- Bonobos founder Andy Dunn is departing from Walmart in early 2020. Dunn had sold Bonobos to Walmart for $310 million in 2017.
Bonobos founder Andy Dunn is departing from Walmart in early 2020. Dunn had sold Bonobos to the Arkansas-based retail giant for $310 million in 2017.
While at Walmart, Dunn was overseeing some of the company’s digital transformations. Before Dunn leaves, he will be working with the merchandising and brand leadership executives to ensure a smooth transition. Last year, Micky Onvural was promoted from the CMO of Bonobos to the CEO position.
“I learned a lot more about retail transformation in the digital age at the world’s biggest company. I watched our strategy evolve as we uncorked our unique advantages on a new omni playing field – and began to identify where we aren’t just catching up, but where we are winning,” said Dunn in a LinkedIn post. “The momentum with online grocery pickup opened my eyes: our thousands of supercenters are an asset nobody else has, so let’s use them. In our digital brands group, that led to development of a strategy built on omni, as we married our talent with the power of Walmart distribution to build brands like Allswell. With my departure, that incubator will now be plugged directly into the Walmart mothership.”
Walmart eCommerce U.S. president & CEO Marc Lore has been heading up the company’s e-commerce efforts and was aggressively making acquisitions for a couple of years after joining the company in 2016.
Lore joined Walmart in 2016 after the retail giant bought his company Jet.com for $3 billion. Before selling Jet.com to Walmart for $3 billion, Lore was one of the co-founders of Quidsi (parent company of Diapers.com), which was acquired by Amazon for $550 million.
Going forward, Walmart decided to pull back from acquiring companies and actually sell off some of its previous acquisitions like Modcloth. And Walmart also considered selling Bonobos as well.
Walmart is now developing e-commerce brands internally. Along with Bonobos and Eloquii, Dunn oversaw the launch of Allswell, which is a mattress brand that Walmart launched last year. This was one of the e-commerce first brands that Walmart developed internally rather than buying.
