In 2018, Sid Keswani, a former executive at Target Corp. and CEO of grocery chain Fiesta Mart, became head of the Americas for Pandora. Here, he talks with JCK about Pandora’s new way of viewing franchisees, whether it will ever again sell to multibrand retailers, and just what the company has in the pipeline.
What changes does Pandora plan to make to its U.S. division?
In November, we announced that our franchisees are our strong partners, and this thought process around [franchise buybacks] is going to stop. The focus is going to be on how [Pandora and its franchisees] move forward together. We are introducing new omnichannel initiatives in the U.S. where we will share profits with our franchise partners.
Pandora has significantly trimmed its multibrand retail network. Do you see a reversal there?
A few years ago, we closed quite a few locations. We are now looking at it differently. We will have continued partnerships with the multibrand stores. We are looking at some ways to reinvigorate the network across the U.S. There are places that don’t need a full-line store, but a multibrand location would be
a great asset to the market. There are places where we will fill in a few pockets.
What new initiatives can we expect from Pandora?
Last year, we launched a new bracelet, Reflexions. We will continue to support that. We have a beautiful new launch coming, Pandora Garden. We have a good partnership with Disney involving The Lion King. We have a new innovation coming in October, but we can’t give you specifics on that.
Top: The Pandora Reflexions collection