By: Pramod Thomas
ONLINE retailer Boohoo has named former Betfair and Zoopla finance boss Stephen Morana as its new chief financial officer.
Morana, who was a non-executive director of the group between 2014 and 2017, will assume the role on Feb. 19, the company said on Tuesday (23).
The Manchester-based business, which owns Pretty Little Thing, Dorothy Perkins and Karen Millen, said that current CFO, Shaun McCabe, had left the company “by mutual agreement”.
Boohoo’s executive chairman and co-founder Mahmud Kamani, who owns 12 per cent of the company, said Morana’s experience at founder-led digital businesses would be beneficial.
“Stephen is a highly regarded finance director who is well known to Boohoo,” Kamani said in a statement.
“(He) has a wealth of experience with global digital businesses and is therefore very well placed to support the strategy in pursuit of our growth ambitions.”
Morana is set to join Boohoo at a challenging time as the company strives to recover from a year marked by supply chain challenges, increased product returns, competition from rivals such as Shein, and a surge in living costs impacting consumer incomes.
Boohoo’s shares have experienced a 25 per cent decline in value over the past year, with the company issuing a cautionary statement in October predicting a 12 per cent to 17 per cent decrease in annual revenue for the 12 months ending February 2024, surpassing initial forecasts.
Boohoo has faced scrutiny in recent months due to a series of BBC investigations. In November, the company defended its supplier treatment, but more recently, the BBC claimed that Boohoo garments manufactured in South Asia had new “Made in the UK” labels attached to them.
In 2020, Boohoo acknowledged all the suggestions from an independent review that uncovered significant deficiencies in its England supply chain following newspaper reports on working conditions and low wages in Leicester-area factories.
Boohoo brands, PrettyLittleThing and Nasty Gal, are popular with under 30s. It benefited from an online sales boom during the pandemic, during which it expanded aggressively to snap up brands belonging to collapsed UK retail giants.
The company employs about 5,000 people worldwide, according to its website.
(with inputs from agencies)
