Jane J. Thompson, the highest-ranking woman at Sears, Roebuck and Co., is making a career move that has many Sears watchers puzzled.
This week, Sears announced Thompson was moving from president of its fast-growing Sears Home Services unit to head a new business group, Sears Direct.
In her new capacity, Thompson will be in charge of all of Sears’ 17 catalogs and the retailer’s electronic commerce activities, including its successful Web site for Craftsman tools. She will continue to report directly to Sears Chief Executive Arthur Martinez.
Although Sears declines to break out revenue numbers, there’s no question that Sears Direct is a much smaller business unit than Thompson was heading. Fourteen of the 17 specialty catalogs mailed under the Sears banner are actually produced by other catalog companies. And a company spokeswoman said there are no plans to bring back Sears’ famous Big Book, which Martinez closed down in 1993.
Thompson was selected for this new job because of her entrepreneurial abilities and strategic thinking, honed by a 10-year stint as a McKinsey & Co. consultant, Sears said.
Those were the same abilities that landed Thompson the prize position of heading Sears’ Home Services unit two years ago. Her marching orders from Martinez were to triple the size of Sears’ appliance repair and home improvement business to $10 billion in four years.
Thompson has made progress, but why is Sears pulling the plug on her two years early?
Sources close to Sears speculate the move is related to her previous stint as head of Sears’ credit unit from 1993 to 1996. Her directive there was to ramp up Sears’ sleepy credit card business. She did that, but many of the more than 11 million new accounts she added began to go sour in late 1996 and ’97, torpedoing Sears’ profit last year.
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Thompson’s role in Sears’ credit card scandal was questioned by shareholders at the company’s annual meeting in May, as was the role of Michael D. Levin, Sears legal counsel.
Martinez defended them both. Levin resigned unexpectedly to return to private practice a month ago, however.
That makes Thompson’s lateral move sound like another shoe dropping.
Stay away: Marshall Field’s to Mayor Daley: Bringing Macy’s to Block 37 would be a really bad idea.
That’s essentially the message Field’s parent, Dayton Hudson Corp., has communicated to the city’s Department of Planning and Development, said Linda Ahlers, president of Dayton Hudson’s Department Store Division, which includes Marshall Field’s.
She’s referring to reports that Macy’s, part of Federated Department Stores Inc. in Cincinnati, is asking the city for public money to put a store right across State Street from Field’s.
“Macy’s doesn’t add to what’s already there. We have two department stores on State Street,” Ahlers said this week during a walk through Field’s newly renovated store in Lake Forest. “It would be ineffective to use public funds to bring in another.”
Instead, the city should carry through with Daley’s vision of creating a block of specialty retailers, restaurants and entertainment outlets, Ahlers said.
Her view should carry some weight in City Hall. Marshall Field’s kept State Street alive during its darkest days by spending $125 million renovating its State Street store.
Ralph redux: Polo Retail Corp. has found a successor for Maureen Basse, the well-liked general manager of Chicago’s successful Polo Ralph Lauren store.
Patrick Sweeney is leaving his post as vice president of international stores at Calvin Klein Inc. to assume responsibility for merchandising and operations at the Polo store in Chicago.
Before his stint with the master of minimalism, Sweeney worked as general manager of Polo’s Madison Avenue store from 1992 to 1996.