Unexpected news for the retail market – in July, three top managers left Wildberries at once. Olga Naumova, the executive director hired a month ago, decided to quit. She had previously demonstrated high efficiency in FMCG, in particular in X5 and Magnit. In the same month, another executive director left the marketplace – Alexey Dukhanin, who had been building a career in Yagodki since 2020, and before that worked in the Russian Trade Mission in Slovakia, and financial director Irina Matachiunas, about whom it is known from open sources that she worked in a similar position in Sbermarket.
Information about the departure of three top managers at once was published by Forbes with reference to a source on the morning of July 15, but closer to the evening the press service of Wildberries stated that Naumova was still working in the company, but did not specify whether she was working the required two weeks, or had decided to stay for a long time. The departure of Dukhanina and Matačunas was confirmed by the company.
The main reason for Naumova’s departure, who joined the company about a month ago, was disagreements with the owner Tatyana Bakalchuk, the publication reported. It was expected that Naumova would be engaged in improving the operational efficiency of warehouse and transport logistics, and developing the pick-up point network. Bakalchuk was interested in Naumova’s experience in both federal and regional retail.
“Naumova thought she would manage the processes, and Tatyana was not going to give up control,” one of the publication’s sources assured. At the same time, Bakalchuk previously stated that she considered it wrong for the company to have only one leader. The source did not name the reasons for the resignation of two more top managers. In 2020, when Naumova left the post of CEO of Magnit, the then president of the chain Jan Dunning told the FT about “cultural inconsistencies” with her and called six months of working on the same team “difficult.”
The company has not yet specified who will replace Dukhanin and Matačunas, and possibly Naumova.
Why did the leaders leave?
According to market participants, the departure of Wildberries top managers could have been expected, since a month ago the company announced a merger with the Russ group.
“When you chop down a forest, the chips fly, such processes are always accompanied by personnel changes, but it is impossible to say for sure whether there is a connection in this case. At Ozon, for example, there are also certain personnel changes in the management and GR block,” RB.RU stated. Chairman of the AUREC Council Alexander Efimov. The expert believes that during the merger with the Russ group, WB could have acquired new serious stakeholders.
According to Efimov, the dismissed top managers were significant for the company.
“The importance of Dukhanin as GR director and Matačunas as financial director is difficult to overestimate, because these are the basic areas of activity for the marketplace,” said the chairman of the AUREC board.
Market participants placed “certain hopes on the creativity and fresh perspective” of Olga Naumova, although they did not expect global changes.
“She is a person from offline retail, where the rules of conduct are completely different,” Efimov added.
AUREC believes that certain changes in the operation of the marketplace will occur due to the departure of managers.
“Wildberries is a company where people manage processes and rules, and not the other way around. As far as we know, the development of key decisions will remain with the current team, the composition of which has not changed,” the expert specified.
President of AKIT Artem Sokolov believes that staff rotation is a normal and natural process for any sector; in retail, it happens all the time.
“It is quite possible that we will see former Wildberries top managers in other key positions in the industry,” Sokolov said. The expert added that the success of each individual company is, first and foremost, teamwork, which allows the enterprise to adapt to any challenges and determine its development strategy.
“In the short term, strategy is a company’s work plan for the year, and all the tasks of this plan are implemented regardless of whether the personnel changes,” emphasized Sokolov from AKIT.
Half a year to search
Finding new managers to replace those who left will not be easy, the market for such specialists is narrow. HR Director of SberResheniy Margarita Bogdanova-Shemraeva believes that it may take large companies up to six months to fill vacancies in top management.
“The thing is that the market for specialists with the necessary competencies is narrow: to attract external candidates, you will most likely need to resort to headhunting. The option of personal connections and recommendations is also not excluded, when through “a few handshakes” organizations look for a suitable employee. Moreover, “pulling” major specialists from other companies is quite likely,” says Bogdanova-Shemraeva.
Another solution is to lower the requirements for the position and hire an internal employee who is as prepared as possible for this role and responsibility, but in this case, adaptation will take more than 3 months, and you will also have to invest in additional training.
“It is unlikely that you will be able to occupy a position of this level in less than 3-6 months,” the HR expert stated.
Nikita Ryabinin, head of the Luxembourg office of KRK Group, believes that there is no need to dramatize the departure of top managers or look for a conspiracy theory in this, since the managers who left the marketplace did not create it.
According to Ryabinin, professionals could have come to the project expecting to manage all operational activities 100% and be responsible for the results to the owners, but this did not happen.
“In situations where such a mandate is verbally given at the beginning of the journey, and then it turns out that the founders or the board of directors are too involved in operational activities, disagreements may arise,” the expert emphasized.
Wildberries efficiency
According to estimates by the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Russian Federation, the Wildberries marketplace’s share of the online trade market at the beginning of 2024 was 47%, while its closest competitor Ozon accounted for 35.5%.
AUREC believes that, on the one hand, WB is showing efficiency, has captured almost half of the market and has a high net profit, but on the other hand, it often behaves “like an elephant in a china shop,” although in this regard there have also been improvements.
“In operational and tactical terms, the WB management team is certainly effective and has gone through a large number of “growing pains”. Now, in my opinion, it is time for Wildberries to show not just quantitative indicators, but also to demonstrate strategic solutions in the field of “sustainable development”, responding to challenges in the field of social responsibility, business ethics, human rights, ecology, and so on. How the WB management team copes with these tasks – we will see, but this will be the main indicator of its effectiveness,” added the chairman of the AUREC board, Efimov.
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According to Data Insight forecast, in 2024, sales volume in the Russian eCommerce market will reach 10.2 trillion rubles, an increase of 30%;
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The number of completed orders in the eCommerce market will reach 7 billion (+42%);
- E-Commerce turnover growth to slow in 2024;
- WB’s turnover in 2023 exceeded 2.5 trillion rubles, and by the end of 2024, its growth is expected to be 60%, Tatyana Bakalchuk reported;
- Wildberries and Russ created a joint company, to which WB contributed 19 subsidiaries.
Cover photo: darksoul72 /
Source: rb.ru
