Shoptiques taps former Steve Madden CEO as its new COO

By

Cassidy Mantor

Published
Jun 5, 2018

Online marketplace Shoptiques has tapped Steve Madden's former Chairman and CEO, Jamie Karson, as it's newest chief operating officer.

Founder and CEO, Olga Vidisheva commented, "To be successful, you need to have an amazing team and best-in-class product. Jamie Karson joining us as COO helps us scale the business much faster".

During Karson's seven years as chairman and CEO at Steve Madden, he grew the company's market cap to $1 billion and consistently delivered yearly sales and profit growth.

Since leaving Steve Madden, Karson's work has included serving as a strategic advisor for an NYC-based non-profit. He is the chairman and CEO of Soupman Inc. and executive chairman of Yyppee, an aggregator app in the dining space.

He holds his bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina and attended law school at NYU Law.

Shoptiques aims to bring the boutique shopping experience online and currently sells product from 6,500 small boutiques. It has a community of over 1 million customers, and one of its boutiques has just topped $1 million in sales on the site.

In addition to bringing Karson on board, the company has also launched a proprietary point-of-sale system that will support further growth. Karson commented that with the new POS, "Shoptiques is well-positioned to give Shopify a run for its money."

Shoptiques founder, Vidisheva, is a Harvard Business School grad whose experience includes stints at Chanel, Goldman and Sachs & Co. She was the first single non-technical founder accepted into Y Combinator from which the company launched in 2012.