Kathmandu hires new CIO

Transnational outdoor clothing and equipment retailer Kathmandu has appointed a new chief information officer following the recent resignation of Grant Taylor, promoting its internal head of enterprise solutions into the role.

Jolann van Dyk

Jolann Van Dyk joined Kathmandu in July last year as the company's enterprise solutions manager. He has 16 years of experience in IT management and consulting across the likes of Hewlett-Packard, Ernst & Young and Intergen.

Kathmandu's former CIO Taylor handed in his notice late last month after accepting a position as the defacto CEO for New Zealand retail group Acland Holdings.

Taylor will stay on at Kathmandu for a few more months to complete the handover to van Dyk.

At the time of his resignation, he told iTnews that after ticking off several successful transformation projects, the business now required someone to manage and make the most of the new capabilities.

“The company needs someone to drive the operational side of things and build those efficiencies into the business," he said last month.

Such capabilities will arise from Taylor's CRM transformation, which installed Microsoft’s Dynamics AX ERP solution as a single source of customer truth and retail inventory at Kathmandu.

All of Kathmandu’s business areas now run on the same Microsoft platform.

“We are now realising the benefits of that especially in terms of being able to access information in real time. I think that has really set Kathmandu up for the future."

More to come