Rocky Start For Lyst As Senior Staff Depart

A large number of senior management recently left fashion startup Lyst, according to Business Insider. Over the past four months, an overwhelming total of 10 senior team members have left for other opportunities. Between October through February, these employees included the CMO Christian Woolfenden, Lead Data Scientist Eddie Bell, Head of Organic Acquisition Simon Dance and Lead Backend Engineer Alex Stapleton, among others.

Considering Lyst is a relatively small company with only 160 employees, this should raise some red flags for the remaining employees.

A Lyst spokeswoman insisted that each of these employees left of their own accord. She also said, “The business is doing phenomenally well, and we’re continuing to grow the team — there are many different roles open across the company right now.”

Lyst provides a one-stop shop for consumers to browse high-end brands like Burberry and Alexander Wang and recommends products via machine learning.

Given that Lyst’s financial losses doubled from £5.8 million in 2015 to £12 million in 2016, these senior staff departures are not a huge surprise. However, the fashion brand has increased its revenue over the past year to a total of £6.1 million in 2016, up from £6.1 million.