Diversity & Inclusion

The wait is finally over—and with it, the competition between Microsoft and Apple takes a closer turn. Microsoft will take the wraps off its Manhattan flagship, on Oct. 26. The store is located on Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street, just a few short blocks from Apple’s Fifth Avenue flagship with its glass cube entry.

After a new donation pledge from Publix Super Markets, the international nonprofit Habitat for Humanity will be able to build 40 new houses in 2016 in the Southeast, where Publix serves all of its customers.

Detroit’s fledging reputation as a Midwest Silicon Valley took took a big step forward with the news that Amazon is creating a tech hub in the Motor City.

“Michigan is a rapidly growing technology corridor and we’re eager to bring the incredible local Detroit talent to Amazon,” Peter Faricy, VP for Amazon Marketplace, told the Detroit. Free Press.

New rankings from the Great Places to Work Institute suggests the retail and consumer packaged goods are not good industries for women.

The only retailers to make the institute’s top 100 list of best places for women to work were Build A Bear Workshop (10), The Container Store (27), Wegman’s (54) and L.L. Bean (84). The CPG industry fared even worse with not a single company included in the top 100.

Michael Rouleau was never seen as a long-term leadership solution as Tuesday Morning’s CEO, but the veteran retailer’s abrupt departure with no immediate successor named reveals the off-price retailer lacked a succession plan.

The company said Rouleau, 77, will remain in a consultative capacity until March 31, 2016 and that it had created a new Office of the Chairman led by current Board Chairman Steven Becker to support oversight of the company’s strategic initiatives until a new CEO can be hired.

Whole Foods Market says it is slashing more than 1% of its workforce in an effort to lower prices for its customers and invest in technology upgrades.

The grocery chainsaysit will cut about 1,500 jobs, or 1.6% of its workforce, over the next eight weeks. The company says many of the reductions will come through attrition.

Gap plans to expand the training program it offers to its women garment workers oversees, aiming to educate at least 1 million women by 2020.

The program, called P.A.C.E. (Personal Advancement & Career Enhancement), launched in 2007 and gives women garment workers access to a curriculum up to 80 hours long in up to nine areas, from communications skills, financial literacy, stress management, problem-solving and decision-making.