Petra Eckhardt-Köstler - owner of the p5 agency and successful manager of premium consumer goods
Petra Eckhardt-Köstler, well-known and successful in the international optical, luxury, travel retail and online industries, is an entrepreneurial and agile manager for premium consumer goods. She has extensive experience and an impressive track record in building international business units for renowned international corporations such as BMW, Porsche, Bushnell, Fossil and Rodenstock.
She is highly experienced in the overall responsibility of global premium/luxury consumer goods brands: P&L, product development/research, brand & product management, sourcing, operations, marketing, sales & distribution, retailing.
Eckhardt-Köstler was most recently Head of Global Retail for Munich-based optics group Rodenstock.
Her achievements include strategising, rebuilding and managing three international business units from a zero start in 2013 to a leading premium eyewear provider in optical and non-optical distribution channels. During this time, she and her team have acquired more than 800 international premium customers.
Eckhardt-Köstler, who speaks four languages, also spent eight years as Head of Eyewear at Fossil Group. Here she introduced Fossil's eyewear business by developing a very successful sunglasses and frames collection and implementing efficient sales and marketing structures. When she left Fossil, she had achieved a 10% market share of the optical DACH market.
Earlier in her career, she worked for several of the world's best-known brands in sales and marketing roles, including Porsche, BMW and Hilton International.
She was also Managing Director of the European Sunglass Association from January 2004 to 2011.
Eckhardt-Köstler has several years of experience in independent consulting and ran her own company, p5 Agency, before joining Rodenstock in 2012 as Strategy Manager Eyewear. During her time at the agency, she successfully realised consulting projects for companies such as Louis Vuitton Headquarters Paris, Silhouette Linz, Glorify HQ, Bushnell Europe and Fedon Headquarters.
Petra Eckhardt-Köstler returned to her consulting firm (p5 Agency) in July, which offers a range of services for internationally active consumer goods companies. The range of services includes advising on product development, distribution channels and market penetration strategies (both online and offline), new product development/promotion as well as ROI improvement and stakeholder engagement.
A broad global network of partners at consulting/agency but also at industry and retail level guarantees a success oriented 360 degree approach for each customer project.
