Asos names McKinsey's Patrik Silén to strategy role

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Apr 8, 2020

There’s an element of business as usual at all fashion companies at the moment and along with all its more unusual announcements this week, Asos has also announced its latest key hire as it looks to a post-coronavirus retail world.

The company named Patrik Silén as Chief Strategy Officer, reporting to CEO Nick Beighton, the appointment being the third in a series of new hires “designed to strengthen the senior management team”.

It’s interesting that Silén doesn’t come from a specific fashion or retailer background, although his contacts with retail have been deep. In fact, he has had an extensive career in management consultancy, largely at McKinsey & Company, where he was appointed partner in 2012. 

During his 16 years there, he “relaunched and built several new practice areas, including the consultancy's EMEA Retail Operations unit, and focused on delivering insight, strategy and transformation programmes to a range of clients, including online pureplays and omnichannel retailers,” we’re told. 

He starts at Asos on May 5 and “will lead the further development and implementation of the company's strategy with a focus on driving increased performance”.

Silén said that he’s “long harboured ambitions to apply what I've learned in strategic consultancy to a dedicated in-house role. The opportunity to make that move, and to a brand of Asos’s stature and renown, was simply one I couldn't resist.”

As mentioned, the company has made a number of senior appointments in recent months and still has one important role to fill. It said it's still recruiting for a Chief Commercial Officer and an announcement is expected in due course.