Vera Bradley, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRA) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call June 7, 2023 9:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Mark Dely - CAO

Jacqueline Ardrey - President and CEO

John Enwright - Departing CFO

Michael Schwindle - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Joe Gomes - Noble Capital

Eric Beder - SCC Research

Operator

Please standby. Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Vera Bradley First Quarter Conference Call for Fiscal 2024. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. As a reminder, today’s conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Mark Dely, Vera Bradley’s Chief Administrative Officer. Please go ahead.

Mark Dely

Good morning and welcome everyone. We'd like to thank you for joining us for today’s call. Some of the statements made during our prepared remarks and in response to your questions may constitute forward-looking statements made pursuant to and within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Such forward-looking statements are subject to both known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those that we expect. Please refer to today’s press release and the company’s most recent Form 10-K filed with the SEC for a discussion of known risks and uncertainties. Investors should not assume that the statements made during the call will remain operative at a later time. We undertake no obligation to update any information discussed on today’s call. I would now like to turn the call over to Vera Bradley’s CEO, Jackie Ardrey. Jackie?

Jacqueline Ardrey

Thank you, Mark. Good morning and thank you for joining us on today's call. Today, I'm joined by both John Enwright, our departing CFO and Michael Schwindle, our newly appointed CFO. Before we begin, I want to express my sincere thanks to John for his nine years of service to Vera Bradley and his many contributions to our company and we wish him all the best in the future. And we welcome Michael Schwindle to our team who joined the company on May 8th. He is a retail industry veteran with over 30 years of experience, including more than 15 years in CFO roles, delivering strong results through profit improvement and by providing innovative solutions. For the three years prior to joining our company, he served as CFO for accessory and jewelry retailer Claire's. Previously he held CFO roles at specialty retailers Fleet Farm, Payless Shoe Source, Perry and David, and Musician's Friend as well as other key financial roles at Home Depot and Limited Brands. You'll hear from both John and Michael later in today's call.