PVH Names Zac Coughlin Chief Financial Officer

Calvin Klein Collection RTW Fall 2021 Courtesy of Calvin Klein Collection

The pieces are falling into place at Stefan Larsson’s PVH Corp.

The company named Zac Coughlin executive vice president and chief financial officer, effective April 4. Coughlin will report to Larsson, who is chief executive officer, and will oversee all the company’s finances. Jim Holmes, who has been serving as interim CFO, will continue on as executive vice president, controller.

The hiring gives PVH, parent to Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, a new point person for Wall Street just as Larsson prepares to lay out the company’s multiyear vision at its first investor day in more than a decade in April.

Larsson said: “Zac brings over 20 years of high performance financial and operational leadership with best-in-class global companies. His deep strength in financial management and consistent track record of value creation has been built on his strong business acumen, operational capabilities and ability to cut through complexity. Zac’s leadership will be an important addition to our management team as we set out to build PVH’s next growth chapter.”

Coughlin joins from DFS Group, a subsidiary of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, where he was CFO and chief operating officer. Before that he was CFO at Converse, a division of Nike, and held a number of finance jobs at Ford Motor Co. and worked in Asia and Europe.

While CFOs are seen as the ultimate number crunchers from the outside, the role has evolved to become much more strategic, with finance departments playing key roles in broader corporate initiatives.

CFOs also handle a lot of the day-to-day management of Wall Street analysts and investors — to the extent they can be managed.

“I look forward to working with Stefan and the full PVH team to build out and execute the next chapter of growth for the company, drive sustainable, profitable growth and build on the strength of its people and iconic brands,” Coughlin said.