French department store group Le Printemps strengthens executive board

French department store group Le Printemps has opted for two internal promotions to bolster its senior management team, and announced that Ion Metulesco and Karen Vernet will now be sitting on the executive board presided by Paolo de Cesare.

Karen Vernet joined Le Printemps in 2009. Formerly the department store’s director of menswear, wedding gift lists and travel, in December Vernet was appointed development director e-commerce of Printemps.com, one of the group’s strategic development vectors for the years to come. Expanding Printemps.com will strengthen the e-tail footprint of the group, which also operates Citadium.com and fashion/beauty site Place des Tendances.

Ion Metulesco joined Le Printemps in 2013. As the group’s director of engineering, architecture and maintenance, Metulesco has been busy overseeing the deployment of the department store's newest retail units, like the one at the Terrasses du Port mall in Marseilles or the store’s new menswear flagship, Printemps de L'Homme, on boulevard Haussmann in Paris.

While these two new members joined Le Printemps’s executive board, Martine Delzenne instead left it. Delzenne, who worked for the group for 44 years and played a role in many of its key moments over this long period of time, “resigned from her functions on November 30.” She was Le Printemps’ deputy general manager since 2007, having joined the group in 1974 as product manager for stationery. After being in charge of Printemps Nation, she ran Printemps Haussmann between 1990 and 1998, when she took over as director of the chain and its affiliates. In 2000, she was appointed commercial director and expanded the purchasing office, to reposition the group in the high-end market segment.

In 2017, the Le Printemps group reported a total retail area of 180,000 square metres and a revenue of €1.7 billion, with 3,000 employees.

French department store group Le Printemps strengthens executive board

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