Personalized gifts retailer makes leadership changes in wake of CEO departure

There have been a couple of changes in the C-suite at Things Remembered.



Lisa Gavales has resigned as chairman, CEO and president of the company, which specializes in personalized merchandise. No reason was given for her departure. Gavales joined Things Remembered as president and chief executive in November 2014. Prior to that, she was president of direct and chief marketing officer of Talbots. She also served as executive VP, chief marketing officer, of Express.



In other changes, Nelson Tejada, the company's senior VP and chief merchandising officer, has been promoted to president. Dave Helkey, CFO, was given the additional title of COO.



Tejada is a Things Remembered veteran. He served as VP, general merchandise manager of the chain from 2000 to 2005. From there, he went on to serve as VP of merchandising for American Greetings retail division, and then moving on to Schurman Retail Group (SRG), where he named chief merchandising officer in 2009. Tejada rejoined Things Remembered in July 2015, as senior VP, merchandising officer. In August 2016, he was named senior VP, chief merchandising officer and store sales.



Helkey joined Things Remembered in January 2010, as director, financial planning and analysis. He has held several key roles within the organization such as director, merchandise planning and allocation, and VP, business innovations. In February 2016, Helkey was promoted to senior VP and CFO.



"With Nelson's leadership, combined with Nelson and Dave's collective expertise with all aspects of our business, we are confident that they will aggressively advance our objective of selling beyond our traditional highly successful stores to become the leading omnichannel retailer offering customers the widest selection of personalized merchandise wherever and whenever they want them," said Michael Appel, lead director, Things Remembered, which has more than 468 stores in 45 states and in Canada.