“When they start designing things I can’t understand, I’ll quit”, Lauren told the New York Times. It said it had begun the search for a permanent replacement for Larsson.
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Lauren, 75, who is the only person to ever hold the CEO position in the company will now hand the baton to the current global president of Old Navy, Stefan Larsson. Lauren said that their similar leadership styles, along with Larsson’s ” sensitivity of design and of building a business and growing a company”, won him over.
Ralph Lauren, which encompasses brands including Club Monaco and Polo Ralph Lauren, achieved $7.5 billion in sales past year, but the strong dollar has hit overseas performance.
With the new post, Larsson is taking on substantial new responsibilities. Larsson will be reporting to Lauren, who is staying on to be the force behind the strategy as well as vision of the company as its chief creative officer and executive chairman.
Murphy said, “We are maintaining our sidelines stance on RL but recognize the near-term direction of the stock will likely be higher following the unexpected announcement that Ralph Lauren himself will relinquish his reins as CEO effective in November”. We have been a leader in our industry for almost 50 years, and this is just the beginning. Before that, he worked at Swedish retailer H&M for 15 years.
Richard Jaffe of Stifel Nicolaus said Larsson was a force of growth at Old Navy, with sales rising more than $1 billion in the past three years. “So my job is to work side by side with Ralph, refine it and grow the company into the future”.
Lauren added that his successor is “exceptionally talented” and will bring “a fresh and exciting global perspective to the company”. At the same time, he ensured designers were consistently creating threads that were true to Old Navy’s whimsical DNA, but also differentiated relative to the many competitors hawking cheap apparel.
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Ralph Lauren recently restructured its global brand management that it says will reap savings. Stanton is now executive vice president of global product at Old Navy.
