With Cristina Stenbeck, the last connection to the former largest financier Kinnevik leaves the company.
(Photo: Reuters)
Berlin Kelly Bennett brings international flair to the supervisory board of the fashion portal Zalando, which the Dax group can use well. Bennett was Marketing Director at Netflix from 2012 to 2019 and built the US group with founder Reed Hastings into the world’s largest streaming provider. Since 2019, Bennett has worked as a consultant for companies including Microsoft and Spotify, and sits on the Zalando Supervisory Board. At the virtual general meeting next Wednesday, the 51-year-old is now to take over the chairmanship of the control body of Europe’s largest fashion retailer.
The Canadian Bennett takes over the top post in a difficult phase in which Zalando has to find an answer to the low growth in the post-Corona period. Because the 51 million customers are now shopping in retail again and are buying less online.
“We want our customers to come back to us more often and generally spend more time on our site,” says Bennett, describing his goal for Zalando. It is therefore an important part of the strategy to “react more closely to customer needs in the individual markets” so that customers build a “very strong emotional and loyal bond” with Zalando, “as is already the case in some countries”. He wants to leave the concrete implementation to the company founders and bosses Robert Gentz and David Schneider.
Bennett: Zalando should be the first port of call for fashion
However, the economic environment is difficult: In view of high inflation and ongoing economic weakness, customers are spending less money on fashion. Among others, the fashion retailers Peek & Cloppenburg, Gerry Weber, the shoe retailer Reno and the department store group Galeria recently filed for bankruptcy. In order to be attractive to customers, the overall product has to fit. Among the “many options” that customers have when shopping, Zalando has to be the most consistent, says Bennett: “We want to be the first point of contact when it comes to fashion.”
In order to achieve this goal, however, there would have to be internal calm at Zalando. But the first major job cuts in the company’s history are currently underway, which is causing a great deal of excitement among the approximately 17,000 employees. Driven by the success in the corona pandemic, the Berliners created many jobs that they no longer need after all. The company founders, Gentz and Schneider, took the job cuts on themselves and explained that they had grown too much and had become inflexible as a result. Bennett now wants to restructure Zalando together with the founders so that the company is no longer dependent on high growth rates.
All ties to Kinnevik severed
With the change at the top of the supervisory board, Zalando’s connection with the long-standing largest single shareholder, the Swedish investment company Kinnevik, also ends. About two years ago, Kinnevik passed on its own stake of 21 percent to its own shareholders and thus to the free float. However, Kinnevik main owner Cristina Stenbeck continued to chair the board. With her says goodbye one of the best-known investors in Europe, who was largely responsible for Zalando’s rise – and that of the start-up company Rocket Internet, which has since become very quiet.
>> Read also: Dispute over fee schedule: Zalando defends itself in a letter to retailers
Stenbeck’s successor Bennett has known the two company bosses since “well before the IPO” in 2014, as he says. At that time he worked for Netflix, which was opening offices in Europe at the time and wanted to meet local founders. “We then kept in touch over the years,” says Bennett. Gentz and Schneider founded Zalando in 2008 as an online shoe store.
Due to the new task, Amsterdam-by-choice Bennett will soon be spending more time in the German capital. So far he has explored most corners while jogging, he reports. The Zalando headquarters are appropriately located right next to the Mercedes-Benz Arena, where the Eisbären Berlin play their home ice hockey games.
>> Read also: Zalando share collapses after weak outlook
Bennett says he will definitely watch one or the other polar bear game. After all, ice hockey is the most popular sport in his native Canada.
Maybe the Canadian will revitalize Zalando’s product range in addition to the business. Sportswear for football, basketball and other sports is already available from the online retailer – but no ice hockey clothing yet.
More: How companies with billions are fighting our impatience