Marketing

New York -- In a surprise move, Sears Holdings Corp. announced that CEO Louis J. D'Ambrosio will step down as CEO, effective Feb. 2, for family health reasons. D'Ambrosio will be replaced by the company's chairman and its largest shareholder, Edward Lampert.

NEW YORK — The National Retail Federation will present Ohio Council of Retail Merchants president and CEO John C. Mahaney Jr., known as “the Chief,” with the J. Thomas Weyant Lifetime Achievement Award at NRF’s Annual Convention and EXPO next week in New York.

Minneapolis -- Target Corp. said Tuesday it plans to price-match top online retailers year-round, including Amazon.com, Walmart.com, BestBuy.com and Toysrus.com (including Babiesrus.com).

Target stores will also price-match items found on Target.com, the company said.

San Francisco -- Gymboree Corp. announced Tuesday that it has appointed Mark Breitbard as CEO, effective Jan. 14. Breitbard joins Gymboree from Gap Inc., where he was president of Gap North America.

He also has served as EVP of GapKids and babyGap.

Breitbard succeeds interim CEO Kip M. Garcia, who will resume his former duties as president. Garcia stepped in when former CEO Matthew McCauley resigned last September.

Interim COO Yvonne Hao will return to her role as an operating partner at Bain Capital.

WASHINGTON — National Retail Federation and the University of Phoenix will award ten current retail employees in the U.S. a Dream BIG scholarship.

Each of the ten recipients will receive full tuition at any University of Phoenix campus or online program, to encourage them to pursue career opportunities within the retail industry.

Rockford, Mich. -- Wolverine Worldwide said Tuesday it will make several organizational moves to drive future growth and global brand building in the wake of its October 2012 acquisition of the Performance & Lifestyle Group.

Washington, D.C. -- Online marketplace LivingSocial said Tuesday that former Best Buy EVP and CMO Barry Judge has been appointed its new chief marketing officer.

Judge is charged with extending LivingSocial’s leadership in the local commerce space by overseeing online and offline advertising, brand management, social media and communications.
 
Judge first joined Best Buy in 1999 to help the company launch Bestbuy.com.

ROCKFORD — Wolverine Worldwide is making organizational changes to drive its future growth and global brand building.

Capitalizing on the momentum following Wolverine’s October 2012 acquisition of the Performance & Lifestyle Group, it will migrate from four to three brand operating groups. Wolverine expects the new operating group alignment to maximize brand synergies and leverage global growth opportunities. Veteran company leaders Ted Gedra, Mark Neal and Jim Zwiers will lead the new operating groups.