“What’s old is new.”

Nah, old is old.

“We’ve got to get back to our roots.”

Really? Have you ever heard of a tree leaving its roots behind and trying to get back to them?

“We lost our way”

And so on and so on.

These are examples of the word salad that companies like to use when talking about re-branding, hiring a new CEO or big turnaround plans.

So here’s a new one, the hiring of Chief Product Officers (CPOs) with the revelation that in fashion: Product is king, again.

Wait. If product is king, again…then why was it de-throned in the first place?

Regardless of the answer, this is a demonstrative (not in a good way) exercise in walking around the block to go next door.

A recent Business of Fashion article (https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/workplace-talent/chief-product-officers-are-fashions-new-power-players/) describes how Chief Product Officers are the new power players in fashion.

The thinking, correctly so, is that CPOs are best to speak to the product because they should be merchants at heart. They have spent (and continue to spend) time in store and have a broad range of experience in merch, planning and/or design.

And, as a related point, we have previously written about talent development and a “merchandising imperative” as it relates to the retail CEO role. Reason being, the person taking the top job should be someone who spent time in stores and has merchandising chops.

If we see more CPOs emerge at retailers and brands, then such a person would be an almost-immediate CEO candidate.

But, let me throw this at you.

Perhaps this movement towards hiring CPOs is not as innovative as companies want you to believe.

Let’s go back about 40 years to Richard Foster and his book “Innovation – The Attacker’s Advantage.”

Consider these notable quotables found in chapter ten:

1 – “Companies led by technical or marketing people out-performed those run by financial people by a substantial margin.”

2 – “CEOs of the 400 largest companies mentioned that their 2nd most trusted advisor is the top financial officer.”

3 – “In many cases, R&D managers are not broad enough to relate to the CEO. The best R&D chiefs have direct line operating experience.”

4 – “The best R&D chiefs are qualified for the CEO’s job.”

In Foster’s case, he talks extensively about chemical, technology and the related categories of companies. Hence, he references the R&D function. From my perspective, the R&D function for Foster is parallel to the CPO in fashion.

Both are responsible for driving the creation of new innovations. Both are valuable with direct experience (CPOs in store and R&D Chiefs having conducted research) and so on.

Foster argues that the R&D people need to become more of a trusted advisor to the CEO. And, I would argue the CPO needs to be much of the same in fashion.

As much as CPOs are responsible for speaking to the product, they are just as much tasked with translating the CEOs vision into reality. Provided, of course, the relationship between the two is strong.

Further, the CPO must be accountable for ensuring that there is open, honest and frequent communication between merchandising, marketing, store leaders, supply chain and so on.

Retail operates in a notoriously siloed manner, and CPOs need to smash the silos to get the job done.

If they can accomplish that, then perhaps product will be safe from corporate regicide.

As a bonus, that nagging issue of a lack of a CEO talent pipeline? It becomes remedied because a clear and obvious succession plan begins to emerge.