C&A hires former El Corte Inglés head of womenswear

C&A recruits Spanish talent. The company, with headquarters in Dusseldorf (Germany), recruited Mercedes Gorriti, one of the executives with the longest career in fashion business in Spain, to join up the headquarters’ team. The executive was recently the head of womenswear at El Corte Inglés, from where she departed in May.

Gorriti was one of the trustworthy executives of Dimas Gimeno, former El Corte Inglés chairman, who put her in charge of womenswear management in 2015 after five years at the front of children’s clothing, accessories and babycare.

With an industrial engineer degree from Icai and MBA from Iese, the executive started her professional path in supermarket chain Continente, where she was textile line assistant manager for almost a decade. In 2000, after the supermarket chain’s takeover, she and some other former executives from Continente launched Gocco, turned now into one of the largest childrenswear companies in Spain.

During the first four years of the company’s development, Gorriti was at the front as CEO. After leaving Gocco, the executive went back to undertaking with the launch of the brand Mummy, which reached a total of 25 stores.

Mercedes Gorriti started her carreer in Continente and she was one of Gocco’s promoter

Her jump to C&A happened following the group headquarters’ restructuring in Europe. In October last year, the company announced the departure of four out of the seven executive team members in the region, which now only consists of Alain Caparros, CEO; Martjin van der Zee, commercial manager; and Tjeerd van der Zee, operations manager.

Such shift was the outcome of two years of C&A’s restructuring in the European market, after a generalized sales drop. The company’s plan considered 1 billion euro investment and the closing of unprofitable establishments, 23 in Spain included, to start growing again in 2021.

Leading that new period, we find for the first time an executive outside the Brenninkmeijer family.  In June 2017, C&A recruited Alain Caparros, who came from the fast-moving consumer goods sector, as head in the region, taking Philippe Brenninkmeijer’s position.

The group concluded 2017 increasing its revenue by 4%, boosted mainly in Central and East Europe, as well as in the Portuguese and Dutch markets. The company’s e-commerce business in the region, on its behalf, raised by 14% in relation to the previous fiscal year. C&A, property of Cofra Holding, has a network of 1,500 stores in Europe and has a revenue of 2.92 billion euros in the European marketplace.