Zalando reshuffles management board with David Schröder appointed COO

Zalando has announced that its current chief financial officer (CFO), David Schröder will assume the newly created role of chief operating officer (COO), with Dr Sandra Dembeck stepping into his position.

The German online fashion giant said the management restructuring, which will come into effect from 1 March, 2022, is part of efforts to reach its growth goals for 2025.

As the new COO, Schröder will be responsible for scaling the company’s European logistics network, driving innovation of Zalando’s proprietary Buy Now Pay Later solution and exploring new growth opportunities for the company by empowering the direct-to-consumer business of partners across a variety of channels.

Since joining the company in 2010, Schröder has been credited for his successful track record in building and scaling Zalando’s operations. He has served on the management board since 2019.

Dembeck joins Zalando from Compass Group, where she served as the corporate finance director from 2020. During her tenure, she was responsible for all aspects of financial performance management and reporting for private and listed companies and has taken an active role in driving commercial and operational business performance. She has extensive experience from various leadership roles in the international services, retail and fashion industries, having served as chief financial officer at retail company Kingfisher, Dutch fashion brand Mexx and major online retailer C&A.

Zalando added that these changes aligned the setup to the future needs of the company in further advancing its strategic agenda of being "the starting point for fashion" and to grow the business to more than €30 billion in gross merchandise volume by 2025, as laid out at its Capital Market Days in 2019 and 2021.

Cristina Stenbeck, Chairperson of the Zalando supervisory board, said in a statement: "The announced setup will give Zalando additional leverage to drive the business towards its vision of being the starting point for fashion. The supervisory board is very much looking forward to continuing to work with David Schröder in his new role as COO, after his tremendous contribution as CFO. We are also proud to welcome Dr Sandra Dembeck as CFO."