Browns appoints former YNAP director as COO

Farfetch has appointed yet another senior executive from the Yoox Net-A-Porter Group (YNAP); Paul Brennan has joined as COO of its London boutique Browns, which is the test bed for the luxury platform's Store of the Future.

Brennan was formerly deputy post-merger integration and operational excellence director at YNAP and prior to that group merchandising director. In his new role will report to Browns CEO Holli Rogers, who joined the business in 2015 from Net-A-Porter where she was fashion director.

"Paul’s combination of strong strategic thinking, experience in driving performance and extensive luxury knowledge makes him the ideal person to help us achieve even greater success as a business," Rogers told WWD.

The COO position replaces that of managing director, which was previously held by Christophe Baldy-Moulinier, who has moved into the role as director of Farfetch’s supply chain and retail operation director.

A raft of senior YNAP figures have migrated to Farfetch since the merger of Yoox and Net-A-Porter was announced in 2015. Stephanie Phair, who formerly headed up YNAP's off-price business The Outnet.com, is now chief strategy officer at Farfetch and most significantly Net-A-Porter founder Dame Natalie Massenet, who stood down in September 2015, was named as non-executive co-chairman earlier this year.

Last week Farfetch unveiled its Store of the Future platform to hundreds of international luxury brands and to press at its inaugural FarfetchOS summit in London. The iconic Browns boutique, which Farfetch acquired in 2015, will be used to test the technology this autumn along with the Thom Browne flagship store in New York.