Love, Bonito names chief commercial officer amidst leadership promotions

Southeast Asia’s omni-channel womenswear brand Love, Bonito has appointed Pat Achakulwisut as its new chief commercial officer. Achakulwisut will spearhead the strategy and growth of the brand’s assortment globally while helming the commercial organisation, which comprises the design, product development, planning, buying and merchandising teams.

She is a key contributor in Love, Bonito’s senior leadership and executive team, and has over a decade of strategy and mergers and acquisitions consulting experience focusing on fashion retailing and supply chain globally.

Achakulwisut joined from omni-channel platform Pomelo Fashion where she was VP - head of retail and on its executive team. She was responsible for its omni-channel proposition, retail expansion and in-house product direction and oversaw the omnichannel transformation of more than 25 stores.

As Love, Bonito continues to accelerate its category and international growth, it has also added two senior hires Joyce Lao and Matteo Giacomozzi to its retail, and sourcing and production teams, made its first sustainability hire internally with Supei Ho who was previously in product development roles and promoted Suzanne Simanjuntak to head of Indonesia.

Lao, who is now head of retail excellence, joined the company in April and oversees the executive retail centre of excellence team to develop Love, Bonito's retail store design and build strategy and analyse and execute solid action plans in improving operational productivity, visual merchandising and training.

She spent more than 16 years in the restaurant industry, gaining an in-depth understanding of the functionality of departments in the front-end and back-end of the businesses through practical, cross-border experience. Lao previously served as general manager for OUE restaurants and head of business development and partner relations at Paradise Group, where she led and contributed to the expansion of its restaurants across multiple countries.

Meanwhile, Giacomozzi leads Love, Bonito’s global sourcing and production organisation, and develops and shapes its sourcing and production strategy. He has more than 11 years of experience in the fashion industry and was previously division director at Tendam, one of Europe's groups in the specialised fashion sector.

There, he led sourcing and a portfolio of over 300 vendors and was also the working group leader for Tendam’s WE CARE multi-disciplinary committee covering sustainability at product level focusing on materials, processes, innovation and packaging.

In the earlier stages of his career, he held sourcing, quality assurance and product development positions at Ermenegildo Zegna Group and Finpeco, which works with brands like Carolina Herrera and Oscar De La Renta.

Love, Bonito has been making waves in Asia as well as in the US. In August this year, the brand opened its newest flagship store in West Mall of Grand Indonesia in Jakarta. This marked its third physical outlet which boasts a five-fold increase in retail space compared to its existing pop-up and features new in-store concepts to provide customers with a seamless shopping experience.

The team in Indonesia is currently led by Simanjuntak who was promoted to head of Indonesia in July, taking over the reins from Bianca Belnadia who remains one of Love, Bonito’s brand ambassadors. Simanjuntak oversees the expansion and growth of the company in Indonesia and continues to strengthen its omni-channel offerings, grow local teams and expand its physical presence.

Simanjuntak was previously a brand marketing manager and joined the company in September 2019 as retail and operations manager. She has about six years of experience in the fashion industry and began her career as a fashion designer and eventually the brand manager for Mel Ahyar First, Indonesia’s luxury ready-to-wear fashion brand.

On the sustainability front, Love, Bonito has tasked Ho to chart out the company’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) vision and working together with cross-functional stakeholders to drive social impact programming, advocacy and activations. She assumed her current role last month and joined Love, Bonito in May 2020 as product development manager. Thereafter, she was made senior product development specialist until September this year.

She is the founder of slow fashion brand Su by Hand and her commercial experience spans fashion trends forecasting and designing for premium-luxury brands, and sustainable label The R Collective. She has also been an educational ambassador with Redress, an environmental non-governmental organisation working to reduce apparel waste, to deliver lectures on fashion sustainability to Singapore institutions.

Ho holds a certification in business sustainability management from the University of Cambridge Institute for sustainability leadership. MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out to Love, Bonito for additional information on the hires and promotions.

CEO Dione Song said it is an exciting time of growth for the business and it is thrilled to expand its leadership team, and bring onboard experienced individuals while recognising the strong capabilities of Love, Bonito;'s existing members because internal mobility is important to the company. "These decisions demonstrate our continued commitment to achieve long-term success and advance our sustainability journey to benefit our brand, community and the society,” said Song.

“We are confident about the addition of outstanding leaders Achakulwisut, Lao and Giacomozzi to the Love, Bonito family, and pleased to acknowledge the stellar contributions from existing talents Ho and Simanjuntak as they move forward with new and expanded responsibilities. People are our most valuable asset and I’m sure these individuals will further the organisation’s ambition of evolving into a holistic female ecosystem and fulfilling essential facets of women’s needs,” added Rachel Lim, co-founder of Love, Bonito.

On an expansion front, Love, Bonito acquired women-led activewear brand butter. and taken a small stake investment in natural healthcare start-up Moom Health. Both companies are based in Singapore and the move is said to kickstart Love, Bonito's plans to build a holistic female ecosystem with a house of brands that have been curated for the everyday Asian woman.

As part of the acquisition, butter. will be rebranded as cheak, further amplifying both brands' passion and vision for serving women on a global stage. The expansion into activewear is also part of Love, Bonito's long-term vision in supporting essential facets of women’s needs within Asia. Tiffany Chng, co-founder of cheak, said the new brand name was chosen to play on the word "cheeky" and represent the brands’ vibrant personas.

These appointments follow Love, Bonito’s strategic developments in 2022 which include the launch of its activewear category with its acquisition of cheak, the opening of flagship stores in Hong Kong, the release of its first children’s storybook under its LBCreate social impact arm and introduction of its Embrace: Maternity line.

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