Burberry new CMO joins from Gucci, Americas president from OTB

Burberry’s seen some big changes of late with the appointment of its new CEO and now there’s more, with the luxury business on Tuesday introducing two key execs, one who’ll be based at its London HQ and one across the Atlantic.

The British company said it has appointed Jonathan Kiman as chief marketing officer and Laura Dubin-Wander as president, Americas.

Kiman joins the London line-up on 9 September and will lead Burberry’s global marketing team, as well as joining the executive committee and reporting directly to new Burberry CEO Joshua Schulman.

He has a strong background, coming from Gucci in Milan where he held a series of senior roles during his 12 years (divided into two stints) at the Kering-owned business. Most recently he held the same role he’s taking up at Burberry, CMO. Prior to his last tenure at Gucci has was chief brand officer of Versace until 2020.

As for Dubin-Wander, she’ll be based in New York City and will lead the brand’s American ops from this week.

She joins having been at OTB North America where she was CEO. Other key posts she’s held have included president of Coach North America from 2018 to 2020 (that is, during much of the period when Schulman was CEO and president of the brand); VP at Christian Dior Couture; and president at Givenchy.

Schulman highlighted Kiman’s “wealth of experience in rejuvenating brands and building digital-savvy marketing organisations”. He also called Dubin-Wander a “results-driven and dynamic leader with demonstrated success in building and developing winning teams”.

It’s certainly interesting to see the recent personnel changes at Burberry.

After the exit of Italian CEO Marco Gobbetti and Italian creative chief Riccardo Tisci, the company ushered in a new era of Britishness under new CEO Jonathan Akeroyd and creative head Daniel Lee. The British heritage is still key under Lee but there’s a strong American contingent in key positions, including at the helm of the business.