The department store group Galeria is planning a large-scale hiring process for its existing branches. But there should not only be a breath of fresh air in the area, some changes are also planned in top management.
Among other things, Galeria has appointed the IT expert Sven Lipowski to the newly created position of Chief Technology Officer, the Essen department store group announced on Thursday. In this role, Lipowski will be responsible for IT, e-commerce and digitization. Lipowski was previously active at the wholesale group Metro, where he most recently drove digital transformation at the subsidiary Metro Digital. He reports directly to CEO Olivier Van den Bossche
“In Sven Lipowski we have gained a very experienced CTO who has many years of experience in the areas of IT solutions, e-commerce and business processes,” says Van den Bossche.
Lipowski will be supported by Bert Middendorp, who will assume the role of Director E-Commerce for Michael Drexler from September. Middendorp was previously head of e-commerce at Dutch lingerie specialist Hunkemöller. Drexler, who has held his previous position since May 2020, will be responsible for digitization in the future and will drive this forward in the service center and in the branches. Both report to Lipowski.
Chief Supply Chain Officer Moritz Winter is also to be given a new area of responsibility, as reported by the specialist magazine Textilwirtschaft. In addition to his current role, he will also take on the logistics department. In addition to the newcomers, some top managers also went their separate ways. Among them Nicolay Merkt, who has only been active as Chief Customer Officer since March. Galeria has not confirmed this change at FashionUnited’s request.
3,500 new jobs
In addition to the newcomers at the top, there should also be reinforcements in the branches. The Essen-based company wants to hire around 3,500 new employees across Germany, write CEO Olivier Van den Bossche and CFO Guido Mager on Wednesday in an internal letter to employees that FashionUnited has received. Management intends to achieve this goal by December.
Galeria is currently preparing with “high pressure” for the new financial year, which begins in October, with the Christmas business being of particular importance, according to the letter to the employees. In addition, work is being done to ensure that the shops are more local, which, in addition to a locally-oriented range, also requires the “right number” of employees. That is why the management of the department store group analyzed and planned what support Galeria needs on the site. It is also part of this plan to advertise the current vacancies – in addition to sales supporters and Christmas helpers – as permanent positions.
“So that we can use the full effect of this reinforcement during the most important time of the year, we have already started recruiting and planned the induction phase,” say Van den Bossche and Mager.