Signet Elevates Jamie Singleton in Sweeping Team Reorg
Signet Jewelers Ltd., considered the world’s largest retailer of diamond jewelry, has promoted Jamie Singleton to group president and chief consumer officer, WWD has learned.
While being elevated to a newly created role, Singleton continues to report to chief executive officer Gina Drosos.
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Singleton was president of the Kay, Zales and Peoples divisions and also the corporation’s chief marketing officer. In her new role, she adds responsibilities for the Banter by Piercing Pagoda, continues to oversee the other three divisions, and takes on responsibilities as chief consumer officer, while dropping the chief marketing officer title. Tony Rogers, who joined Signet last August, serves as chief marketing officer and reports to Singleton.
Her promotion was one of several executive changes disclosed by Signet to further the company’s growth and build the executive team supervised by Singleton. Among the changes:
Bill Brace, formerly president of Jared, was promoted to president of Kay.
Kecia Caffie, previously president of Banter by Piercing Pagoda, was promoted to president of Zales and will lead the development of designer brand partnerships starting with PDPAOLA.
Amy Robinson, formerly at Michael Stores, has become president of Banter by Piercing Pagoda.
Stacee Johnson Williams was promoted to managing director of Peoples Jewellers and senior vice president, merchandise planning and inventory, Kay Jewelers, and continues to work on Signet’s MPI platform.
Brace, Caffie, Robinson and Johnson all report to Singleton, as does Georg Leifheit, who continues as vice president of global merchandise sourcing.
“We’ve been on both a cultural and business transformation journey in recent years to evolve Signet into the growth and innovation leader of the jewelry industry,” Drosos said in a statement. “We believe the changes we’re sharing today will help us further our evolution as we continue to innovate for our customers, accelerate our growth, strengthen our culture and expand our leadership of the jewelry industry while we continue to invest and develop our people.”
Singleton said the reorganized team is “poised to continue driving growth and differentiation, keeping our customers at the heart of everything we do. Today’s announcement further illustrates the depth and breadth of talent we have on the Signet leadership team.”
Singleton, a 30-year veteran of retailing, had been president of Kay, Zales and Peoples since March 2019, and is credited with helping to grow Signet from $6 billion to more than $8 billion in sales. The three jewelry brands comprise more than 60 percent of Signet’s business.
Singleton was instrumental in integrating Zale Corp. into the Signet portfolio and has been instrumental in developing consumer insights and data analytics, enabling Signet to better predict consumer trends, improve product planning, and differentiate each banner’s value proposition as well as more accurately target customer outreach and marketing, according to the company. She’s also been managing vendor relationships — from North America to India — involving product innovation and navigating supply-demand challenges resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
In her previous roles, she served as executive vice president of Zales and Peoples; senior vice president/general manager of Piercing Pagoda for Zale Corp., head of Bella Pictures; SVP of David’s Bridal, and various positions at May Merchandising, Federated Department Stores and Saks Inc.
In other changes:
Joan Hilson takes on the expanded role of chief financial strategy and services officer.
Lisa Walker becomes president of jewelry services.
Oded Edelman expands his role as chief digital innovation officer and president, Pure Play Retailers, which now includes leadership of R2Net and the accessible luxury brands, James Allen and Blue Nile.
Bill Luth is expanding his role as executive vice president of global store operations, which now includes the Banter Store and Ops Administration teams.
Signet operates about 2,800 stores primarily under the banners Kay Jewelers, Zales, Jared, Banter by Piercing Pagoda, Diamonds Direct, JamesAllen.com, Blue Nile, Peoples, H. Samuel and Ernest Jones.
