Coach cuts 300 global jobs, announces management changes

By

Obi Anyanwu

Published
Apr 27, 2016

Coach Inc. on Tuesday cut 300 jobs according to the American press. The New York City-based company shook up its team in order to push towards its goal of 20% operating margin in fiscal 2017. The cuts amount to a 10% decrease in the global corporate staff or a 2% decrease of the company’s workforce.

Two of the job cuts today were senior management roles, which bump Andre Cohen, Todd Khan and Diane Mahady to bigger roles. Cohen has been promoted to President, North America and Global Marketing; Khan is now President, Chief Administrative Officer and Secretary; and Mahady has become Coach Global Head of Merchandising.
 
The position changes have also led to the departure of Gebhard F. Rainer, President and COO, and David Duplantis, President, Global Marketing, Digital and Consumer Experience.

The workforce change follows the announcement of the company’s third quarter 2016 financial results. Coach reported its first growth in quarterly profit in three years, as well as an 11.2% increase in total revenue to $1.03 billion. The company also announced in its financial report that it would cut jobs and take a pre-tax charge of about $65-$80 million in the fourth quarter.
 
Coach CEO Victor Luis said via press release, “Both our retail and outlet stores in North America sequentially improved from the holiday quarter and e-commerce was an overall contributor as well. Our international businesses posted strong growth on a constant currency basis, highlighted by double-digit increases in Mainland China and Europe, as well as sales gains in Japan and Other Asia. Taken together, we are delighted with how our plan for the Coach brand continues to unfold and is driving improvement across our financial metrics. We are on track to return to positive comps in North America in the fourth quarter and to achieve an inflection in our profitability.”