Recognizing the confluence of digital and marketing in today’s retail environment, rue21 has promoted Brett Trent to the newly created position of Chief Marketing Officer. Trent has been the teen retailer’s Chief Digital Officer for the past two years and prior to that was SVP of Digital Retail. Together with Chief Customer Officer Liz Hodges, Trent will expand rue21’s use of data and technology to more closely interact with customers at every brand touch point, including online, social media and stores.
The new job of Chief Operating Officer will be taken by Dirk Armstrong. He has been with rue21 for five years, most recently as SVP and Director of Stores. As COO, Armstrong will focus on driving the strategic vision of the retailer’s 1,200+ brick-and-mortar stores; managing the retailer’s 21,000 field employees; and transforming the brand’s Girl’s in-store experience to meet the merchandise transformation being led by Chief Merchandising Officer Nina Barjesteh.
“We’re excited to have both Dirk and Brett moving forward in these new roles for the company,” said Keith McDonough, Interim CEO in a statement. “We have clear goals in 2017 to transform the customer experience and Girls’ merchandise offering, while being completely customer-centric, and we could not have two better leaders on our team supporting this transformation.”
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At this point rue21 is not planning to fill the Chief Digital Officer and Director of Stores positions that Trent and Armstrong are vacating.