Foot Locker has announced a realignment of its operating model into three geographic regions: Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Asia-Pacific and North America. In redistributing resources among the company's international businesses, the move will support a primary goal, which is to expand business in Asia.
In February 2018, according to the company's 2017 financial report, there were only 98 Foot Locker brand stores in Asia-Pacific, compared with 1,021 in North America (910 in the U.S. and 111 in Canada) and 636 in Europe. This excludes Kids Foot Locker, Lady Foot Locker, Champs, Runners Point and other banners owned by the group.
Over the past year, Foot Locker has opened stores and launched digital channels in Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. It has also managed to take a selection of products to market in China, thanks to a limited partnership with Tmall, the Chinese-language B2C online retailer. In December, moreover, the company opened an Asian head office in Singapore.
Foot Locker has promoted two executives to lead the new foreign divisions. Lew Kimble, the Australian executive who has been running Foot Locker Europe since 2010, has been made executive vice president and chief executive for Asia-Pacific, and Vijay Talwar, who has been running the group's digital operations since 2016, has taken his place as executive vice president and chief executive for EMEA. Stephen “Jake” Jacobs will continue as executive vice president and chief executive for North America.
Kimble, naturally, will be overseeing the expansion in Asia, driving brand strategy and store growth, looking for new opportunities and bolstering the supply chain. He will also be expanding the region's digital channels, both its corporate websites and its presence on Tmall. Kimble has been with Foot Locker since 1976, when he was hired as a store clerk. He served as managing director and CEO for Foot Locker Asia Pacific between 2006 and 2010, based in Brisbane, after taking care of real estate operations in Europe for a couple of years. He returned to the Netherlands in 2010 as president and CEO of Foot Locker Europe. While still running its European business, he was promoted to the position of executive vice president and chief executive of Foot Locker International in 2016.
In 2014, Kimble was the first executive from the sports retail sector to join the board of directors of Fesi, the Federation of the European Sporting Goods Industry.
At Foot Locker Europe, Talwar will be striving to increase productivity and expand the company's multi-channel business in EMEA. He will oversee strategies for the development of the Foot Locker and Runners Point banners as well as operational functions such as finance, marketing, merchandising and the in-store customer experience. Since joining the company in 2016 as president of Digital and Footlocker.com/Eastbay, Talwar has focused on Foot Locker's omni-channel business. He has over 20 years of experience in consumer products and the online and retail sectors. He has worked with Sears Holdings, Blue Nile and Nike.
