Pandora CEO Leighton Steps Down After a Year at Helm

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Danish jeweller Pandora A/S said Chief Executive Officer Allan Leighton will step down after just over a year on the post, a period in which the company's stock more than doubled.

The Glostrup, Denmark-based company, which has gone from stock market darling to disaster to darling again since its 2010 initial public offering, said in a statement today that Anders Colding Friis will succeed him in March next year.

Leighton, the former head of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Asda supermarket chain, joined Pandora’s board of directors in 2010 and was its chairman until he took over as CEO July 1, 2013 when Bjoern Gulden left to lead Puma SE. During Leighton’s tenure as CEO, the Danish company won back customers by introducing new products more frequently, cutting prices and opening new stores.

“A managed succession at the top of the company, at a time when its performance and opportunities have never been stronger, has been a key objective for the board,” Chairman Marcello Bottoli said in the statement.

Friis is currently CEO of Scandinavian Tobacco Group, the world’s largest manufacturer of cigars and pipe tobacco. Pandora also said today that Peder Tuborgh, CEO of dairy producer Arla Foods amba, has been proposed as its new chairman to replace Bottoli, who announced in March that he will step down from the post to pursue a new entrepreneurial project.

The company said the changes will have no impact on its outlook for 2014.

By Katarina Gustafsson; editors: Celeste Perri, Thomas Mulier.