Saks COO is out

Dive Brief:

• RJ Cilley has left his position as Saks Fifth Avenue’s chief operating officer and is now chief executive officer at HVAC and plumbing startup Voomi Supply, he said via LinkedIn. He announced his departure from Saks a few days before.

• Cilley spent the last three and a half years as Saks COO, capping off a 12-year career at owner Hudson’s Bay Co., per his LinkedIn page, including a stint as senior vice president of digital at Lord & Taylor.

• Saks plans to fill the COO role, a spokesperson said by email. “In the interim, we have our strong operations leadership in place to ensure a smooth transition. We thank RJ for all of his contributions to our company and wish him all the best in his next chapter,” the spokesperson said.

Dive Insight:

Cilley’s departure from Saks may be part of an inevitable shakeup following HBC’s proposed $2.65 billion takeover of luxury department store Neiman Marcus, a tie-up that has been rumored for years.

“All good things must come to an end. Saks and HBC have been my home for many years, and I am so grateful for my time there,” Cilley said via LinkedIn, adding, “I look forward to rooting from the sidelines for Saks Global!”

That entity, Saks Global — encompassing Saks Fifth Avenue, Saks Off 5th, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman — would emerge from the transaction, which also involves an investment from Amazon.

According to Thursday’s announcement of the deal, each banner will continue to operate. It’s not clear, however, whether the lines drawn between the store and e-commerce operations of Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Off 5th will remain, or whether Neiman Marcus will join those banners in breaking off the e-commerce from the brick-and-mortar operations. 

In 2021 Saks Fifth Avenue and off-price Saks Off 5th split their e-commerce and brick-and-mortar businesses as part of a broader push by parent company HBC to unlock value, which established Saks.com and Saksoff5th.com as stand-alone companies. Later that year Neiman Marcus rejected the concept, (as did Macy’s). 

HBC’s Canadian department store, Hudson’s Bay, will be recapitalized as a standalone entity, per last week’s merger announcement. That retailer had also separated its brick-and-mortar and e-commerce operations, but shortly after reunited them.

Observers saw these separations as attempts to make the legacy department stores more attractive to investors and tech talent, though several questioned the wisdom of chopping up operations. 

Neither Saks nor HBC immediately responded to questions about the future of the online-offline concept under Saks Global.