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Ed Brennan |
INTERNATIONAL. In major breaking news, DFS Group, the world’s largest luxury travel retailer, announced today that its Board of Directors has elected Philippe Schaus as Chief Executive Officer effective 1 August, 2012.
Schaus succeeds Edward (‘Ed’) Brennan who is retiring as CEO after 13 years in that position. In addition, he will succeed Brennan as Chairman on 31 December, 2012. Brennan will become a Non-Executive Director of DFS Group and will remain Chairman of LVMH-owned Starboard Cruise Services and Onboard Media.
In addition, Michael Schriver, the company’s much-respected President for Stores and Business Development, has been promoted to the newly created position of Chief Operating Officer.
Schaus, who joined DFS in August 2011, was formerly Group President of Merchandising and Marketing. Before that he was Executive Vice President of Louis Vuitton Malletier.
The announcement was made today (11 July local time), during DFS Hawaii’s 50th birthday celebrations in Hawaii.
Bob Miller, Co-Founder of DFS and still a major shareholder, paid warm tribute to the work of Ed Brennan. He told The Moodie Report: “He’s really a terrific executive and a strategic thinker. The way he handles his people is really wonderful [as are]”¦ his vision and the discipline that he brings to the business, and the operating plan. The team that Ed has put together is really second to none. And they work together; there’s a lovely feeling of camaraderie.
“It gives them a huge amount of satisfaction to see the [business] plan work. And the plan has worked under Ed. Ed is one in a million. And I love him dearly.”
Antonio Belloni, a Non-Executive DFS Group Director and the Group Managing Director of LVMH said: “Ed has been a formidable leader at DFS. He and his team have created the most successful luxury travel retail operation in the world. Sales and profitability have seen outstanding growth over the last few years, and we have expanded our geographic focus from just the Asia-Pacific rim, with stores now spanning more than half the globe.
“Philippe is the right person to assure that the success of DFS continues well into the future. He will further develop the DFS brand so that the experience we offer our customers remains at the forefront of luxury travel shopping,” concluded Belloni.
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Philippe Schaus |
We’ll bring you an extensive interview with Philippe Schaus soon. Speaking to journalists today at DFS Galleria Waikiki, Schaus said he was looking forward immensely to the new challenge. And he paid rich tribute to his new Chief Operating Officer, Michael Schriver, noting: “Michael is one of the biggest pillars of this organisation and his role in this new constellation will be absolutely paramount. I really count on him as my main partner in this whole journey we are going to undertake together. So his role and importance cannot be overstated.”
Schaus praised the warm “family spirit” of the DFS that he was inheriting from Brennan, noting the intense “humanity” of the company. “That’s one of the most seductive aspects of DFS besides the fact that it is a great company with great people with great potential and doing well,” he said. “It’s a very nice culture.
“Really the most important thing is continuity. The company has a great style and I hope we will maintain that. The organisation has a very good management team. I’ll be working very closely together with Michael Schriver which will ensure continuity.
“We want to continue the success of the business model, continuing the excellence that has characterised the success of DFS in the past years. [It’s about] Being selective in what we do”¦ we’re not obsessed with growth but we’re obsessed with the quality of what we’re trying to do.”
Asked what changes he might bring to the party, Schaus said: “We are probably going to focus a little more on marketing and communications. We have a great story to tell and we are going to work on that. Plus there are a lot of projects in the pipeline, both from expansions of existing stores and from the winning of the [three] bids in Hong Kong, which creates a lot of opportunity.”
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“Ed is one in a million. And I love him dearly.“ |
Bob Miller Co-Founder DFS Group |
COMMENT: This is a momentous day for DFS, one tinged with both excitement and poignancy, writes Martin Moodie.
Ed Brennan, who joined DFS in 1997, has driven DFS to unprecedented heights in the 21st century, underscored by his far-sighted (and at that time surprise) decision to relocate the company from San Francisco to Hong Kong in January 2004. That move was driven by his deep belief in the importance of the emergent Chinese market and the need to be close to what he saw as the potential new epicentre of global travel retail.
Brennan told The Moodie Report at the time: “DFS is fortunate to be presented twice within its business life cycle the opportunity to build a relationship with an emerging consumer. Over the past 40 years we have built a strong bond with the traveling Japanese consumer. We have aged well together and developed a deep level of respect for each other. We intend to do the same with the PRC Chinese in the next 40 years.”
How right he was. How unbelievably successful the results. The opening of the spectacular DFS Galleria Macau in 2008 created a shopping beacon for Mainland Chinese travellers. Incredibly, that business now generates sales of around US$1 billion out of the retailer’s estimated (2011) turnover of more than US$3.7 billion.
The company’s empathy with Chinese shoppers was, in fact, a major factor in DFS’s stunning recent triple triumph with the Hong Kong International Airport core category tenders. Brennan, remember, was at the helm of DFS when it lost its long-held airport sinecure at Hong Kong in 1998, a body blow at the time in one of the company’s two original heartlands. To win all the business back just before he stepped down must have been the sweetest-tasting success.
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Michael Schriver |
Luxury is another trademark of the Brennan era. Both at its downtown and airport locations, the company has redefined upscale travel retailing to a level that no-one could have foreseen a decade ago. To wander through DFS Galleria Waikiki in Hawaii this week is to be entranced not just by the dazzling array of brands and the retail execution but also the retail theatre that is unrivalled in the channel.
One suspects, though, that the activity that Brennan will take greatest satisfaction from during his reign is DFS’s commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility. He led from the front in driving remarkably successful fund-raising campaigns around a series of fine causes, including The Smile Train and, most notably, travel retail charity Hand in Hand for Haiti.
It is almost incomprehensible that a school of the scale and world-class standard of the Lycée Jean Baptiste Point du Sable could have been built since Haiti’s earthquake-ravaged days of January 2010. Yet it was, and Brennan’s deep personal commitment (he has made numerous trips there with his wife Debbie) has been a pivotal factor.
My enduring memory of Ed Brennan as DFS Chairman and CEO will not be of him besuited in a luxury Galleria. It will be of him throwing boxes of aid from the back of a truck to the poor in Cité Soleil, Port-au-Prince’s infamous shantytown, often described as one of the most dangerous places on the planet [see pictures at the foot of this story]. He has been a towering figure in our industry not just for his great corporate and commercial success but also for his immense human qualities and leadership.
Brennan will remain Chairman of Hand in Hand for Haiti as well as stepping up his responsibilities for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation in the US. Philanthropy, so important in his life, will now take centre stage.
But businesses move on and with the appointment of Philippe Schaus comes the anticipation of a new and different chapter. Since he joined the company he has won wide admiration for his marketing vision and leadership skills. Expect an intensifying of the retailer’s marketing programmes at every level and a very consumer-led philosophy.
From interviewing him today in Waikiki, it was clear that he has a clear vision about how he plans to advance the company but, just as importantly, a profound grasp of its heritage, culture and corporate DNA.
Michael Schriver’s promotion is richly deserved. Schriver was enticed to DFS by Brennan, his former Macy’s colleague, and the chemistry between the two has been a key factor in DFS’s recent success.
His promotion in early 2011 to the dual role of Group President of Stores and Business Development reflected the high regard in which he is held by both shareholders, as of course does his new post. Schriver deserves particular credit for the company’s recent success in Hong Kong and his combination with Schaus, well noted by the latter during today’s interview, looks to be a formidable one.
We’ll bring you more comment and details later and in this week’s edition of The Moodie Report e-Zine.
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Ed Brennan (above and below right) giving out aid to the children of Cité Soleil, Haiti, in early 2010 |
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