Asos has snapped up its first chief growth officer, also the first in a series of executive hires to bolster its leadership team.

The online fashion goliath has hired retail newcomer Robert Birge, most recently chief marketing officer at Blink Healthcare, for the role.

It is a new post for Asos and for the UK retail industry more generally. As Peel Hunt analyst John Stevenson observes: “If you asked me to name all the businesses that have a chief growth officer I could name Asos, and that would be it.”

Robert Birge

Robert Birge

So what does a chief growth officer do exactly? And, given that growth was surely something Asos was focused on already, why does it need one now?

There is a level of ambiguity about what Birge’s role will entail and how it will fit into Asos’ existing structure.

MBS Group’s managing partner Moira Benigson says: “A chief growth officer is usually a staple in B2B organisations more than a B2C role. It generally covers business development, sales, marketing and product, so it will be interesting to see how they knit that remit into a traditional buying and merchandising led business.”

Indeed, businesses ranging from Coco-Cola to Hershey’s and Kellogg’s all have chief growth officers, and a report from marketing intelligence platform Singular found that 14% of companies in the US have a CGO position - although it is a newer title in the UK and an even newer one for retail specifically.

Altrua founding partner Lucy Harris concurs with the view that Birge’s appointment and job title will bring a different perspective to Asos’ executive team.

“A chief growth officer is generally an appointment which will go across multiple functionalities, similar to a chief customer officer or chief digital officer. They tend to work laterally across all functions while owning a specific subject such as growth and how that interfaces with everything in the organisation – be it brand, customer or route to market.”

Birge has been tasked with “driving profitable growth and integrating the company’s marketing efforts with strategic planning, analytics and customer experience” in his new role and will lead Asos’ 170-strong marketing division and 1,200-strong customer care operation.

Executive search firm Bailey Montagu’s consumer and retail partner Victoria Nightingale believes that Birge’s appointment more broadly signals Asos attempting to diversify the perspectives of its executive team.

“If you look at Asos’ values it is all about bringing in something different – the business is not interested in repeating skills, it wants to bring someone new to the party.”

“What Asos need at board level is someone who will challenge the business on its marketing spend, who will fight that corner and fight for that budget”

John Stevenson, Peel Hunt

She observes that Birge’s lack of direct retail experience may have made him more attractive as a candidate, particularly when combined with his focus on international and digital in his career to date.

“I feel like Asos and retail more generally is crying out for something different at the moment, and it is hard to change things when there is so much uncertainty externally. Strategy or transformation officers have been brought in as an attempt to change businesses in the past and this seems like the next iteration of that,” she says.

Harris echoes that view and says that Birge’s appointment signals the beginning of Asos moving away from a traditional leadership structure to a more evolved one.

“Asos has top-line growth but the bottom line isn’t there and because they have been going so fast there is a lot of stuff which hasn’t been done properly from an operational perspective, which has seen them run into trouble over the last 12 to 18 months,” she says.

Stronger leadership

The once infallible fashion etailer has issued two profit warnings over the last year, which it attributed to teething problems in its US warehouse and falling consumer confidence, putting chief executive Nick Beighton under pressure.

Although the business registered a 13% increase in group revenues to in excess of £2.7bn in its full-year results last month, the raft of incoming executive appointments could indicate that the business’ recent operational issues have been a wake-up call for the robustness of its executive team.

Harris says that a strengthened leadership team will allow Beighton to iron out operational kinks across the business as they happen while Birge and the retailer’s incoming chief strategy officer will focus on more long-term plays for the business.

“I believe we will see a few more of these types of people, who are focused achieve growth in a new retail landscape and through new models of business,” she says.

Nightingale agrees and says: ”Perhaps these newer roles are more about bringing in whizz kids who come up with wide-ranging, off the wall ideas, which the chief executive and chief operating officer then cherry-pick and implement.”

Birge’s background is primarily in US ecommerce businesses covering sectors ranging from travel to healthcare, and he has held several chief marketing officer titles over the years.

For that reason, Stevenson believes that despite the unusual title, Birge’s new role effectively be that of a chief marketing officer in all but name – which he believes the business is in serious need of.

He says: “Historically Asos has always been in the prime place in the market so has not done vast amounts in terms of overt marketing. But today, when you compare them to Boohoo and how they market a brand or product launch across the London Underground, social and TV it is clear they have lost ground. What Asos need at board level is someone who will challenge the business on its marketing spend, who will fight that corner and fight for that budget.”

Whether Birge has been brought in to shake up how Asos operates or just challenge its perspective on marketing, shareholders will hope his appointment will signal a return to form for a business after a difficult period.