• New position reflects company’s focus on customer engagement
  • Role will also involve overseeing PR, VIP services and graphics team
  • Roscop has headed marketing arm for five years

River Island has promoted marketing boss Josie Roscop to the new position of customer director in a bid to drive engagement with shoppers.

The fashion chain said the creation of the new role was part of a strategy to increase engagement with customers across its different product divisions and touchpoints.

In the new role, River Island’s former marketing director will be responsible for building the chain’s customer relationships as well as heading up PR, VIP services and the graphics team.

Roscop will establish metrics for understanding the retailer’s relationship with customers across all of the channels and will create new strategies for customer enagement.

River Island is the latest retailer to add the role of customer director to its management team. John Lewis promoted marketing director Craig Ingles to customer director as part of a shake-up of the management team in September, while etailer Notonthehighstreet recently appointed a customer director.

River Island chief executive Ben Lewis said: “We are delighted that Josie will be taking on the role of customer director. She brings a wealth of experience to this role, having directed the River Island marketing team for several years, and was a natural choice to help us as we seek to deepen our customer relationships.

“Josie’s excellent knowledge of our customers will greatly support River Island’s ongoing mission to make sure that our customers have the best possible experience at all points in their journey with us.“