Terry J. Lundgren, the previous chairman and chief govt officer of Macy’s Inc., was again within the limelight on Wednesday when he obtained the Retail Excellence Award from the Baker Retailing Middle of the Wharton Faculty of Enterprise.
A crowd of greater than 100 retail and model executives, lots of them business veterans, got here to assist honor Lundgren, together with Mindy Grossman, Geoffroy van Raemdonck, Tony Spring, Jill Granoff, Liz Rodbell, Panos Linardos, Gilbert Harrison, James Reinhart, Graziano de Boni, Fern Mallis, Joe Gromek, Adrienne Lazarus, Stacey Bendet and Federica Marchionni.
“I realized immensely from Terry and have a deep respect for him,” mentioned Matt Shay, chief govt officer of the Nationwide Retail Federation, the place Lundgren served as chairman twice, and as a board member. He was instrumental in recruiting Shay to run the NRF.
In introducing Lundgren to the gang, Shay cited a number of of Lundgren’s accomplishments whereas working Macy’s, amongst them the merger with the Could Division Shops, launching My Macy’s localization, and backing early investments into e-commerce. “He had this skill to proceed to innovate, reimagine and function with curiosity.” Shay additionally recalled the time when Lundgren popped open a bottle of Champagne and cork flew within the path of Shay and hit him within the head.
“Wow,” Lundgren mentioned upon accepting the award from Tom Robertson, a professor of selling at Wharton.
Lundgren spoke about management and teamwork, however not earlier than managing one quip. “You recognize what the 5 most essential phrases in public talking are — be transient, child, be transient.” Certainly he was, saying, “Essentially the most important attribute of excellent management is recognizing that you simply shouldn’t have all of the solutions and to be good at surrounding your self with individuals who do have the all of the solutions.”
Good management, Lundgren added, “takes a full workforce and the power to have interaction them.” At Macy’s, he mentioned, “The workforce we had was the Yankees, an excellent group in each place. We had bumps within the street however we overcame them.”
Additionally talking was Jay Baker, who was a part of the central administration workforce of Kohl’s placing that chain on meteoric development primarily within the Nineteen Nineties, and later, together with spouse Patty, established Wharton’s Baker Retailing Middle. Baker famous that Lundgren is a College of Arizona alumnus, the place he established scholarships for the scholars and has lengthy been an energetic supporter of the college, which honored him in 2005 by naming its retailing middle the Terry J. Lundgren Middle for Retailing. However as Baker talked about, between his involvement with Wharton, Lundgren’s involvement with the College of Arizona, each “We’re not competing, we’re collaborating.”
Lundgren started his profession in 1975 as a trainee with Bullock’s, a division of Federated, which ultimately was taken over by Macy’s. Over the subsequent decade, he held positions of accelerating duty in shopping for, retailer administration, human assets and senior-level retailer administration and merchandising slots. He joined Neiman Marcus as govt vice chairman however quickly turned chairman and CEO, then, in April 1994, returned to Federated as chairman and CEO of its merchandising group earlier than rising to president and, in the end, CEO and chairman for 14 years. Lundgren retired as govt chairman of Macy’s in 2018.
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