Simon Schofield’s new CEO position is the final piece of the Cue puzzle after a year of shifting roles and wins.
Schofield will commence his role with the womenswear retailer from January 30, following a 13-year career at Country Road Group.
In March, Cue appointed David Fraser as a new design director to head up the creative team. Fraser is the first external designer that Cue has ever recruited in such a senior role.
“We've had a real change now in our design team,” Cue chairman Rod Levis tells Ragtrader. “David Fraser is spearheading it. David was educated in the UK, went to a really great fashion school and worked with some very impressive designers at the beginning of his career. He came to Australia for this role and we're just starting to see his styles arrive in store now.”
Fraser, who has held senior positions at Topshop and Reiss, is supported by two new designers who were onboarded last year. Meanwhile, an additional creative talent has commenced this week. Olivia Brown is the former senior designer for Sheike, Alice McCall and has held a design assistant role at Camilla.
The changing of the guard comes after long-serving Cue head designer Prue Rainey stepped down from her role last year. Cue retail brand manager Kate Bielenberg confirmed Rainey was head of design for 13 years until 2013, rejoining the company in 2019.
“Rainey was responsible for the success of Cue in the 2000s, and had been back for about four years,” Bielenberg says.
Rainey's key legacy was designing Cue’s first-ever solo runway collection at Afterpay Australian Fashion Week in 2023. She continues to pursue a career in fashion design following her exit from Cue.
Schofield represents the latest senior leadership change for the business, becoming the first CEO in over eight years following the exit of David Kesby in July 2015. Since his departure, it has been Rod Levis and his two children, Justin and Melanie, holding the reins.
“We're giving Simon a lot of authority,” Rod says. “We're allowing him to recommend whatever he wants.
“Fifty-five years is a very long time for one company to be in existence with the same people. We have, over the years, always evolved. We've had maybe five or six different heads of design.
“Making this decision to bring someone in from the outside is a very big step. The world's changing, all of our competitors are now on our doorstep, and we need to be much sharper and smarter than we have been.”
Schofield arrived in Australia from the UK over 13 years ago, commencing as a planner at department store Myer. At the time, Levis says Cue was the number one brand at Myer in every store. In less than a year, Schofield moved over to Country Road as a merchandise planner, and his first task was to watch Cue, which he has continued to do ever since.
“I’m looking forward to using my experience and different perspective to help refine and drive the evolution already in progress,” Schofield says. “Sharpening the brand’s positioning, regaining consistency and fashion authority and supporting creative, forward thinking initiatives to deliver a first class, omni-channel customer experience.”
Cue Clothing Co has 79 Cue locations across Australia and New Zealand, including at Myer and David Jones, as well as 75 locations for Veronika Maine and dedicated eCommerce channels. The business is the largest fashion manufacturer in Australia, with factory partners in Sydney in addition to offshore suppliers.
Levis believes Schofield's appointment will create new efficiencies across the business.
“We've never been very strong at planning categories,” Levis admits. “We've been a little bit one-sided, which we could do when there was no competition. So if we suddenly want to do more dresses, we'd do more dresses and put shoes aside.
“Simon will bring structure to the business, and he's very structured in his training and experience. I think Simon knows more about us than we know ourselves. In the interview, Simon went over our whole history.
“He knows exactly what we need to do. The task is not to restore Cue to what it always has been and was, but to move us forward.”
Executive director Melanie Levis says Schofield’s synergy with the brand was evident from the moment she and the team met him.
"He grasps the magic of Cue and seemed to have an innate understanding and respect for our DNA."
Her brother and fellow executive director Justin agrees.
“Simon exemplifies everything we had been looking for - a forward-thinking and progressive approach to the business of retail, combined with an astute awareness and love of fashion at a global scale.”