Failure To Take The Zara Route Guess CEO Will Step Down In Advance

Guess, an American clothing brand that has recovered easily, is likely to face new challenges.

According to a statement released on Monday by Guess, chief executive VictorHerrero will leave in February 2nd, 6 months ahead of the previous contract, and the specific reason is not disclosed. Her position will be replaced by former chief operating officer CarlosAlberini. Last year, Paul Marciano, who had been exposed to sexual scandals, continued to be the chief creative officer.

Maurice Marciano, group chairman, said CarlosAlberini has served as the chief operating officer of the group for 10 years, playing an important role in the international business of brands in Europe and Asia, and is the best successor to VictorHerrero.

As compensation, Guess will pay a total of $2 million 400 thousand in VictorHerrero for two years, as well as bonuses, life insurance and health insurance benefits in the 2019 fiscal year.

It is noteworthy that VictorHerrero, who became chief executive of Guess in 2015, was the chief executive of the Spanish fast fashion giant Inditex group, Asia Pacific region and Zara brand Greater China, and the first foreign executive in the history of Guess.

At that time, Guess was at its lowest level since its inception, and its sluggish performance and wide range of stores led to a sharp decline in the share price of the brand, which has plummeted 65% compared with its peak in 2007. PaulMarciano also admitted that the business of the brand had changed dramatically at that time.

Guess was founded in 1981 by the four brothers of Georges, Armand, Paul and MauriceMarciano. It was founded on tight Monroe jeans. It was regarded as the pronoun of sexy, enthusiastic and free. Then it continued to develop into many brands including fashion for men and women, swimsuits, swimsuits, shoes, watches and clocks, fine accessories, handbags, glasses and so on.

Although the company went public in 1996, it still maintained the family led operation mode, so that Guess could not respond to the market and consumers' preferences.

Some analysts pointed out that the self righteous, capricious, compulsive and domination power of the Marciano family imposed all their efforts and willpower on the cowboy empire. The failure of the Guess seemed to originate from their domineering and self willed.

Victor Herrero's accession to Guess is not an easy decision for Marciano family. It has milestone significance.

After taking office, VictorHerrero dug his left hand in the Inditex group to his team and appointed the former managing director of Inditex group, China Jose Blanco as president of Guess China.

This path is very similar to the original CEO Jose Manuel Mart Nez Guti e rrez, which was dug up by Esprit at a premium from Zara. When she first accepted the exclusive interview with fashion headlines, she stressed that in this fast-paced society, the speed is really heavy.

Whether he proposed the supply chain optimization program or upgrading the frequency of product updates, are trying to make Guess's business model closer to fast fashion.

Under the leadership of VictorHerrero, sales of Guess began to grow slowly, but by closing down extra stores and reducing sales promotions, the brand failed to return to profitability and is still in a state of continuous loss.

In the third quarter ended November 3rd, Guess sales rose 10.3% to $605 million, while losses widened to $13 million 400 thousand.

Some analysts believe that this may be related to Guess's "changing the soup and dressing up" approach, because the creative power is still held in the hands of PaulMarciano, 66 years old, Guess products have not been able to bring too much surprise to consumers, and Paul Marciano last year was exposed to sexual harassment supermodel KateUpton thing more brand image again damaged.

Although Paul Marciano responded to an interview with the US media TMZ, he said he had done nothing wrong, but the industry did not believe him. The producer of Sade Sellers wrote on Twitter that she had worked with the Marciano brothers for several years. Not only did Paul Marciano have problems, but her brother also treated women very badly.

Affected by this, PaulMarciano resigned as chairman of the board last year.

Therefore, the Paul Marciano, which originally said it would give creative responsibilities to Victor Herrero, has also attracted the attention of the industry. Susan Anderson, senior research analyst at B.Riley, thinks that this may be the choice of the board of directors, because it hopes that the control of Guess will remain in the hands of the Marciano family.

After last year's sex scandal, Guess invited Spanx's original CEO Laurie Ann Goldman and CoresightResearch founder Deborah Weinswig as an independent director to join its board of directors, bringing the total number of independent directors to six, and the control of the Marciano family was further diluted.

Another industry has said that the VictorHerrero industry is obvious to all in Guess's performance. This time, personnel changes or even more uncertainty for the future development of Guess, including the control of operating expenses, negotiations with suppliers and landlords, and the pformation strategy will change.

The dissatisfaction of the capital market on this decision also quickly reflected on the stock price. After the news was released, Guess shares fell nearly 15% to 19.17 dollars, and the market value is about 1 billion 500 million dollars at present.