Glossier brings on new CFO, chief commercial officer

Dive Brief:

Glossier on Tuesday announced CFO Vanessa Wittman will retire next spring and become an adviser to the company. Replacing Wittman is Seun Sodipo, who previously led product finance and strategy at Stripe. Sodipo will join the company in February.
The direct to consumer beauty brand also appointed its first chief commercial officer, Kyle Leahy, who will begin Nov. 29, Glossier CEO and founder Emily Weiss announced in a blog post. Leahy most recently served as Cole Haan's executive vice president and general manager of North America. In the new role, Leahy will be responsible for building customer experiences across channels and driving revenue.
Glossier last month also brought on Lululemon veteran Kristy Maynes to serve as its senior vice president of retail where she will oversee the brand's physical expansion, including the opening of several flagship locations.

Dive Insight:

Just over two years after Wittman took on the chief finance role, Glossier is onto the next.

For the DTC beauty brand, the CFO appears to be a revolving-door position. In 2018, Glossier's then-head of finance, Matt Weiler, left the company after serving as its head of finance for over three years. Then in December of that year, Henry Davis — who had been at Glossier for nearly five years, holding the president and chief operating officer roles for over four years and the CFO position for just six months — announced he was leaving the company.

Wittman was appointed CFO in early 2019, just after Glossier secured $100 million in a Series D funding round, pushing the brand to unicorn status.

Weiss in her blog post thanked Wittman for her contributions to the company, including helping to secure $80 million in fresh funding over the summer. "Vanessa has played a significant role at Glossier, most recently securing our Series E financing from Lone Pine Capital, and — as a five-time CFO — has paved the way for countless women in finance," Weiss said.

Glossier's new CFO, set to join the company in just a few short months, may be a sign of the brand's ambitions. Sodipo's background in mergers and acquisitions, as well as her knowledge of the public markets, may signal that the company hopes to buy up other brands in the coming years — or that it's eyeing its own exit.

As of Aug. 3, 123 DTC brands have pursued an exit so far in 2021, according to data provided by PitchBook, and of those, 66 exited via acquisition. While IPOs have gained steam, especially this past year given the favorable market conditions, acquisitions have remained the top exit path among DTC brands since 2010, per the data.