Burberry poaches CMO from Gucci and names new President, Americas

Burberry has appointed Jonathan Kiman as its new Chief Marketing Officer – a role he recently held at Gucci – and Laura Dubin-Wander, formerly North America CEO of Diesel and Margiela owner OTB, as President, Americas.

They are the first major appointments at the luxury British brand under new CEO, Jonathan Schulman, who joined in July following the departure of Jonathan Akeroyd.

Commenting on the new appointments on LinkedIn, Schulman said: "I am very pleased to welcome Jonathan and Laura to Burberry. Jonathan has a wealth of experience in rejuvenating brands and building digital-savvy marketing organisations.

"I look forward to working closely with him to enhance our marketing capabilities and strengthen the Burberry brand. Laura is a results-driven and dynamic leader with demonstrated success in building and developing winning teams. I am delighted to be working with her to grow our business in the Americas."

Jonathan Kiman was at Gucci for 12 years and he succeeds Rod Manley at Burberry as its new Chief Marketing Officer. It’s full circle for Kiman who served a Strategic Planning MBA Internship at Burberry from May to August in 2011.

Prior to spending almost four years as CEO of North America at OTB, Dubin-Wander spent two years at Tapestry as President of Coach for North America, and before that was at LVMH as President of Givenchy.

In August, it was reported by TheIndustry.fashion that Burberry’s 15-year stint in the FTSE 100 is set to come to an end following a slump in its share price.

The brand has experienced trading challenges in recent times - connected to the global luxury slowdown and a drop in sales in the key Chinese market.

In July, Burberry warned it will record a first-half operating loss if retail sales continue to fall at the current pace, having plunged by 21% on a same-store basis in its first quarter to 29 June.