What: Peek & Cloppenburg is merging its previously separate Düsseldorf and Vienna buying and merchandising organizations into one group-wide structure effective October 1, led by newly appointed Managing Director Simone Heift.

Why it is important: Centralising buying across previously separate national organisations tests how much local market autonomy a multi-country department-store group is willing to trade for group-wide efficiency and brand-partner leverage.

Peek & Cloppenburg's parent company, JC Switzerland Holding, is restructuring the group's buying and merchandising organisation. Until now, the buying operations of P&C Düsseldorf and P&C Wien have run separately; from October 1, they will merge into a single group-wide organisation responsible for all markets. The unified function, headed by newly appointed Managing Director Simone Heift, will be split into five departments: Strategic Buying, Merchandise Planning, Buying Procurement, Strategic Brand Partnerships, and Strategic Store Development, with additional functional expertise gathered in a "Center of Excellence."

Chairman and CEO Stefano Della Valle framed the move as aligning the organisation with its strategic goals, citing confidence in the brand and business model and a commitment to clearly defined responsibilities across sales organisations and central service functions. The restructuring is also intended to strengthen collaboration with external brand partners, ensuring end-to-end accountability from strategic direction through local execution with market order-management teams. JC Switzerland Holding, founded in October 2021, oversees P&C's portfolio, including Ansons, Magasin du Nord, and JC New Retail, and is tasked with driving strategic initiatives and acquisitions across the group.

IADS Notes: Reorganising buying and merchandising leadership has become a recurring lever for department stores managing transformation. John Lewis restructured its buying and merchandising teams under CEO Peter Ruis, adding 48 new roles to re-establish individual category leadership (Retail Gazette, August 2024). Liberty took a similar route, creating a unified group buying and merchandising director role during its 150th-anniversary transformation (Fashion Network, January 2025). At Galeries Lafayette, the promotion of Alix Morabito to director of offer and buying doubled the group's exclusive collaborations as part of a broader management reshuffle under new CEO Arthur Lemoine (Les Echos, April 2026). Notably, KaDeWe Group's promotion of Julie Gasperini to director of buying followed the departure of Simone Heift, who left after shaping KaDeWe's merchandising strategy for over a decade (Fashion United, April 2026) — the same Simone Heift now taking charge of P&C's newly unified buying organization.

Peek & Cloppenburg restructures buying and merchandising organisation