Marketing

Bolingbrook, Ill. — Vanessa Wittman, senior VP and CFO of Motorola Mobility, a subsidiary of Google, has been appointed the Ulta Beauty board of directors and as a member of its audit committee, effective June 5, 2014, following her election at the company’s annual shareholder meeting. Wittman joins the Ulta Beauty board with more than 25 years of experience in finance and technology.

Houston — Mattress Firm Holding Corp. announced the promotion of Alex Weiss to executive VP and CFO of the company, effective July 30, 2014, the beginning of the retailer’s third fiscal quarter.  He succeeds Jim Black who transitions into the role of senior corporate advisor to Mattress Firm through the end of the current fiscal year.

Activist investor Carl Icahn on Friday reported a 9.4% stake in Family Dollar, making him the company’s largest shareholder and prompting concerns of a hostile takeover.
 
Family Dollar has responded by adopting a one-year shareholder rights plan with a 10% trigger that would prevent any investor from gaining a controlling interest of the company without board approval.
 

Shopzilla, a leading platform that connects 50 million retail shoppers monthly with online marketers, has consolidated three marketing-centric business units — Audience Discovery and Activation Services — under the Connexity brand name.

“Connexity will uniquely combine consumer insights and media buying within the same programmatic platform, helping marketers to learn more about their customers, discover valuable audiences, and activate new consumers at scale,” the company said in a statement.

Jos. A. Bank continued the positive trend of increases in adjusted earnings that it saw in the second half of 2013. Comparable brand sales increased by double digits in the first two months of the first quarter, and despite slowing down after Easter, still resulted in an 8.4% increase.

Seattle — Amazon.com is reportedly entering the online payment arena.

According to Reuters, Amazon.com will offer a service where for a fee, registered customers can use credit card information stored on Amazon.com to pay for services such as utilities or digital subscriptions.

New York — Sycamore Partners announced Monday that it bought the going-out-of-business Coldwater Creek brand and other intellectual property through an affiliate company during the  apparel chain’s  bankruptcy proceedings.  The private equity firm said it plans to re-launch Coldwater Creek as an independent portfolio company, but it did not give a timeline for the launch.

Terms of the acquisition weren’t disclosed.

Silicon Valley saw some drama late Monday when PayPal announced that president David Marcus was leaving to lead Facebook’s messaging products.

The split was amicable with eBay president and CEO John Donahoe wishing Marcus well at Facebook.