Katya Denike, Chief Product Officer at Holland & Barrett, shares insights from her journey leading a major digital transformation in this iconic health retailer. She discusses revitalizing a 150-year-old brand through innovative supply chain logistics, enhancing customer experiences, and adapting global strategies to local markets. Katya highlights the success of bringing the mobile app in-house, transforming its revenue share dramatically. She also emphasizes the underappreciated role of internal product management and the importance of mentorship within leadership.
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insights INSIGHT
Global Scale With Local Tailoring
Holland & Barrett balances global digital capabilities with ~20% local tailoring to meet market and regulatory needs.
Katya says using global brainpower improves quality while targeted local tweaks address regulation and customer personas.
insights INSIGHT
Why Some High Street Stores Fail
High street retail struggles due to macro pressures and slow digital transformation in heritage businesses.
Katya links success to strong product-market fit and deep digital-enabled operational efficiency.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Prioritize Foundations Then Strategic Bets
Invest first in firm foundations: warehouses, vendor processes, master data and scalable systems before flashy features.
Own strategic capabilities like your mobile app if they drive customer loyalty and revenue.
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In this episode, I speak with Katya Denike, Chief Product Officer at Holland & Barrett, the 150-year-old health and wellness retailer that has become a household name on the UK high street. Having previously worked at McKinsey, Yandex, Ozon, and Beyond 100, she now leads Holland & Barrett's ambitious digital transformation - helping the company evolve from a traditional retailer into a global wellness ecosystem.
We cover a lot, including:
Transforming a heritage retailer: Holland & Barrett is delivering double-digit growth through a sweeping digital and cultural transformation, investing in everything from supply chain systems to customer-facing apps.
Global vs local: The company builds strong global digital capabilities (like search and e-commerce infrastructure) while tailoring ~20% of the experience for each market to meet regulatory and customer needs.
High street resilience: Despite doom-and-gloom headlines, Holland & Barrett is thriving by focusing on product-market fit, preventative healthcare, and efficient tech-enabled operations.
The app transformation: Taking the mobile app in-house turned it from a struggling third-party product (<5% of digital revenue, 3-star rating) into a core strategic channel (>30% revenue share, 4.5+ rating).
Internal product management is sexy too: Katya insists that logistics, pricing systems, and data management are some of the most rewarding areas for product managers, enabling everything else to work.
Team structure: Around 100 people in product, design, and research, split between "firm foundations" (core systems) and "omnichannel customer experience", plus a small but mighty product ops team.
Leadership leap: Moving into her first CPO role was daunting, but support from her manager pushed her to take the leap and build a truly independent product function inside the company.
Skills for success: Katya highlights high agency, emotional intelligence, and the ability to navigate crucial conversations as must-haves for product leaders.
One Knight in Product