Changes as Ecco looks for more benefit from integr - footwearbiz: Lead

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Changes as Ecco looks for more benefit from integrated supply chain

24/04/2012
Danish footwear brand Ecco, whose integrated supply chain strategy means it still owns and runs its own tanneries, has announced a series of important changes to its organisation and management structure.

It will form a new Ecco production group, to be headed by Panos Mytaros, the executive vice-president who has run the company’s leather business for many years. The new production group will comprise the existing Ecco leather group, based in Dongen in the Netherlands, but will also include a new Ecco shoe group, which will have its base in Singapore and be managed by current director Flemming Larsen. The shoe group will look after the work of Ecco’s footwear manufacturing units in China,  Indonesia, Portugal, Slovakia and Thailand as well as external sourcing.

The leather group has four tanneries, located in Surabaya, Indonesia, Ayudhthaya, Thailand, and Xiamen, China, as well as the facility in Dongen, where the leather group also has its research and development operation.

Commenting on the changes, chief operating officer, Michael Hauge Sørensen, said: “Ecco is in a positive development with growth and increased profitability. We must, however, plan for the future and this re-organisation will give us a simpler and more efficient organisation, bring us closer to our customers and allow us to benefit further from owning the entire value chain.”

Three regional sales organisations in North America, Europe, Middle East & Africa and Asia-Pacific will now be coordinated into a global sales organisation headed by executive vice-president Michel Krol. There are two new appointments within management with Gerd Vibeke Rahbek-Clemmensen, managing director of Ecco Holding, the group’s parent company becoming a member of the supervisory board and Steen Borgholm, presently regional director of Asia-Pacific, to return to Denmark to become a member of the managing board and take over the position of chief financial officer from Annemette Nøhr, who has decided to leave Ecco.

All these changes will be in place by July. Later, with effect from January 1, 2013, the company’s general manager in China, George Kahwati, will be the new regional director for Asia-Pacific.



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