Ex-Victoria’s Secret executive takes reins of Russia’s Gloria Jeans

New York – Sharen Jester Turney, former general director of Victoria’s Secret, has taken the reins of one of Rusia’s leading clothing chains, Gloria Jeans. Amongst other plans to revitalise the fashion brand, Turney is said to be preparing for an initial public offering of shares (IPO.)

As reported by local newspaper ‘City N’, both the founder of Gloria Jeans, Vladimir Melnikov, and Turney have confirmed the latter’s appointment.

Gloria Jeans owns and runs some 600 stores in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus. ‘Forbes’ estimates Melnikov’s fortune at 700 million dollars, reports Russian ‘SPARK-Interfax’. It’s worth recalling that the fashion company’s founder has also headed the operations until now.

As explained by Melnikov in an interview with ‘Vedomosti’, Terni first joined the board of directors of Gloria Jeans, convincing the company’s leadership the veteran fashion executive “would come to us. We hope for her help and vision.”

Gloria Jeans’ new boss sets to double revenue over the next five years and take the firm public

“The goal is to double the Gloria Jeans revenue over the next five years. At the same time, it must be kept in mind that we must develop not only in Russia, but also abroad. Gloria Jeans had a successful experience in the transition from the wholesale business to the retail business and from a regional company to a national one with a head office in Moscow. We have to move to another structure of the organisation, which will allow us to achieve ambitious plans. In addition, we must prepare the company for an IPO,” said Turney about her plans for a new position, as reports ‘Sostav’.

Turney worked at Victoria's Secret for almost 16 years, being their CEO for nine years. During her tenure, the intimates brand significantly increased sales and profits. Afterwards, Turney decided to focus on her family and life outside work, wrote ‘Business Insider’. Her departure sent Victoria’s secret’s parent company L Brands’ shares into a trading rollercoaster.

As reported by the company in January this year, its sales grew 20.1 percent totaling 40.8 billion rubles in 2018. The sales growth was driven by higher comp store sales by 10.5 percent as well as higher selling space by 18 percent.

“Gloria Jeans continues its stable development. Operating results in 2017 prove correctness of the business model being implemented and power of Gloria Jeans team, and reflects fundamental competitive advantages of our Company in d esigning top-quality garments highly demanded by our customers, efficiently managing our supply chain and store operations. It was a tough year – cold summer and more aggressive competition in the midst of shrinking household incomes but we demonstrated good growth rates. Gloria Jeans again proved its ability to successfully develop its business, given difficult macroeconomic conditions and intense competition,” General Director Vladimir Melnikov noted back then.

Further sales growth and international expansion, short-term objective for Gloria Jeans

Over the last twelve months Gloria Jeans has focused on further sales growth and improve operational efficiencies. In the near term, the company expected to strengthen its positions in the online channel making shopping at Gloria Jeans more convenient. Besides, the fashion brand has been working towards expanding its presence in Russia and Belarus and enter the new markets such as Kazakhstan and Eastern Europe.

Infoline Analytics’ Mikhail Burmistrov notes points out that Gloria Jeans has long been preparing for a serious international expansion, and the emergence of a new CEO is one of the steps to this. “The company expected to attract strong, international top managers. Given that Gloria Jeans is able to compete with Chinese companies on the cost of production, there should be no serious difficulties in entering new markets” says Burmistrov.

Earlier this year the Russian retailer announced plans to launch a chain of stores selling goods for the home, following the example of industry behemoths like Zara and H&M. In addition, Gloria Jeans became the first partner of the Tmall platform, created for clothing brands that do not have their own online store in Russia.

Image credits:Gloria Jeans, Russian website