New Co-President at Juicy. We’ll reserve final judgment until we look him in the eye, but initially, the overlap in respective backgrounds seems like it’s just what the Dr ordered.

So…LIZ FINALLY announced a new Co-President of Juicy Coture, something we’ve been waiting for about 2 months to see.  LIZ hired David Bassuk. To be clear, I have never met the guy, and as of now, know little about him. That will change shortly. But in looking at his background, there’s much to like.

  1. The ‘go to’ MD on softlines retail at AlixPartners, a global brand consulting group with presence in virtually every sector.
  2. Unless his profile was embellished on the website (we’ll front him the benefit of the doubt on that one), he seems to have very good experience across multiple disciplines within retail – such as supply chain, enterprise planning, and turnarounds.
  3. He ‘gets’ the fashion biz, having been on the Board at Kurt Salmon – a well known retail consulting firm – a frequent lecturer at FIT.

Slap all this into a package of incentives to fix and globalize a brand like Juicy, and I can see why a) he’d want the job and b) why they’d want him to do it.

Clearly, we have to look him in the eye before making any real judgment, but initially it smells right.

A quick point on Co-Presidents. Our rather strong view in that Co-C-suite jobs rarely work. There are a few exceptions. One of which is in the fashion business, where there is a fashion leader, and a business leader. Rarely can one person do both jobs. Mickey Drexler is one of the few, and to a point he ultimately failed.

Take a look at Roger Farah and Ralph Lauren.  I’ve never heard Ralph Utter the words Return on Capital. But I don’t care. Roger knows the numbers in his sleep. We saw similar dynamics at GES. Let’s also not forget Kate Spade, where a similar structure is in place.

The point here is that when the product people can simply be left alone to drive that part of the model, it usually works – so long as there is an exceptional operational team to offset any and all holes in execution, brand management, sales, marketing, and strategic planning.

This is a positive development from where we sit.

LIZ: FINALLY - liz bassuk