The new chief executive of Anaheim-based mall retailer Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. has made his second key hire in as many months.
Gary Schoenfeld, who took over the struggling retailer in June, named a former Urban Outfitters Inc. manager as Pacific Sunwear’s senior vice president and general merchandise manager of clothes for teen girls.
Christine Lee started her career working in Urban Outfitters stores and worked her way up to general merchandise manager of women’s apparel and accessories and other duties for the Philadelphia-based company.
Schoenfeld has been putting his own team in place at Pacific Sunwear. Last month, he hired Robert Cameron, a former Levi Strauss & Co. executive, as senior vice president of marketing.
Pacific Sunwear sells clothes inspired by surfing, skateboarding and snowboarding at some 900 mall stores.
For the better part of two years, Pacific Sunwear has been in a funk as it has struggled with the economic downturn and a shift in tastes toward more edgy, urban styles and trendy, chip clothes known as fast fashion.
Schoenfeld, who earlier ran Cypress-based Vans Inc. before its 2004 sale to North Carolina’s VF Corp., is looking to revive Pacific Sunwear by playing up big clothing brands from Costa Mesa-based Volcom Inc., Huntington Beach’s Quiksilver Inc., Hurley International LLC of Costa Mesa and Irvine-based Billabong USA, among others.
Pacific Sunwear has yearly sales of about $1 billion.
