Malin + Goetz has tapped Brad Horowitz as its first chief executive officer.
Horowitz was most recently president of Amorepacific North America, and has also held positions at L’Oréal USA and Clarins USA. Horowitz’s arrival at the 14-year old brand is expected to give founders Matthew Malin and Andrew Goetz the ability to shift out of day-to-day company-running tasks and back to creative, brand-building ones.
“Matthew and I have become increasingly spread more thinly than we would have liked,” said Goetz. “We realized we needed someone to help us scale the company and to help us do the things we do really well, which includes maintaining the DNA of the company as we expand.”
Malin + Goetz makes a gender-neutral range of prestige skin, body, hair, fragrance and candles, including the recently launched Cannabis Eau de Parfum, $165. The line focuses on sensitive skin. Family office Manzanita made a minority investment in the business in December 2014.
Related Galleries
Horowitz will be in charge of overseeing business expansion, which will include more store openings and an increased focus on digital. Organizing, adding processes and building a “symbiotic relationship” between the brand’s web site and stores are priorities, Horowitz noted.
“The idea is how do we take our brand and really put our foot on the gas and expand our store presence … and then of course, digital,” Goetz said.
“When we started our business, we launched our store, Barneys, our e-commerce and Liberty — our digital was a really small percentage of our sales,” Goetz said. “Now, digital is a really big percentage.” He estimated e-commerce sales hover around 20 percent of the overall business.
Right now, Malin + Goetz has four stores in New York, three in Los Angeles and two in London, and plans to grow that network — in the near-term, with a store in Century City, Calif., and another in Hong Kong — and in the long-term, with stores in markets like Northern California, Boston, Dallas, Houston and Portland.
Bringing in Horowitz is a way for the business to maximize what it’s been doing, Malin said. “The business plan hasn’t changed much since we started. The intent was always to have wholesale, e-commerce and a store network,” Malin said. “What we’re looking to do is grow that even further.”
“We’re retailers,” Goetz said. “We love being retailers, we love stores and we love creating a brand experience…we still use a different design for every single store we build.”
Malin and Horowitz met more than 25-years ago when Malin was a buyer at Barneys and Horowitz was with Clarins. Now that he’s with Malin + Goetz, Horowitz said his long-term goal is to get the company to $100 million in retail sales.
“Generating $100 million at retail is always a good thing to shoot for,” Horowitz said. “We started with a great brand and great positioning so we’re on our way. The next years in front of us are just to build that goal.” The business has been growing at about 30 percent a year, according to industry sources.