Destination Maternity appoints new CFO and first ever chief transformation officer

By

Robin Driver

Published
Jan 10, 2019

Moorestown, New Jersey-based maternity apparel retailer Destination Maternity, Inc. announced on Wednesday the appointments of Dave J. Helkey as chief financial officer and chief operating officer, and Doug Goeke as chief transformation officer.

 
In his new role Helkey will oversee Destination Maternity’s finance, accounting, IT, real estate, inventory management, sourcing, human resources, legal and logistic departments, and will report to the company’s CEO Marla Ryan.

Helkey brings over two decades of experience to the position, having most recently served as CFO and COO at Ohio-based omni-channel retail company Things Remembered, where he implemented a real estate strategy to grow online sales and lower store footprint, and also oversaw a restructuring plan.

Prior to this, the Ohio State University graduate worked as vice president of finance at Parc Management, LLC, as a professional consultant at Accretive Solutions and CFO at CareSpot Urgent Care and MedPost Urgent Care.
 
“We believe Dave’s experience and successful track record in retail, both online and in store, along with his operations management and capital markets experience make him ideally suited to fill the role of CFO and COO,” commented Ryan in a release.
 
Goeke has been appointed to his newly created role through a consulting agreement and will report directly to Destination Maternity’s Board of Directors.
 
His main responsibility will be to oversee “Destination->Forward”, the retail group’s multi-year strategic plan, announced at the end of last year.

Goeke, who holds a master’s degree in finance, strategy and M&A from the London Business School, joins Destination Maternity from Babcock International, where he served as Group SVP and general manager of support services in North America.
 
Prior to this, he held a variety of positions in different divisions of Gategroup Holding LTD, having served as president, deputy president, managing director and chief financial officer. During this time, Goeke had P&L responsibility for divisions with annual revenues of between $200 million and $900 million, and led performance improvements, turnarounds and cost reduction strategies.
 
“Doug has a vast amount of experience creating value through strategic performance improvements across business segments, which will be invaluable to his efforts to oversee and support the advancement of our multi-year strategic plan, Destination->Forward,” explained Ryan.
 
Goeke’s appointment is effective as of January 9, 2019, while Helkey will be joining Destination Maternity on January 21.