BERLIN — Amorelie has announced a slate of changes to come at the close of 2019. Most notably, its founder and CEO, Lea-Sophie Cramer, will step down from her position after seven years.
She will continue on as a member of the advisory board and keep her shares in the company. Amorelie further announced that Cramer will be succeeded by Claire Midwood, former managing director at Apple and longtime Adidas brand manager.
Cramer offered the following statement on her departure:
After seven years of building Amorelie, I am most proud of the outstanding team, our unique culture and the dynamic and diverse company we built. With Amorelie’s mission to grow great relationships we disrupted an entire industry and repositioned your love life as a natural part of everyone’s lifestyle.
My decision to leave the executive ranks is neither rash nor recent. I always wanted to leave, when everything in me actually tells me to stay. But bold decisions made me into who I am today and will continue to be my driving force in the future. I have decided to take a year to invest in myself, broaden my horizons and learn. I am convinced that the Amorelie team and company will thrive under the experience and leadership of Claire. She is an outstanding cultural fit and a true bar-raiser for Amorelie. We are already communicating constantly, and I am thrilled to work with her in my new role to expand our mission globally.
Furthermore, I want to thank Florian, Co-CEO of our investor NuCom Group, for his continuous, rock-solid support and the good times we had developing Amorelie. Our company benefitted a lot from the trustful partnership with NuCom Group who provide a great environment for their portfolio assets to grow.
Midwood joins Amorelie with over 20 years of retail experience. For the last two years she has worked as the managing director of Apple's non-owned channels, developing new communications and merchandizing assets for both digital and in-store platforms worldwide to better support partners drive sales and increase customer engagement.
Prior to joining Apple, Midwood worked with Adidas for 20 years, working her way up from the showroom training floor to being one of the first female executives at the company to report directly to the board. One of her career highlights was conceptualizing, launching and building the Adidas NEO brand from the ground up into a $1.2 billion brand within seven years.
For her part, Midwood says she is "beyond excited" to step into her new role as CEO. "There is tremendous opportunity to evolve the lovemaking industry and I am hungry to stretch the boundaries, expand our global mission and continue to positively shape the conversation around the topic of the whole body health," she shared.
"Lea and her team have built an outstanding company with a shared goal to put the human at the center of everything the company does. When I experienced the vibe and culture of the team for the first time, it was a case of love at first sight. I look forward to contributing to Amorelie's next chapter.”
Furthermore, Amorelie announced that Lia Grünhage, CMO and managing director, will also leave at the end of 2019 after five years to start her own company dedicated to helping provide access to fertility treatments.
Cramer congratulated Grünhage on her new endeavor. "I will forever cherish working side-by-side with her for the past five years and continue to be impressed by her iconic marketing campaigns, gritty work attitude and exceptional analytical and visionary skills," she said.
"She will go far and I will be cheering her on from the sidelines," further noting, "I am proud that Amorelie itself has become an incubator for future founders, which shows the quality of people and entrepreneurial spirit we have until this day."
Additionally, Uwe Glander, former NuCom Group director and interim CCO at Amorelie since April of this year, will take on a permanent position within the company as CCO and managing director; Talip Yenal will stay on as CFO and managing director; and Midwood and Glander will assume their positions as managing directors beginning November 1. Cramer is set to transition out of her position as CEO on January 1, 2020.
