GrandVision N.V. has found its next chief executive. Stephan Borchert will be moving from Sephora to take up the position by April next year. Borchert, 47, has in-depth retail experience gathered from his years as president of Red Earth in Hong Kong and managing director of the international business of Douglas, a multinational cosmetics company with 750 retail locations in 18 countries.
Currently president of Sephora in charge of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Borchert, a German national, manages more than 1,000 locations in 23 countries for that chain of cosmetics stores, owned by LVMH. Borchert started his career with Peek & Cloppenburg and later became a partner at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. As a member of the executive board at Celesio, he was later responsible for over 2,200 company-owned pharmacies in numerous countries.
Borchert will replace Theo Kiesselbach, who is planning to retire in 2018 after more than 16 years with the Hal group. He will be proposed as an additional member of GrandVision's management board at a shareholders meeting in December.
GrandVision operates over 6,600 stores in more than 40 countries across Europe, the Americas, the Middle East and Asia. The group's banners include Apollo, Avanzi, Pearle Europe, Vision Express, Grand Optical, Instrumentarium, For Eyes and other optical retail chains.