Henri Lloyd CEO is out, search starts for new chief and creative director

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Sep 6, 2019

There’s change happening at the helm of the Henri Lloyd brand, the company saying this week that it's looking for a new CEO with current chief Magnus Liljeblad having “decided to step down and make room for new people to steer Henri Lloyd into the future.”

The company is looking for a replacement and is actively encouraging people to apply, both for this role and a vacant Creative Director role too.

For now, Jonas Andersson, a board member of Henri Lloyd will formally be CEO “until a permanent solution has been found”.

Hans Eckerström, chairman and controlling shareholder, said: “We are actively seeking ambitious and talented candidates from around the world for the roles of CEO and Creative Director. Young or experienced, we have no prejudice, who have an expertise or true passion in brand-building and a strong belief in growing a loyal and engaged customer following. This can be either one single individual to fill these roles or maybe two different individuals. 

“From the very beginning, we have led with our strategy of being a digital-first company and as such we want to attract dynamic leaders who want to work in a rewarding and agile environment, a place where they can create something unique and special with such a trusted brand.”

Henri Lloyd has been expanding in recent periods as well as repositioning itself and on announcing its CEO’s departure, it also said that the brand “has enjoyed a great reception and an encouraging reaction to many aspects of its new positioning and concept as it relaunched its new collections for SS20.”

Eckerström thanked the outgoing chief “for his vision, efforts and hard work to start the journey of repositioning the brand,” but it’s clear he's not seen as the person to guide the next phase.

Eckerström added: “As we are now entering a second phase of the comeback for the brand and as a heritage brand with a start-up culture and mindset, we are genuine in our belief in building strong customer relationships. A strong relationship is based on honest dialogues regarding what has worked and what hasn't worked so well. With this approach of being responsive to customer and other stakeholder feedback we have decided to make improvements and additions to the very top of our management structure so that we can grow and fully achieve our vision for the brand. 

“There are many areas of the brand’s relaunch we can look back at with pride and be confident that we have started something really special in the market. Our strategy of building on our heritage of performance and functional fashion in a contemporary way has been extremely well received. As have initiatives such as DYO (Design Your Own), which allows high-performing race crews to customise garments to create something unique for themselves and the decision of Sir Ben Ainslie to become an investor as well as director and add his expertise to the team. “

He also said the firm has had "tremendous success with our functional performance range outselling our initial forecasts with strong sales on our own online platform and with our customers. Our focus going forward will be to build on what has been very well received with the customers and consumers.”