Marloes van Kooten will strengthen the management of the Otto subsidiary Witt Group in the future.
The Dutch-born woman will join the management of the Witt Group next March before taking on the role of purchasing managing director in September after a six-month training period, the clothing retailer, which is part of the Hamburg trading and services group Otto Group, announced on Tuesday.
Van Kooten comes from PVH
Van Kooten is moving from the PVH clothing group to the Witt Group. Her career at PVH began in 2014 as Senior Director Sourcing & Production for Tommy Hilfiger before being appointed Vice President Product Development, Sourcing and Production Calvin Klein Europe. Most recently, as Vice President Value Chain Digitization, she was responsible for the digital transformation of the design and product development processes at Tommy Hilfiger Global and Calvin Klein Europe. She started out in 1994 as a buyer for knitwear at the clothing supplier Esprit, before working as co-owner of her parents’ textile import company for several years.
“Marloes van Kooten has many years of experience in the textile industry and is an expert in new developments in the textile market,” says Marcus Ackermann, CEO of the Otto Group Multichannel Distance Selling and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Witt Group. “With her great fashion expertise, she is predestined to take on future responsibility for purchasing for the Witt Group.”
Managing Director Purchasing leaves after 15 years
In her new role, van Kooten follows in the footsteps of Stefanie Zühlke-Schmidt, who will retire in the fall after 15 years as Managing Director Purchasing.
The outgoing head of purchasing heads the entire purchasing area of the group, from the areas of sourcing, quality management, procurement, purchasing control, assortment, marketing, creativity management and corporate responsibility to digitalization and strategy purchasing. Under her leadership, the purchasing organization’s processes were transformed and the structures and the product range were aligned according to specific style types in order to define a clear target group orientation, according to the statement.
“With Stefanie Zühlke-Schmidt we are leaving an experienced colleague who has made enormous progress in the Witt Group’s purchasing department both professionally and personally,” said Witt CEO Patrick Boos. “Even though there are still a few months to go before we say goodbye, I would like to say thank you now for the great cooperation, your many years of very high commitment and your major contribution to the successful development of the Witt Group.”