Kenna Florie to bebe

Kenna Florie - Shop-eat-surf file photo

A former high-profile senior executive at Quiksilver started a new job at contemporary retailer bebe today.

Kenna Florie, VP of Sales and Marketing at the now defunct Quiksilver Women’s division, joins bebe as Senior Vice President of Marketing. She will report to CEO Steve Birkhold, who joined the company a year ago after previous experience at Lacoste, Diesel and VF Corp.

At Quiksilver, Kenna oversaw all sales and marketing for QSW and Quiksilver Girls, including the launch of the division. Before that, she was Vice President of Marketing at Roxy for seven years. All told, she worked at Quiksilver for 14 years.




I asked Kenna, who has been busy working on several significant consulting projects since leaving Quiksilver, what attracted her to the bebe job.

She said via email, “I wanted to come to bebe because I’m excited about the plans that Steve has for the brand. I love being a part of change!”

Bebe currently operates 230 stores in the U.S. and Canada. According to its latest annual report, bebe plans to spend $28 million on marketing in Fiscal 2014.

For the fiscal year ended July 6, 2013, bebe had net sales of $485 million, according to its annual report.