Brown Shoe Creates New Product Development, Marketing Organizations; Company adds DuPlain and Rawson and promotes Sanders and Gelber
ST. LOUIS, May 10, 2005 -- Brown Shoe Company, Inc. (NYSE: BWS) announced the creation of two senior vice president positions to manage new organizations within the company, and the appointment of two additional senior vice presidents. Rick Gelber has been promoted to Senior Vice President-Product Design and Creative Director for Brown Shoe, and Jeff Sanders has been promoted to Senior Vice President-Branded Wholesale, with overall responsibility for the Naturalizer and LifeStride brands. In addition, Terri Rawson has joined the company as Senior Vice President-Wholesale Marketing, and Brown Shoe has added Keith Duplain as Senior Vice President and General Manager-Naturalizer.Gelber, Rawson
Terri Rawson is Brown Shoe’s first Senior Vice President of Wholesale Marketing. She will lead an integrated wholesale marketing organization and oversee both the strategy and creative execution of the brand building process for Brown Shoe’s wholesale brands. Ms. Rawson comes to Brown Shoe most recently from the Rockport division of Reebok International, where she served as the Vice President of Global Brand Marketing. Prior to that, she worked for the Keds division of the Stride Rite Corporation as the Vice President of Marketing.
“Our intent in creating a single product development group is to ensure that Brown Shoe wholesale brands consistently deliver distinctive, innovative, fashion-right footwear. We also believe that we will be better able to clearly differentiate our product by brand and fully realize the potential of our speed-to-market initiatives,” said Brown Shoe President Diane Sullivan. “Additionally, we believe that building equity for our brands can best be accomplished by a unified Wholesale marketing organization that combines our internal creative group and our Wholesale division marketing teams.”
Duplain, Sanders
Jeff Sanders, in his new position, now oversees the strategy and wholesale operations for Brown Shoe’s largest women’s brands – Naturalizer and LifeStride. Most recently Senior Vice President and General Manager of LifeStride, Jeff has led a truly remarkable turnaround of the brand. He and his team increased LifeStride sales by 17.5% in 2003 and 8.3% in 2004, making it one of Brown Shoe’s most successful brands at retail. Sanders has been with Brown Shoe, in various capacities, for more than 20 years.Keith Duplain joins as Senior Vice President and General Manager-Naturalizer. He assumes responsibility for all business areas related to Naturalizer’s wholesale business, including brand building, merchandising and sales. He comes to Brown Shoe from a 10-year career at HH Brown Corp., where he most recently served as the General Manager for its Born, Bolo and Orvis divisions.
“This move adds great skill and talent to two of our largest brands – Naturalizer and LifeStride,” said Gary Rich, President of Brown Shoe Wholesale. “Additionally, it enables us to more easily learn from the successful strategies of each business, and replicate them to increase our ability to win in the marketplace.”
Brown Shoe is a $1.9 billion footwear company with worldwide operations. The Company operates the 900+ store Famous Footwear chain, which sells brand name shoes for the family. It also operates a Specialty Retail division with 375 stores in the U.S. and Canada that sell the Naturalizer brand of shoes and accessories. Brown Shoe, through its Wholesale divisions, owns and markets leading footwear brands including Naturalizer, LifeStride, Connie and Buster Brown; it also markets licensed brands including Dr. Scholl's, Bass and Carlos by Carlos Santana for adults, and Barbie, Winnie-the-Pooh, Mickey and Minnie character footwear for children. Brown Shoe press releases are available on the Company's web site at www.brownshoe.com.