New CEO Named For Naked Brand Group Ltd.

Naked Brand Group Limited has a new CEO, Anna Johnson, while a recent executive shuffle also had executive chairman Carole Hochman resigning and former CEO Justin Davis-Rice replacing her at that position.

Johnson most recently served, according to her Linkedin profile, from October 2018, as group CEO at Naked, and prior to that as executive general manager operations at Noel Leeming and Torpedo7 Group, in New Zealand. Prior to that she had worked as a general manager at Bendon, from 2012 to 2017. Bendon itself merged with Naked last year.

Davis-Rice explained, “Anna, who has been successfully implementing our strategic plan within Bendon for the past five months, has a proven track record of restructuring and transforming established businesses in the consumer sector and we believe her role as CEO of Naked will amplify our new strategic direction. She brings a strong passion and comprehensive knowledge of our operations as well as a wealth of experience in sales, retail, training, property management and strategic business development.” According to Naked she has “25 years’ experience driving growth across a number of industries including consumer electronics, outdoor adventure and intimate apparel.”

In an SEC filing Naked noted that Hochman resigned as executive chairman and “from all other positions she held with the company’s subsidiaries” stating the “resignation was for personal reasons, and was not due to any disagreement with the company or its management on any matter relating to the company’s operations, policies or practices (financial or otherwise).”

Naked summarized the strategic plans Johnson had participated in recently, noting the company is “on track to realize an aggregate of U.S. $6.5 million in cost savings.”

“Naked has exited unprofitable channels in the UK, EU and select Australian and New Zealand independent channels and includes their supporting infrastructure of back end services, offices, systems, distribution centre’s and the front facing team.”

“As brand strength in the UK and EU remains strong, Naked will continue to service key accounts such as Selfridges, as well as the Outnet, stores,” the company continued. “The Naked brand will complete its full integration into the group of brands by May 2019. This integration accounted for U.S. $1.5 million of the annualized cost savings and includes the shut down of the wearnaked.com site in the U.S.”

“The Naked brand will continue to be developed under the house of brands of Bendon with the strategic growth earmarked to be in U.S. mass merchants and New Zealand markets. Finally, Naked has downsized and optimized global offices in Sydney, Hong Kong and the U.S.” — NM