Claire Pearl is new Hotter product chief

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Oct 22, 2019

Comfort shoe brand Hotter Shoes has named Claire Pearl as chief product officer as it continues to restructure its management team following its appointment of Ian Watson as CEO earlier this year.

Pearl has a strong track record in the UK and was previously buying and merchandising director at fashion retailer Hobbs. She held the same title at Phase Eight over a four-year period and before that had been at The White Company for nine years.

As the new product chief, which is a completely new role for the company, she will be in charge of Hotter’s range, structure and development cycle. She’s also being tasked with "revitalising" the collection, "making it more relevant for our core demographic and transforming its commerciality for the emerging, and growing, markets we are targeting internationally,” CEO Watson said.

As well as naming a new CEO this year (Watson having joined after running kids’ footwear brand Start-Rite), earlier this month Adam Griggs was appointed its new finance chief.

But we shouldn't expect any more big executive changes as the CEO said “Claire is a key appointment for Hotter and completes the restructuring of our leadership team.”

Hotter Shoes isn’t at the cutting edge of fashion trends but the company seems to have struck a chord with its “stylishly comfortable” positioning and earlier this year said that it was selling around 350 pairs of its trainers a day. It will be interesting to see how it develops given Pearl's new revitalisation mission.