Marketing

Fort Wayne, Ind. -- Vera Bradley announced that Karen Peters has been named executive VP, retail and wholesale sales.

Peters has 25 years of retail experience including multi-store management and merchandising. Between February 2005 and March 2014, she served as senior VP, director of stores for Saks Fifth Avenue Off 5th. Prior to that, she held key management positions with Sears, Target, and Kohl's.

Vera Bradley has named Karen Peters as EVP, retail and wholesale sales.

Peters has 25 years of retail experience including multi-store management and merchandising. Between February 2005 and March 2014, she served as SVP, director of stores for Saks Fifth Avenue Off 5th. Prior to that, she held key management positions with Sears, Target and Kohl's.

Kraft Foods Group has named George Zoghbi as vice chairman of operations, R&D, sales and strategy, a newly created position. He will report directly to CEO Tony Vernon.  

The company said that it created the new role to “bring together the expertise of several key areas under one leader, including research & development, which creates innovative new products and manages quality improvements, to the manufacturing and sales teams that make and ultimately deliver Kraft's products to customers.”

Tuesday Morning Corporation has named Susan H. Davidson as SVP of marketing. She succeeds Ross Manning, who has vacated the spot to “pursue other professional opportunities,” according to the company.

Burlington, N.J. -- Burlington Stores announced that Thomas A. Kingsbury, the company’s CEO and president, has been unanimously elected as chairman of the board.

“We are excited to elect Tom to chair the board of directors of Burlington Stores,” the board said in a statement. “He has done an outstanding job as CEO since he joined the company in 2008. The growth of the business has been impressive under Tom’s leadership and we look forward to this continuing under Tom’s expanded role as chairman and CEO.”

New York -- 99 Cents Only Stores named Christopher Laurence as the company's interim CFO, treasurer and secretary. Laurence replaces Frank Schools, who resigned to pursue other opportunities.

Laurence most recently was CEO of ThreeSixty Group, a product development and sourcing company for consumer product brands and retailers.

Goodlettsville, Tenn. – Dollar General Corp. has opened its 12th distribution center in Bethel, Pennsylvania. Dollar General announced plans to build the 930,000-sq.-ft. facility in 2012 and broke ground on the facility in fall 2012 with Kinsley Construction.

New York – A group director for two Tiffany & Co. stores in Houston has filed a lawsuit alleging the retailer discriminates against African-Americans in hiring and promotions for management and executive-level jobs. A complaint filed by Michael McClure in federal court in New York on May 29 says that McClure is the only African-American holding one of 200 U.S. management-level positions at Tiffany, and that there are no African-American executives in the company.

New York – Edward H. Finkelstein, former chairman and CEO of the company now known as Macy’s Inc., died of natural causes at his home in Thousand Oaks, California, on May 31. He was 89.

Finkelstein led Macy’s in the 1970s and 1980s and launched concepts including the Aeropostale apparel chain, which was later sold off, as well as several private brands. Finkelstein left the company in 1992 after 44 years, following a bankruptcy filing.

New York - The vast majority (80%) of consumers aged 20-40 in the U.S. and U.K. believe total privacy in the digital world is a thing of the past, but nearly half (49%) said they would not object to having their buying behavior tracked if it would result in relevant offers from brands and suppliers. A new study of 2,012 consumers by Accenture also shows.64% of respondents said that when they are physically in a store, they would welcome text messages from that retailer alerting them to offers matching their buying preferences.