Walmart's British Invasion Continues With a New Chief at Bonobos
Walmart's British Invasion Continues With a New Chief at Bonobos
(Bloomberg) -- The British are coming -- and keep coming -- to Walmart Inc.
The retailer elevated another U.K. native to its senior leadership Tuesday by tapping Micky Onvural to run Bonobos, the men’s apparel startup it bought last year. Onvural succeeds founder Andy Dunn, who has assumed a broader role across all of Walmart’s digital brands. A London native who cut her teeth at cosmetics maker L’Oreal SA and EBay Inc., Onvural joined Bonobos as its marketing chief in 2016, then added the title of co-president last year.
Onvural becomes the latest Briton to grab a top post at America’s biggest retailer this year, following the appointments of Simon Belsham as head of Jet.com, Janey Whiteside as chief customer officer and Judith McKenna to run Walmart’s international business. Walmart isn’t alone in entrusting its iconic brand to non-Americans -- McDonald’s Corp. named Steve Easterbrook, an Englishman, as its CEO three years ago, and he’s now on Walmart’s board of directors as well.
The influx of tea-drinking talent also comes as Walmart has decided to step back from the U.K., ceding control of its struggling Asda unit to rival Sainsbury Plc.
Onvural said on a podcast in March that she’d like to double Bonobos’s sales in three years -- no small feat, given the lackluster growth in the broader menswear market. Walmart doesn’t break out revenue for the unit.
To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Boyle in New York at mboyle20@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Crayton Harrison at tharrison5@bloomberg.net, Lisa Wolfson, Jonathan Roeder
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