Esprit appoints Chief Product & Design Officer

As part of its transformation plan Esprit is pulling together all its product development, design and licensing activities in order to ensure brand consistency and product efficiency. To lead this new role, Esprit has appointed Melody Harris-Jensbach as Chief Product & Design Officer. In this capacity Harris-Jensbach will report directly to the Group CEO, Ronald van der Vis, and be part of the Group’s Board of Management.

In her role as Chief Product & Design Officer, Harris-Jensbach will start her new assignment on January 9. Harris-Jensbach will be responsible for managing the product creation and design of all product divisions and Esprit’s global license business. This includes the full P&L accountability for all products and license businesses, design and product management.

Harris–Jensbach will be joining Esprit from Puma AG, Germany, where she acted as Deputy CEO & Chief Product Officer since January 2008. Prior to this, from 1998 until 2007, Ms. Harris-Jensbach, held various senior management positions within Esprit.

"We are delighted to see Melody Harris-Jensbach returning to Esprit and to strengthen our Board of Management. Melody’s product and design strategy has been instrumental to Esprit’s successful development until 2007,” says Ronald van der Vis, CEO of Esprit. “I am very confident that Melody will make great contributions to achieving our objective of re-establishing Esprit as a leading, inspiring fashion brand and creating a recognizable Esprit handwriting in our collections."