Ex-ASOS chief Nick Beighton to take helm at Matchesfashion

Nick Beighton left ASOS last autumn and he’s certainly been in demand elsewhere since then. Not long after he was announced as Chairman of Secret Sales, it now emerges that he’s being brought in to run Matchesfashion, replacing CEO Paolo de Cesare.

At least, that’s according to Sky News. It said he would be unveiled as the new chief executive at the luxury online and physical stores retailer on Tuesday.

Matches is controlled by Apax Partners – which bought its majority stake five years ago – and the report said that it's looking to improve the performance at the business. It added that the appointment of the new CEO is likely to come with an injection of further capital into the firm by Apax. However, Sky added that details of the funding hadn't been finalised as of Monday.

Paolo de Cesare took over in the hot seat only 10 months ago and is now reportedly leaving to pursue other opportunities. Beighton would therefore be the fourth head of the company in under three years.

The retailer has faced challenging times in recent periods, not only because of the pandemic, but also as a sales boom post-pandemic has faltered. 

Beighton certainly has experience of the ups and downs of online fashion retail and steered ASOS through both some turbulent times as well as more buoyant periods.

However, he left with immediate effect last October as the company said new leadership would “underpin delivery of the next phase of its global growth strategy”. It only recently announced a permanent replacement for him.

It seems De Cesare had already started making headway at Matches, having overseen a move from double-digit declines to double-digit growth in recent months. He's also scaled back the heavy discounting that had been seen at the company.

It’s unclear how this fits in with Beighton’s new part-time role as Chairman of Secret Sales. He was announced as chair of the fast-growing business just over a month ago.