Dive Brief:

• Bath & Body Works named Eva C. Boratto — a former finance chief of CVS Health who also previously held various finance roles during her 20 years at pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co — as its new finance chief, effective Aug. 1, according to a Tuesday press release.
• The news comes about three months after the Columbus, Ohio-based soap and personal products maker announced in April that a search firm had been hired to find a replacement for Wendy Arlin, who would be stepping down from the CFO position on July 29.
• CEO Gina Boswell, a former Unliver executive who took the reins of Bath & Body late last year, said the company would benefit from Boratto’s “strong” financial expertise, according to a statement in the release. “Eva is a results-oriented leader with a strategic and innovative mindset, which will be integral as we continue to take actions to elevate the Bath & Body Works brand and build on the capabilities that will drive profitable growth,” Boswell said in the statement.

Dive Insight:

The CFO change comes amid a series of recent leadership moves, with the company making appointments to two newly created positions. It named Thilina Gunasinghe chief digital and technology officer in April, and in May named Maurice Cooper, a Target veteran, as its chief customer officer, Industry Dive sister publication Retail Dive previously reported. 

Once a big draw for a certain generation of mall-goers who snapped up its soaps and bubble bath, the company is also one of the many retailers who are at least partly exiting malls. 

In a May earnings call, Arlin said the company was roughly 50-50 in terms of its mix of stores in and outside of malls and that the company’s ultimate goal over “a multiyear period” is about two-thirds off-mall, one-third in malls.

“It will take us several years to get there,” Arlin said, according to a transcript of the call. “Every year, we evaluate the real estate landscape and make decisions based on what we see.”

Boratto will bring over three decades of financial experience to her new role. Most recently, she served as CFO of Opentrons Labworks, a privately held life sciences company, according to the release. From 2010 through 2021 she served in a variety of roles at Woonsocket, Rhode Island-based CVS Health, according to her LinkedIn account. In 1990, she started out at Darmstadt, Germany-based Merck, working as a manager and senior financial analyst, rising through the ranks to hold such roles as vice president of investor relations and vice president U.S. market finance leader.  

In May, the company reported net sales for its fiscal first quarter ended April 29 fell 4% to $1.396 billion from the year-earlier period ended April 30. Boswell in an earnings statement said sales for the quarter were in line with expectations while earnings per share were better than expected due to its efforts to improve merchandise margins and cost optimization initiatives.