Kenneth Cole’s new CEO lays out his vision for building women’s, expanding into Europe and avoiding ‘that sea of safeness’

Berger, who joined Kenneth Cole Productions in 2022 as president, took up the CEO mantle this week. He will continue to serve as president. The last person to occupy both roles at the same time was Marc Schneider, from 2015-2020.

Berger’s appointment was one of a flurry of recent executive announcements by the brand, including Emily Cole as chief product officer, Lauren Montemaro Kahn as chief commercial officer, and Samantha Cohen as chief marketing and social impact officer. All are part of Kenneth Cole Productions’s “new era of leadership and a renewed strategic vision,” as it positions itself for the “next 40 years of growth,” per a press release. Cole himself will stay on as executive chairman and chief creative officer of Kenneth Cole Productions, which uses a licensing model for many of its products, including handbags, sportswear and shoes, through partners such as Kasper and Concept One Accessories.

Berger, who has occupied marketing positions for much of his career, admits he has an untraditional background for someone assuming the CEO job. He was CMO at Foot Locker, Inc. and, before that, vp of marketing at Foot Locker, Inc. and svp of marketing at Modell’s Sporting Goods. He also co-founded 94×50, a marketing and production agency specializing in basketball projects, in 2006. But his marketing viewpoint has given him an understanding of “plenty of matrix structures,” Berger said, adding, “I have an idea of what I think works.”

“There was, and still is, a perception out there that CMOs can’t be presidents and they can’t be CEOs,” Berger continued. “I have never subscribed to that [belief]. … I came in here as a business growth driver, who understood [the idea of] a brand, the value of great relationships, how to take great ideas and create structured thought around them, and how to create formality and hyper prioritization. And I learned that from my career.”

Going forward, collaborations will continue to be a focus at Kenneth Cole Productions, Berger said. In recent years, the company has partnered with Little Words Project, “Sesame Street” and the cartoon blob (and songwriter) Lennnie, with proceeds going to mental health causes and organizations. The company has also developed campaigns with Rachel Platten, Isabella Strahan and Ariana DeBose, and created marketing efforts around reducing gun violence, championing gay rights and voting.

Berger spoke with Modern Retail about his jump to CEO, his priorities for the organization and the company’s biggest challenges heading into 2026. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What approach are you taking to these joint roles as president and CEO?

“It’s been a natural progression. Kenneth [Cole] and I have shared responsibilities of the CEO role for a while, and we’ve gotten more comfortable and familiar with each other as time’s gone by. And honestly, we’ve been in growth mode. The business and the brand have both been on fire for the past few years, and I think that’s because we’re so focused on the needle movers. I truly believe we have a great team. We still have a lot of opportunity. It’s not like the priorities have changed from yesterday to tomorrow or today. Part of my job is clearly articulating and ‘rinse-and-repeating’ those priorities to everybody who touches our business.”

What are your priorities and goals for the organization?

“I couldn’t be more excited about the work we’re doing in our women’s business. … Our apparel launched last October, and it’s been crushing it. We are launching women’s handbags next year. We have a [women’s footwear] brand called Gentle Souls, and it has an incredibly loyal consumer base. So, women’s has been a priority and is a priority, and that’s not changing.

Our footwear, in general, has been a core priority for us, too. Men’s footwear is on the up and up. We have a new partner there with Marc Fisher, and we are launching our first collection with them. And, we’re going to launch an exclusive line of men’s Gentle Souls with Nordstrom. We’re getting our men’s footwear to the place we think it really should be [and] the place retailers are telling [us] it needs to be.

The third priority has been, and will be, international. It’s a significant point of emphasis. We couldn’t be more excited to be expanding into Europe in a very big way next year. … We’re going to open up a showroom in Düsseldorf [Germany] in a couple weeks to a month, and we’ll probably have our first retail lab close to there. But the U.K. will be the first primary market. … And we are finalizing a partnership in the Middle East.

The last thing that we articulate as a growth focus is hunting new opportunities, whether that’s new labels or new categories or new distribution opportunities. … I’d also add that we’re being relentless on … being a brand of advocacy. Kenneth is board chairman of the Mental Health Coalition, and that organization sits with us in our office. … A big portion of our proceeds [and] of our business goes to the Mental Health Coalition, and we really think we’re making an enormous difference in ending stigma.”

How are you working to stand out and acquire customers at a time in which many shoppers are pulling back on discretionary spending or budgeting differently?

“Our internal and external tagline is, ‘Always on purpose.’ … Everything we do is connected to impact. We’ve had some incredible collaborations in the past two years, whether it’s been with ‘Sesame Street’ or The Onion or [the social media star] @DudeWithSign, and everything comes with a purpose … and with a give-back [component]. … The other piece is making sure that every one of our products has a reason to exist — that it has technical attributes and is built to make you feel better and confident. Kenneth built his career being obsessed with putting tech and utility into product, whether it was [making] a reversible belt or putting stretch in places that I had no idea needed stretch, but really do.

Those are our two obsessions. If you aren’t differentiating today — if you don’t know who your brand is for, if you don’t know who your products are for, [and] if you aren’t sharp on your reason to exist — you are going to fall into that sea of safeness, 100%.”

What are some of your biggest challenges at the moment, and how do you plan to navigate those as CEO?

“Tariffs are real. They’ve created real industry challenges, and they aren’t going away. [Tariffs] will have ramifications on every aspect of this industry. … We have amazing partners who are dealing with the manufacturing and the tariff puzzle on a day-to-day basis, [but] it’s part of a challenging environment. … Being an IP organization, most of our manufacturing is done by our strategic partners. That doesn’t mean that [manufacturing] isn’t part of our lives. We’re a royalty-based business, and obviously, we need to ship product that needs to get manufactured. So, we’re having a lot of partnership conversations with everybody. It’s going to work itself out. But there’s no one answer to this problem.

We talk to tons of brands, and everybody’s facing the realities. … As soon as [businesses] think we have a place of knowledge where we can figure out the math, things tend to change. … The other thing is that the retail landscape has also changed. There are a million brands and only so many retailers. It goes back to a reason to exist. You need to differentiate and be incredibly important to the retailer, and find your white spaces, and know who you’re for. It’s paramount. It’s more important than ever, for a brand.”