someone to “fix” a division in trouble. After stunning success in footwear, they had launched an apparel division – but sales were very disappointing. Sales, and this new division, needed to be turned around. And a superstar was needed to make it happen.
Solution:
CareerMaker first immersed themselves in the company and the division. They realized that without understanding what went wrong, they wouldn’t be able to be part of the solution. The spent time with management and employees to understand how the division was launched and why it had thus far failed. Ultimately, they identified a key issue: the footwear division was being managed entirely independently from apparel, resulting in a major disconnect in branding, design, and even corporate culture. Someone was needed to bring these two divisions together, and transfer the footwear magic to apparel.
Result:
The position was rescoped, from a VP of Footwear to a VP of Merchandising, covering design and product development for both footwear and apparel. This facilitated several advantages: the two divisions could be integrated, presenting a unified “collection” each season to both retailers and consumers. And, the more senior level role could (and did) attract the kind of high powered talent needed for success. There is now one brand, one collection, and one indispensable manager that brought it all together.
