Pangaia CEO Exits Role | BoF

Krishna Nikhil has stepped down as CEO of Pangaia to return to his residence city of Toronto for household causes, the corporate mentioned Friday.

The previous guide and Ssense CMO joined the enterprise simply over 18 months in the past, with a mandate to ship on ambitions to determine the pandemic-era success story as a supplies science powerhouse. He stays an advisor to the corporate, whereas CFO and co-founder Nathalie Longuet has stepped into the chief government position, Pangaia mentioned.

The change comes at an unsure time for the eco-innovation enterprise. The corporate emerged as considered one of fashion’s hottest start-ups in 2020, promoting brightly colored tracksuits that have been an ideal match for the lockdown second. Nevertheless it has struggled to maintain that business momentum or show out its broader strategic imaginative and prescient of leveraging its merchandise to develop a extra disruptive and profitable enterprise promoting climate-friendly materials improvements to the remainder of the trade.

The corporate’s challenges have been already evident when Nikhil joined as its first ever CEO in March of 2022. After recording an working revenue of $16.6 million in 2020 (its first yr in operation), the corporate swung to a loss of $41.5 million in 2021, in response to public accounts filed this February.

Efforts to optimise the corporate’s digital platform and broaden its footprint in shops like Selfridges, Galeries Lafayette and La Rinascente helped put the direct-to-consumer model again on observe for profitability this yr, the corporate informed BoF in March. It additionally put in place plans to heavily cut back staff and transfer its headquarters from London to Switzerland this Spring, in response to an inside memo seen by BoF in April.

The corporate mentioned it’s progressing nicely in the direction of its monetary targets for the yr and that it continues to work with Nikhil on varied initiatives.

Be taught extra:

Can Pangaia Be More Than a Loungewear Brand?

After swinging to an working lack of $41 million in 2021, the buzzy style start-up has stabilised and stays targeted on its ambition to construct a supplies science enterprise.