John Lewis appoints eBay’s Rosie Hanley as head of brand marketing
John Lewis has hired eBay’s Rosie Hanley as head of brand and marketing, the latest recruit to fill a gap left by a series of exits from its marketing team.
John Lewis hires Rosie Hanley
Hanley has been with eBay for seven years, most recently serving as its head of brand marketing where she has led campaigns such as its ’More Ways to Win’ work from McCann, as well as a content partnership with News UK. Prior to eBay she was at Tesco data division Dunnhumby as product manager.
She will join John Lewis in July, taking on responsibility for the retailer’s brand strategy. Her focus will likely be on talking up its digital offering, with John Lewis planning to spend £50m on overhauling and futureproofing the business in wake of Covid-19. The company logged losses of £517m in 2020 and has opted to permanently close a number of its physical stores as online sales rocketed 73%.
Hanely’s appointment comes alongside the hire of Dunhelm’s digital director Steve Masterton, who will head up online trade, and Stephen Spencer, who has been brought over from Lululemon as ‘director of store of the future’, a newly-created role.
“They bring with them an enormous amount of talent and experience and will all play critical leadership roles in delivering our turnaround strategy as we invest to accelerate our online business, make our existing and future new format shops extraordinary destinations and modernize our brand,” said Pippa Wicks, partner and executive director for John Lewis.
Hanley is a much-needed hire to the marketing team, which has been trying to rebuild over the past year following the departure of long-time chief marketing officer Craig Inglis – orchestrator of its famed Christmas ads – and Paula Nickolds, who was intended to be the Partnership’s single brand boss but quit before she’d started.
John Lewis welcomed Dixons Carphone’s chief customer and commercial officer Claire Pointon to the chief customer role earlier this year, meaning Martin George – who had been manning the fort as the most senior marketing for the group – returned to his role as customer director for sister brand Waitrose.