Ulrik Rasch, who joined the business in November 2015 as global supply chain director, has assumed the role of CEO, a position formerly held by Paul Moonga.
Moonga took the reins from Endless founder Jesper Nielsen in June 2015, but less than 12 months later, the company’s board of directors announced that he – along with chief financial officer Hans Jørgen Krabbenhøft and chief marketing officer Mikkel Berg – had decided to “end the collaboration [with Endless’ board of directors] and part ways going forward”.
All three will leave the company at the end of May.
The news followed Nielsen’s shock announcement in February 2016 that he would depart Endless to work on “new projects and creations”. Nielsen has since launched another jewellery business, Amazing Jewelry.
Acknowledging the slew of staffing changes, an Endless statement explained, “Over the course of the last two months, Endless Jewelry has been undergoing a significant reshaping. Endless is working to make the organisation more efficient, strengthen the sales and distribution structure, and ensure that Endless Jewelry continues to remain relevant to consumers.”
Endless chairman Henrik Sanders explained it had been unanimously decided that Rasch was “the right person to … lead the company through the next phase of making Endless Jewelry a profitable business and realise the continued ambitions from the owners and the board”.
Rasch said he was looking forward to leading Endless through “a period of consolidation and refocus”.
“My most important short-term focus will be to strengthen the [company] core and continue to develop an organisational and commercial set-up that enables us to profitably and sustainably capture the growth ahead of us.”
Local reassurance
Peter Jakobsen, managing partner of Endless local distributor Nordic Jewellery, said the organisational changes within Endless global headquarters would not impact the Australian and New Zealand markets.
Commenting on the stability of the business, Jakobsen said although “there is no question that Endless has expanded too fast”, the company had a “solid” foundation backed by professional investors.
“We [Nordic Jewellery] understand that the last six months has been all about cleaning up and restructuring the business,” he said. “The time has now come to move forward. We trust this will strengthen the Endless brand.”
In terms of the supplier’s performance in the local market, Jakobsen said there were some positive sales over the Mother’s Day period and that one of the jewellery buying groups had recently named Endless as its fourth best-selling brand.
“We are very humble to have so many professional retailers on board with Nordic Jewellery and we will continue to focus on getting key elements right,” he added.
Since the company was founded in 2013, Endless has established around 3,000 retail stockists across Europe, the US and Asia.
The brand launched in Australia in February 2015, although the first local product delivery was delayed to August 2015.
Endless currently has 163 retail stockists in Australia and 12 in New Zealand.
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