Ascena announces new executive appointments

By

Gabriella Lacombe

Published
Nov 15, 2019

Ascena has named Justin MacFarlane as its new executive vice president, chief customer officer, effective December 2, 2019. 

In addition, the company has promoted Marisa Baldwin to the role of executive vice president, chief human resources officer, effective immediately. 

MacFarlane and Baldwin will report directly to Gary Muto, Ascena’s chief executive officer.

MacFarlane comes to the company with over 25 years of retail experience, most recently serving as chief strategy, analytics and innovation officer at Macy’s Inc. In the role, he was responsible for Macy’s strategic development, customer insights, data analytics, innovation, pricing, replenishment, and the food and lease businesses.

In addition, MacFarlane has previously served as senior vice president of corporate strategy at Ann Inc. and director at AlixPartners, among other leadership roles. 

Baldwin comes to her latest role with over 25 years of experience in human resources. She first joined Ascena in 2009, and has since held roles of increasing leadership, making her way to the role of Ascena’s senior vice president of human resources and corporate communications in 2015.

Prior to her time with Ascena, Baldwin held roles as director of HR and later as vice president of human resources at Ann Inc., in addition to serving as director of HR at Lanxess Americas, among other HR roles. 

“Ascena has gone through a transformative year in fiscal 2019, making pivotal changes to position our company to deliver profitable growth and strengthen our focus on our customers,” Muto said.

“We are pleased with the progress we have made to date and [MacFarlane’s and Baldwin’s] appointments to these new roles will help support the continued execution of our strategy…I look forward to leveraging Justin’s and Marisa’s respective areas of expertise as we continue to focus on placing our internal and external customers at the center of everything we do.”

The appointments come after Ascena, which owns brands like Ann Taylor, Dress Barn and Lane Bryant, reported a net loss in the fourth quarter ended August 3, 2019, recording a 4.3% dip in sales. In total, the company reported net sales of $1.45 billion for the quarter, down from $1.52 billion in the year-prior.