Canada’s Birks Group has announced that Pasquale (Pat) Di Lillo, its vice president and chief financial officer for the past five years, has decided to leave the company on Jan. 17, 2020, to “pursue personal interests.”
His role will be filled by Katia Fontana, who will take over as vice president and CFO on Jan. 13, 2020.
Fontana has more than 25 years of experience in finance and accounting, 14 years of which were spent in the retail industry. She was recently CFO at Avenir Global, a holding company for communications and public relations firms. Prior to that, she worked at apparel retailer Groupe Dynamite from 2004 to 2018, eventually becoming its CFO. She began her career at Big Four accounting firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, where she worked from 1993 to 2004.
Di Lillo said in a statement, “I have been with Birks Group for five years and have immensely enjoyed my time with the company. However, it is now time to take care of some personal matters and move onto the next stage of my life.… The opportunities that lie ahead for the [Birks Group] are great as we look to the further development of the Birks brand into an international brand.”
Said Jean-Christophe Bédos in a statement: “For the past five years, Pat has been an important member of our senior management team. We are grateful for his guidance and leadership during the implementation of the company’s transformational strategy.”
Birks Group was formerly known as Birks & Mayors until Birks sold the Mayors chain in 2017 to Aurum Holdings for $104.6 million. Aurum now goes by the name of its flagship brand, Watches of Switzerland.
Birks, which is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, operates 27 stores under the Birks brand in the major metropolitan markets of Canada, one retail location in Calgary under the Brinkhaus brand, and two retail locations in Vancouver under the Graff and Patek Philippe brands.
In its latest financial results, Birks Group reported a 24% increase in sales for the first six months of 2019, but a $2.1 million operating loss.
(Logo courtesy of Birks Group Inc.)
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