Jérôme Dubreuil had taken up the position of CDO or Chief Digital Officer at Decathlon in 2020. His mission to initiate the digital transformation of the distributor and manufacturer of sporting goods has been accomplished.
In particular, he “made the company evolve from an approach focused on information technology (IT) towards a digital approach”, underlines Decathlon, which thus formalizes the appointment of its new digital director.
A professional career in 16 countries
To succeed Jérôme Dubreuil, the group with 105,000 employees (325 stores in France and 1,751 worldwide) has recruited Jimena Almendares. His new employer insists in particular on his “more than 20 years of experience focused on innovation”, his managerial expertise and leadership of international teams.
“His professional career was forged in 16 countries”, thus highlights Decathlon. The new CDO has held positions with multinationals such as Intuit – notably as CEO of the Intuit Payments subsidiary – and at Meta.
Within the Gafam founded by Mark Zuckerberg, Jimena Almendares had the title of director of customer experience. The chief digital officer – three times national figure skating champion – will be able to import her experience into this sector.
His main mission at Decathlon will also be to “create a global user experience, the best in its category.” And the CEO of the company, Barbara Martin Coppola, to insist on the place of digital.
Mission: create a global customer experience
“Digital is integrated into each of Decathlon’s strategic pillars since it impacts all day-to-day operations. This is to enable our customers to benefit from a high-level digital experience when they choose Decathlon anywhere in the world.”
To carry out its transformation, the brand relies in particular on its digital entity, Decathlon Digital. Composed of 5,000 employees, it develops and deploys technological solutions that meet its business needs, and products for customers.
On the data side, Decathlon has an Analytics Factory, attached to the Data BU of Decathlon Digital. Its mission is to produce analytics at scale for all group employees.
Decathlon aims to advance its Data maturity. To this end, it deploys a self-service or self-analytics approach. In terms of organization, the brand has opted for a federated model headed by a Head of Data and Staff Engineer pair.