Page 18 - March #170

Yu Garden, Shanghai, China
People, Passion & Places

e world’s largest jewellery brand, Pandora, designs,
manufactures and markets hand- nished jewellery that is
created from high-quality, sustainable materials at a ordable
prices. In this interview, RLI sits down with the company CEO
Alexander Lacik to discuss how the company continues to
evolve its o ering and grow its retail footprint.

ounded 40 years ago by Per and Winnie Enevoldsen, Pandora main markets they also have a presence in such countries as Greece,
began life as a family-run jewellery shop in downtown Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway,
FCopenhagen. However it wasn’t until around the turn of the Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Taiwan.
century and the birth of the Pandora Moments concept that the brand “Looking forward, we feel there is plenty of space for us to grow
really took o and began growing into the global phenomenon that we in Latin America, along with the US where store density is still quite
know today. low,” says Alexander Lacik, CEO of Pandora. “Then in Asia, there
The Pandora Moments concept centres around customers being are tremendous growth opportunities in China across not only tier-
able to build their own bracelets through a series of charms, meaning one cities, but tier-two and tier-three as well. Japan and India are also
every guest can build a product that is unique to them and only them, locations where we have a presence, but a presence we believe we can
o ering a layer of personalisation that has led to worldwide success grow substantially in.”
for the brand. The current CEO took the reins in 2019 and was tasked with
Today the business has 6,773 points of sale, with 2,619 of these building the brand and focusing on the brand experience. “In the seven
being Pandora concept stores with the company owning 1,423 stores to eight months I was in place before the pandemic hit, we undertook
and the rest being mainly operated through franchise agreements or a program that comprised of four parts. The first was brand relevance
through distributor set-ups. and making Pandora relevant for customers again. Second was all
A global brand that operates in over 100 countries across six about brand access and distribution. Next we concentrated on a
continents, its top seven markets are the US, where it has 348 sites, cost reset to help fund points one and two and finally we conducted
China and the UK both have over 200 stores and Italy, Germany, a commercial reset which was designed as a one-year program to
Australia and France are all home to over 100 stores. Aside from these streamline the business,” Lacik explains.
16 RETAIL & LEISURE INTERNATIONAL MARCH 2022