Joshua Schulman took a precocious interest in retail as a child, writing to James Nordstrom, a grandson of the eponymous US department store chain’s co-founder, to say he was “ecstatic” that one would be opening in his native Los Angeles. Last week the 52-year-old former Coach and Jimmy Choo boss was named chief executive of Burberry, replacing Jonathan Akeroyd as the British luxury brand issued its latest profit warning and confirmed plans to slash a few hundred jobs. The retail obsessive will need all the skills gleaned from a quarter century in the industry to turn the 168-year-old company around, particularly given chair Gerry Murphy’s insistence this week that he will not be “reversing strategies”.
Akeroyd’s vision, alongside creative director Daniel Lee, of turning a heritage outerwear company famed for its trenchcoats and scarves into a “modern British luxury brand” making expensive leather handbags and accessories backfired after two years in the role. Burberry “perhaps went a bit too far too fast with a creative transition at a time when customers are feeling a bit more challenged . .
. especially at higher price points”, Murphy admitted last week. However, he said the brand, whose men’s polo shirts cost £490 (US$633; S$851) and whose Rocking Horse handbags start at £1,250, would not lower prices en masse but would instead seek to sell more of its traditional staples as well as introduce lower price points.
Schulman, who is relocating to Lon.
