Independent adviser

When it comes to luxury etailing few have as much experience as Hipwell. Starting his retail career at Arcadia, he then spent over five years as director of home shopping at Harrods before moving onto Liberty, where he was managing director of online and director of supply chain until June this year.

Hipwell still works at Liberty on a consultancy basis and is continuing as an advisor as well as persuing new ventures both here and in Europe. He oversaw the re-launch of Liberty’s website, which is credited as one of the stronger in the luxury market and is a regular speaker at ecommerce events.

Liberty was bought by Marco Capello in July in a £32m deal via BlueGem Capital. It is not yet known what its multichannel strategy will be but with Hipwell still involved it is likely to be an important growth channel.

Luxury retail has still got some catching up to do in terms of online but with more and more brands coming round to the benefits of the channel, and with big budgets available, Hipwell is sure to be in demand.