IKEA has promoted longtime company executive Jesper Brodin to CEO effective Sept. 1, according to reports from Bloomberg and Fortune. Brodin will replace CEO Peter Agnefjall, who is stepping down after holding the role since 2013.
A 22-year veteran at IKEA, Brodin is currently the Managing Director of the IKEA of Sweden unit, but he has worked in various departments including purchasing, product-range development, logistics and group management. Brodin has worked in locations from Pakistan and China to Denmark and Sweden, and once served as the assistant to the company’s founder, Ingvar Kamprad.
The CEO change doesn’t appear to be related to the company’s financial state. In its most recent fiscal year, which ended in August 2016, IKEA’s sales rose 7.1% to €34.2 billion ($38.2 billion). The CEO change won’t affect IKEA’s long-held goal of raising annual revenue to €50 billion ($56.07 billion) by 2020, according to its chairman. Although the retailer has traditionally stayed away from e-Commerce, in 2015 IKEA pledged to increase e-Commerce sales from approximately €1 billion per year to at least €5 billion by 2020 in order to meet its targeted sustained overall growth rate of 10% per year.
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In an interview with Bloomberg, Agnefjall indicated that it was “a natural time for me to take a change of path.” He noted that the position involves “working 365 days a year, 15 to 16 hours per day, and at some point one needs to hand over to the next generation.”
Ikea plans to open 18 new stores next year, with Agnefjall noting that the company sees “big opportunities” for additional expansion within the Chinese and Indian markets.
