Mark Light to Retire July 31
HAMILTON, Bermuda--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Signet Jewelers Limited (the “Company”) (NYSE: SIG), the world’s largest
retailer of diamond jewelry, today announced that its Board of Directors
has appointed Virginia "Gina" C. Drosos, who has served as an
independent director of the Company’s Board since 2012, as the new Chief
Executive Officer of Signet, effective August 1, 2017. Ms. Drosos has
over 29 years of executive leadership experience in the beauty and
consumer goods industries. She previously served as President & CEO of
Assurex Health and as a Group President of Global Beauty Care at The
Procter & Gamble Company. Mark Light, who has served as CEO of Signet
since 2014, has decided to retire after more than 35 years with the
Company due to health reasons.
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Virginia "Gina" C. Drosos
“On behalf of the Board, I want to thank Mark for his years of dedicated
service and the many contributions he made to the Company. He has been
instrumental to the company’s growth and success,” said Todd Stitzer,
Chairman of Signet’s Board of Directors.
Mark Light said, “I’m very proud of all that Signet has been able to
accomplish over the course of my career and it has been a privilege to
work with such outstanding colleagues over these many years. We
successfully developed major product brand partnerships such as Open
Hearts by Jane Seymour® and Neil Lane Bridal®, made significant progress
on our Customer First OmniChannel strategy, successfully acquired and
integrated Zale and significantly expanded our penetration of the outlet
channel. I am especially proud of bringing our Team Members together as
One Signet. Given the Company’s positive direction and my need to
address some health issues, the Board and I agreed that it is a good
time for a transition.”
Mr. Stitzer continued: “I want to welcome Gina as Signet’s new CEO. She
is a visionary and transformational leader with a proven track record of
growing and scaling global businesses through winning strategies and
innovation. Gina’s experience brings a unique combination of
demonstrated brand building, given her strong background in beauty,
along with the creativity, flexibility and boldness of an
entrepreneurial mindset. She also possesses a strong financial
background, having managed multibillion dollar P&Ls through phases of
high growth, while delivering cost reductions and operational
efficiencies. As a member of the Board since 2012, she is deeply
familiar with Signet’s strategic vision and has been pivotal in our
efforts to realign our organizational structure to enable better
execution of our OmniChannel strategy and strengthening our customer
experience. The Board has full confidence in Gina’s ability to drive
Signet forward in its next phase of growth and value creation.”
“I am honored to serve as the CEO of Signet and look forward to working
with our strong management and Team Members to deliver our revised 2020
Vision, which is focused on bridal, digital and women’s fashion,” Ms.
Drosos said. “Signet is well positioned to continue to drive its
unprecedented leadership in diamond jewelry and expand its market share
in growing categories, such as fashion jewelry. I am committed to
successfully executing our strategic priorities as we continue to
transform Signet to become a more innovative, digital-first and
data-driven retailer focused on delivering an outstanding OmniChannel
experience to customers.”
About Virginia “Gina” C. Drosos
Ms. Drosos joined Signet’s Board of Directors in 2012. In addition to
the Compensation and Nomination and Corporate Governance committees, she
is a member of the Board’s Customer Experience sub-committee focused on
OmniChannel strategy and winning in fashion jewelry, as well as the
Board’s Respect in the Workforce committee focused on programs and
policies to support the advancement and development of our Team Members.
Gina most recently served as President & CEO of Assurex Health, where
she delivered significant revenue growth and executed the strategic sale
of the Company to Myriad Genetics for up to $410 million. Her
exceptional leadership at Assurex Health has led her to recently receive
the Venture Ohio Exit of the Year, Cincinnati USA Chamber of Commerce
Woman of the Year and EY Entrepreneur of the Year award for delivering
market outperformance in terms of revenue growth, job creation and
longevity.
Prior to Assurex Health, Gina spent 25 years at The Procter & Gamble
Company (“P&G”) where she held positions of increasing responsibility
with strong proven results and became a thought leader in Beauty and
mass brand retailing. She most recently served P&G as Group President,
Global Beauty Care, an over $6 billion business unit with a portfolio of
more than 20 brands, each with its own marketing strategy, over 6,000
employees and 22 manufacturing sites. In this role, she had
responsibility for overseeing the business unit operations, strategy and
long term business development, successfully transformed the unit’s
digital marketing efforts including the first digital-only brand
campaign for P&G’s Secret brand, and innovated large brands, such as
CoverGirl, Old Spice and Olay, latter of which grew from a less than
$200 million to $2.5 billion iconic mega beauty brand under Gina’s
leadership.
About Signet Jewelers and Safe Harbor Statement:
Signet Jewelers Limited is the world's largest retailer of diamond
jewelry. Signet operates approximately 3,600 stores primarily under the
name brands of Kay Jewelers, Zales, Jared The Galleria Of Jewelry,
H.Samuel, Ernest Jones, Peoples and Piercing Pagoda. Further information
on Signet is available at www.signetjewelers.com.
See also www.kay.com,
www.zales.com, www.jared.com,
www.hsamuel.co.uk,
www.ernestjones.co.uk,
www.peoplesjewellers.com
and www.pagoda.com.
This release contains statements which are forward-looking statements
within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995. These statements, based upon management’s beliefs and expectations
as well as on assumptions made by and data currently available to
management, appear in a number of places throughout this document and
include statements regarding, among other things, Signet’s results of
operation, financial condition, liquidity, prospects, growth, strategies
and the industry in which Signet operates. The use of the words
“expects,” “intends,” “anticipates,” “estimates,” “predicts,”
“believes,” “should,” “potential,” “may,” “forecast,” “objective,”
“plan,” or “target,” and other similar expressions are intended to
identify forward-looking statements. For a discussion of these and other
risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ
materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statement, see
the “Risk Factors” section of Signet's Fiscal 2017 Annual Report on Form
10-K filed with the SEC on March 16, 2017. Signet undertakes no
obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect
subsequent events or circumstances, except as required by law.
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Source: Signet Jewelers Limited