Mark Cosby, President of North American operations for Office Depot, will be leaving his position, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC documents did not indicate Cosby’s end date, as reported in an article by the South Florida Business Journal.
Cosby’s departure marks another top-level shakeup in the office supplies vertical. In August 2016, Office Depot CEO Roland Smith announced his plans to retire from that position at the end of Q1 2017. Smith’s move came a few months after the failure of the Staples-Office Depot merger, which also led to the departure of Staples CEO Ron Sargent in June 2016.
The loss of Cosby will likely create challenges for Office Depot, particularly since the retailer recently announced that it would be “implementing a number of growth and profitability initiatives in our North American business,” according to a statement from Smith discussing Office Depot’s Q3 financial results. “We announced a deal to sell our businesses in Europe and have a process underway to sell substantially all of the remaining international businesses,” he added.
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Office Depot’s Q3 sales were $2.8 billion, a 7% decrease from the $3 billion in sales during Q3 2015. For the North America retail division, sales were $1.5 billion, down from $1.6 billion for the same period last year. Comparable store sales declined 2% during Q3 2016, and the retailer closed seven stores, ending the quarter with a total of 1,506 locations in North America.
