Australian retailer opts to replace chief marketing officer position with a newly created customer title
The Iconic has brought on its first chief customer officer, appointing Dean Chadwick to take on the CMO replacement position.
Chadwick was formerly Virgin Velocity’s chief marketing and commercial officer and spent nearly five years with the airline. Most recently, he was interim CEO of the frequent flyer program. He previously spent more than 14 years with American Express in a variety of roles locally and internationally, including VP of consumer acquisition, brand and marketing, chief digital officer and VP of innovation labs in the UK.
Chadwick’s work for Virgin saw him recognised in the top 10 of the CMO50 list of Australia’s most innovative and effective marketing leaders in 2019.
Credit: The Iconic As The Iconic’s new chief customer officer, Chadwick will oversee both product and marketing functions. He indirectly replaces former CMO, Alexander Meyer, who left the retailer at the end of last year to join Canada-based The Bay, as chief customer officer.
In a statement, The Iconic said the newly created position was about strengthening its commitment to customer experiences as the business matures. As an experienced leader and executive with “an astute ability to anticipate customer needs and wants”, Chadwick was an obvious choice to deliver on the company’s vision of creating the future of shopping, it stated.
“After a decade of operation, The Iconic is well and truly part of the fabric of Australian and New Zealand life, particularly after the last two years where shoppers across the country have come to rely on our unparalleled assortment and outstanding delivery proposition,” said the retailer’s CEO, Erica Berchtold.
“While we’ll always be proud of our startup roots, we are a business that is scaling rapidly in a landscape that is constantly shifting, so we needed to rethink our internal structure to set ourselves up for a new era of retail. The newly created chief customer officer role does exactly that, bringing together our product and marketing functions to further strengthen our commitment to deliver seamless and inspiring customer experiences, while continuing to define the future of shopping in A/NZ.”
Chadwick said he had long admired The Iconic.
“But it wasn’t until I met the team that I really understood exactly how “customer obsessed” it truly is,” he commented. “Every single business decision is made with the shopper in mind, which makes the chief customer officer position incredibly exciting. I look forward to bringing my customer loyalty experience to the role as we work to further actualise the future of shopping.”
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