Billabong Australia CIO resigns

Billabong Australasia's chief information officer Wayne Marchant will begin 2016 with his eye on greener pastures, after stepping down from the retailer to hunt for new opportunities.

Wayne Marchant

Marchant spent almost three years as regional CIO at Billabong, and two-and-a-half years as the company's local group IT manager prior to that.

During his time he helped deliver the group's technology-enabled transformation following a widely-publicised $860 million loss in 2012.

The resulting 2013 turnaround strategy included a big investment into digital and CRM in the hopes that tightly integrating bricks and mortar and online retail would boost sales by more than 30 percent by 2018.

The transformation involved the purchase of a NetSuite e-commerce platform aimed at providing the retailer a real-time, omni-channel approach to its sales. The Australian group is first in line for the transition and is expected to be fully migrated to the platform by April.

The retailer revealed in August the tech effort helped deliver its first annual profit in four years.

Billabong said it has undertaken a search process for Marchant's replacement and would make a new appointment "in due course".

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