Kohl’s has named Nick Jones as its new Chief Marketing and Digital Officer, effective next month. Reporting directly to CEO Tom Kingsbury, Jones will be responsible for merchandising functions including buying, digital and omnichannel merchandising, product design and development and product portfolio strategy.
“We are very excited to have Nick join our team and lead our merchandising organization as we continue our focus on the active and casual lifestyle while also accelerating our focus on product newness and innovation,” said Kingsbury in a statement. “During his career, Nick’s been the Chief Merchant for one of the UK’s biggest retailers, led multiple categories for department store Marks & Spencer, and was a key leader in the category and international expansion of the multi-billion-dollar George brand.”
Jones was most recently CEO of the UK-based lifestyle retailer Joules Group and worked for Asda/Walmart UK for nearly 10 years. Earlier in his career Jones spent nearly 15 years at Marks & Spencer, where he held business and merchandise leadership positions in the home, beauty and women’s categories.
Kohl’s has been working to solidify its executive team since the departure of CEO Michelle Gass to lead Levi’s in November 2022 — a move that Levi Strauss & Co. CEO Chip Bergh attributed to activist pressure. At that time Kingsbury stepped into the CEO role on an interim basis, an appointment that was made permanent earlier in February.
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The retailer has been trying to engineer a turnaround while spurning multiple acquisition bids, including those from Franchise Group, Sycamore Partners and Acacia Research. One of Kohl’s bright spots has been its Sephora at Kohl’s partnership; the retailer announced in August 2022 that it planned to expand the store-in-store initiative chainwide.
