Diversity & Inclusion

Who are the leading women working in retail technology? Chain Store Age is accepting nominations for its annual feature recognizing female executives who are helping to transform the retail industry through technology.   The “Top 10 Women in Tech” will celebrate the achievements of female executives from all areas of retail technology. The winners will be profiled in a special section of the January 2017 issue of Chain Store Age, as well as in an online report on chainstoreage.com.  

The key to success is customer satisfaction. By arming itself with a fleet of “great personnel,” The Container Store is always ready to deliver top-notch store-level service. This message was delivered during “Doing Well by Doing Good — How to Build Trust and Win the Modern Customer,” a topic discussed yesterday at “Retail’s Digital Summit 2016.” The event, sponsored by Shop.org, a division of the National Retail Federation, was held in Dallas.

West Elm is expanding into the hotel business. And most everything in the guest rooms will be for sale.   The retailer, a division of Williams-Sonoma, is partnering with hospitality management and development company DDK to launch a chain of boutique hotels.    

Staples has chosen a company veteran as its new CEO.   The retailer on Monday named Shira Goodman as its president and CEO and as a member of its board of directors, effective immediately.  Goodman, who has been been with Staples 24 years, has been serving as interim CEO since May when she took over for Ron Sargent, who resigned in the wake of the company’s failed attempt to acquire rival Office Deport.    

Kenneth Marshall, a 25-year veteran of the retail real estate industry, has joined Olshan Properties as head of retail. For the last two years, he was VP of development at WP Glimcher.   Marshall began his career in 1991 with Urban Retail Properties and worked there for 12 years, rising to VP of development. He did stints at Westfield, Colonial Properties Trust, and Mid-America before joining Glimcher.  

The Talbots announced that Michael Weiss, longtime CEO of Express, has joined the Talbots board of directors, effective Sept. 1, 2012.     Weiss held various leadership roles at Express, most recently serving from 2007 to 2015 as chairman, president and CEO. He joined Limited Brands in 1981 as the merchandise manager for an eight-store experimental division that became Express.     

In case you missed it, a national Higher Ground Moral Day of Action took place Monday at 30 state capitols across the country and in Washington, D.C. An organization of national and local progressive faith leaders called Moral Revival planned the events to deliver their "Higher Ground Moral Declaration." They called on politicians at all levels “to move away from extremist politics and policies that benefit the few and move toward policies and laws that are just and fair and guarantee a better life for the majority of the people.”

North American real estate owners and developers ratcheted up their green profiles markedly this year, though they still lag global trendsetters, according to the latest results of an annual sustainability study.   In GRESB’s annual environmental assessment of real estate developers and investment trusts, North American companies averaged a score of 59 out of a possible hundred, a five-point rise from last year and just shy of the global average of 60.  

Photo: Brian Woods