L Brands announces new president and chief HR officer

L Brands has announced new leadership appointments at Bath and Body Works which includes Julie Rosen as president and Deon Riley as chief human resources officer. Rosen and Riley will reportedly work under the leadership of Andrew Meslow, CEO of both L Brands and Bath and Body Works. Rosen will be responsible for merchandising and design, and brings with her a breadth of merchant background as well as leadership experience across merchandising, design, planning, production, marketing, stores and digital. She ran her own retail consulting business with clients including Nike, Theory and Bare Escentuals. Rosen started her career at Banana Republic and took on progressively larger roles within the merchant team for the brand and Gap and eventually became executive VP for Banana Republic North America, with responsibility for the global product assortment. After more than 20 years at Gap brands, she moved to Ascena in 2016, where her last role was president, Ann Taylor and Loft. Riley is a strategic HR business partner and executive coach with experience in large, growth-focused, merchant- and brand-driven organisations, across the consumer goods, retail and manufacturing sectors. She will be joining Bath and Body Works from Ross Stores, where she has spent the past eight years, most recently as the group senior VP of HR, culture and diversity and inclusion, with responsibilities stretching across home office, stores, supply chain, distribution centres and technology, supporting more than 70,000 associates. Prior to Ross, she held HR leadership roles at Abercrombie and Fitch, where she established a field HR team from the ground up and managed global mobility, compliance and all HR protocols related to international expansion to more than 20 countries. She started her career in sales with United Technologies Corporation, before growing her HR career at PepsiCo. Meslow said: “Julie is an experienced and talented merchant leader who will lead us in continuing to develop compelling products across all categories, and Deon is a well-rounded and experienced human resources professional who will elevate our efforts to cultivate a healthy and thriving company culture. “These two high-caliber individuals are excellent additions to our executive leadership team.”