Saks Off 5th Triggers Senior-level Reorg
The management shakeup continues at Saks Off 5th.
Mara Sirhal is joining Saks Off 5th in the newly created role of chief merchant and brand officer in which she will oversee buying, planning and creative functions. She was executive vice president, brand president for the Bed Bath & Beyond and Harmon Beauty businesses.
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Sara Griffin has been appointed chief marketing and analytics officer. In this new role, Griffin will oversee customer analytics, insights and engagement, personalization and loyalty, growth marketing, corporate strategy and business development. She previously served as Off 5th’s senior vice president of marketing and has been working at the company for more than 10 years.
Additionally, Julie Mares, who joined SaksOff5th.com in February as senior vice president of e-commerce, is expanding her responsibilities to have full oversight of the end-to-end e-commerce customer journey. This includes the entire digital life cycle — digital operations, site monetization and drop shipping.
With this reorganization, Molly Taylor, chief merchant, and Shivi Shankaran, chief operating officer, are leaving Off 5th.
The executive changes revealed Wednesday follow the appointment last March of Rob Brooks as president and chief executive officer of SaksOff5th.com. He succeeded Paige Thomas.
SaksOff5th.com and the Saks Off 5th stores are separate companies but there is one buying and merchandising organization and one marketing organization that work for both companies.
“In my first 90 days as CEO, I’ve prioritized gaining a deeper understanding of our customer, identifying opportunities to simplify our structure and driving exponential growth on SaksOff5th.com,” Brooks said in a statement. “These leadership changes reflect a deep commitment to our customer and prioritizing their wants and needs while furthering our investments in personalization, loyalty and analytics.”
Brooks added that he believes Sirhal’s background will enable the team “to directly connect with our customers and further our mission of making modern luxury accessible to everyone.” He also said that with the creation of a new leadership position centered around marketing and analytics, he’s confident that Griffin “will support us in driving data-driven decisions in a digital-first retail environment.”
Executives said the management changes will further the brand’s growth, simplifies processes and clarifies the structure, and heightens the focus on data and analytics.
The Toronto-based HBC is the majority owner of the Saks Off 5th businesses. Two years ago, HBC split Saks Off 5th into two separate companies, for brick-and-mortar stores and e-commerce. HBC had previously reengineered its Saks Fifth Avenue brand into separate companies for brick-and-mortar stores and e-commerce, and HBC’s Hudson’s Bay division in Canada also operates as separate dot-com and retail stores companies. The splits led to Insight Partners investing $200 million in the Off 5th dot-com operation, and $500 million in the Saks dot-com business.
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