Caroline Brown’s adventure at The North Face is coming to an end.
Bracken Darrell, chief executive officer of parent company VF Corp., said Brown would be stepping down as global brand president of The North Face at the end of March.
Taking up the job will be Chris Goble, who joined VF from Gap Inc. in 2024 to lead the Dickies business until the company pivoted and sold the brand. He is handing off his current role leading VF’s emerging brands portfolio — which includes Altra, Eastpak, Napapijri and Smartwool and others — to Darrell.
That starts to close another chapter for Brown, who was previously CEO of Donna Karan International and DKNY, president of Carolina Herrera and U.S. CEO of Akris. She started her career at Giorgio Armani.
Brown became a director at VF in February 2024, but left the board that June when Darrell tapped her to lead The North Face.
That makes for a tenure of less than two years.
“I needed someone strong who had deep experience with transformation,” Darrell said in a statement. “We needed big change at The North Face and she has done a terrific job. Her time in this role gave us the foundation we were looking for and set us up for another talent to step in with a strong leadership team in place, a new strategy and good momentum.
“She wants to do something else now,” he said. “Looking forward, we are confident in Chris Goble’s leadership and excited to draw on his deep product, merchandising and commercial experience to continue driving The North Face forward.”
While the change came quickly — and caught many observers off guard — Darrel told investors at a Citi investment conference on Tuesday that it has been in the works for a while.
“This was a plan,” he said. “So we’ve had this for a while, and The North Face business is in good shape. So you’ve seen the growth quarter-by-quarter, and we expect it to look something like that all the way through next year.”
In the fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 27, The North Face’s sales grew by 8 percent, a 5 percent increase in constant currencies.
“So we feel good about where we are in The North Face,” he said. “What I do think we’ll get from Chris, which is exciting, is he’s somebody who comes in with a direct commercial background and a direct merchandising background.…This business, it’s a product business. If you don’t have great product, you’re not going to win. So he’s got that rare combination of both, and I think he’s going to bring a really good touch to that, probably a simplifying test to that.
“The North Face is a big, healthy brand, but it’s also complex, and I want to keep simplifying it,” he said
In a memo to staff that was obtained by WWD, Darrell praised the work Brown did at The North Face and said she’d be staying on as an adviser through the first quarter.
“The North Face re?anchored itself in its core performance categories — snow, climb and trail — while strengthening its connection to athletes and consumers around the world,” he said. “The brand has delivered solid performance across regions, maintained strong momentum in direct?to?consumer and remained one of VF’s most resilient and consistent businesses during a challenging period for the industry.”
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