Personnel Updates
At Home, the home furnishings chain, formerly known as Garden Ridge announced the hiring of Jennifer Warren as the company’s Chief Marketing Officer. This hiring occurred almost immediately after Ms. Warren was relieved of a similar position with RadioShack.
Build-A-Bear Workshop announced that Kenneth Wine has left his post as Chief Merchandise Officer. No reason was given in the filing for Wine’s departure, and no plans for a successor were announced. Wine took the then newly created post in December 2012 to lead product development, quality assurance, sourcing and international merchandise teams for the toy retailer.
Canadian Tire Corp. has chosen Michael Medline as its new President and CEO.
Stephen Wetmore, who had run Canadian Tire since 2009, is moving into the post of Deputy Chairman.
Five Below has named Michael Romanko Executive VP of Merchandising. Romanko will oversee all aspects of merchandising strategy and operations including product development.
RadioShack Corp. has named Carlin Adrianopoli, a consultant with strategic advisory and interim management services firm FTI Consulting, as its new interim CFO.
Adrianopoli replaces Alix Partners managing director Holly Etlin, who was named interim CFO in September to replace previous CFO John Feray after he resigned.
Adrianopoli’s services will be billed to RadioShack by FTI Consulting and he will not receive separate compensation from RadioShack. FTI will also provide other strategic advisory services to RadioShack.
RadioShack announced that Jennifer Warren, the company’s Chief Marketing Officer, is the latest top executive to leave the company, as it tries to stave off bankruptcy.
Warren joined RadioShack in April 2013 and was one of CEO Joe Magnacca’s first hires when he was putting together his turnaround team.
Warren spearheaded ads featuring classic characters from 35 years ago, including Mary Lou Retton, Weird Al Yankovic, Hulk Hogan and Twisted Sister, among others. The ads received good reviews for being funny and sending the message that RadioShack needed to change, but they failed to bring in more traffic and sales.
The company recently warned that low cash reserves could force it to seek bankruptcy protection without a liquidity boost. RadioShack is trying to complete a rescue package that requires it have $100 million in cash and borrowing capacity by the middle of January. At the beginning of November, the company had about $63 million.
Target Chairman and CEO Brian Cornell, who took over the company just last summer, is making a number of executive changes to help with the company’s digital transformation and enhance the customer experience.
Casey Carl, President of Omnichannel and Senior VP of Strategy, will assume the role of Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer.
In addition, the retailer is creating a center of excellence under Carl’s leadership to accelerate and strengthen its data, analytics and business intelligence capabilities. This effort will be led by Paritosh Desai in the new role of Senior VP, Enterprise Data, Analytics and Business Intelligence.
To further drive the growth of mobile and e-commerce, Jason Goldberger has been named President, Target.com and Mobile.
In addition, Dawn Block has been promoted to Senior VP, Target.com and Mobile Merchandising.
Jeff Jones, Chief Marketing Officer, will take on the added responsibility of leading Target’s work in architecting the guest experience across all channels and touchpoints. Jones will create and lead a new guest center of excellence, designed to enable the organization to develop a greater sense of advocacy and empathy for the guest in all of its business decisions.
To more closely align Target’s corporate social responsibility efforts and support of the communities in which it does business, Laysha Ward, President, Community Relations, becomes Exec VP, Chief Corporate Social Responsibility Officer. Ward’s expanded organization will include the community relations, global affairs and sustainability teams, as well as Target Foundation.
John Hulbert has been named VP, Investor Relations.
Walmart announced that Enrique Ostale, who is chairman of the board of the retailer’s Latin American business, has taken over as Mexico chief executive.. The position will oversee Walmart’s operations in Mexico and Central America. Ostale is replacing Scot Rank, who is leaving his post as chief executive after five years and will also resign from the Mexican unit’s board after 14 years. Rank had led the group since 2005. He joined the company in 2000.
Mergers and Acquisitions
PetSmart has agreed to be acquired for about $8.7 billion by a consortium led by
PetSmart’s board of directors voted unanimously for the deal, but the sale requires approval from PetSmart shareholders. The deal should close in the first half of the year, pending regulatory approval.
