Fast Five Shorts | Ashley Buchanan Named New Kohl’s CEO
In the latest edition of Omni Talk’s Retail Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Avalara, Mirakl, Ownit AI, and Ocampo Capital Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga discuss: Ashley Buchanan Named New Kohl’s CEO
For the full episode head here: https://youtu.be/xDKKCu9Alfk
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Transcript
Headline number two, which also is about a new CEO.
Speaker A:And so it's kind of apropos or very, very a nice segue here we've got going.
Speaker A:Wonder if that was planned.
Speaker A:And you think so?
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:Pretzel.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:According to retail Dive, the new department store.
Speaker B:You're just patting yourself on the back.
Speaker A:I don't like Chris.
Speaker B:I'm patting myself on the back.
Speaker A:I'm just like saying, this is what we did, you know.
Speaker B:Okay, okay.
Speaker A:According to the retail.
Speaker A:I think I said the new department store Kohl's is anything but new.
Speaker A:The department store Kohl's has tapped Michael CEO Ashley Buchanan to lead the retailer beginning early next year, replacing Tom Kingsbury, effective January 15th.
Speaker A: O of Michaels Companies since: Speaker A:And what do you think of Buchanan as the new CEO hire for Kohl's?
Speaker B:Oh, man, I, you know, I think he's, he's a, he's a great person for this job.
Speaker B:I will especially be looking to his time at Walmart to help Kohl's grow.
Speaker B:Cause I think that's a similar customer demographic.
Speaker B:It's a similar income demographic and product set realistically for where Kohl's really needs to be strong.
Speaker B:But Chris, my question is actually like, after Kingsbury leaving, I mean, we thought he was pretty decent too.
Speaker B:I'm just one.
Speaker B:And the earnings, I mean, I'm just curious, what is there to do?
Speaker B:Like, how can you save this?
Speaker B:And so my tell will really be, how long does Ashley Buchanan stay there after, like, is he going to be a year in and out?
Speaker B:Because there's really no salvaging what's left of Kohl's right now.
Speaker B:Or does he.
Speaker B:Do we start to see things turn around from him?
Speaker B:But I think it's the right person for the job, the right background for the job, especially given the similar customer demographics that I mentioned.
Speaker B:But where do you fall on this?
Speaker B:Where are you?
Speaker A:Yeah, I, I think you're bringing up a good point.
Speaker A:Yeah, I actually think he maybe jumped ship too early, going back to the first headline, because I think I said like three or four months ago that he'd be a good candidate to take over for Cornell at Target.
Speaker A:But now that ship is essentially sailed and I think it is an uphill battle, you know.
Speaker A:You know, to your point about Kingsbury, I thought, you know, I always questioned his hire because he was From Burlington.
Speaker A:I called him Burlington Tom for a while.
Speaker A:Like, again, that guy doesn't have a lot of digital experience.
Speaker A:And so what did he do?
Speaker A:He did the things he knew.
Speaker A:He brought Baby into the store because Burlington was a success of Baby.
Speaker A:But like, we actually hypothesized back.
Speaker A:I remember when we were doing this podcast at Shop Talk Europe, we're looking at Cole's second quarter earnings.
Speaker A:We're like, oh, my God, this is only going to get worse.
Speaker A:And look, here we are now.
Speaker A:It did.
Speaker A:And their earnings report yesterday said that sales were down 9% comparably in the last quarter.
Speaker A:So that's.
Speaker A:That's crazy.
Speaker A:But on paper, Buchanan looks like the right guy.
Speaker A:He's done a great job at Michael's.
Speaker A:Like, he's done a good job there.
Speaker A:And he.
Speaker A:He also listens to our show.
Speaker A:So, you know, kudos to him for that.
Speaker A:But, you know, so he.
Speaker A:But he's definitely got his job cut out to him.
Speaker A:I'm not sure there's anything you can do with Coles at this point, though, but I wish him the best of luck and.
Speaker A:And I think he'll like that we're saying this to him, but we are going to objectively comment on what we see him try to do here going forward.
Speaker A:Yeah, but I think he's got the right chops to lead this type of retailer, too.
Speaker A:That's the last point I'd say on, which is like, you know, if you look at what Michael's done, they've expanded their marketplace pretty broadly.
Speaker A:They've created an experience platform to coordinate events in their stores for parties, for dates, for meetups.
Speaker A:They allow makers into their stores as well.
Speaker A:So they have extended their brand in a way that people didn't think was possible.
Speaker A:And that's the kind of thing that today's leader needs.
Speaker A:I said this to a consultant this week.
Speaker A:You have to understand as an executive how to use digital to extend the relationship with your brand.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And that's what I think.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And that he's willing to test that kind of stuff like you're talking about in the stores and.
Speaker B:And figure out, not just testing it, but okay, if we're going to deploy this, this makers Marketplace in store, like, how are we going to scale that realistically?
Speaker B:Because that's a very hard thing to do.
Speaker B:And so I think that that, to me, shows that he's at least willing to.
Speaker B:To hopefully try some things.
Speaker B:Like, you're saying that incorporate digital, that allow Kohl's to scale some of these initiatives quickly to hopefully save that business.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And you have to have that mindset, and that's the reverse engine of your bicycle.
Speaker A:Remember that analogy we used to talk about a lot learning Omnichannel retail is learning how to ride a bike that is reverse engineered to.
Speaker A:When you want to go to the right, you have to turn the handlebars to the left.
Speaker A:People with digital.
Speaker A:Yeah, people with digital mindsets like he has that have grown up in E commerce have that legacy.
Speaker A:Merchants that have grown up in 20 years inside an organization are not likely to have that.
Speaker A:And that's what the boards have to realize.
