Ron Johnson: ‘I was a terrible fit for J.C. Penney’

Ron Johnson, who has been keeping a relatively low profile since he was ousted from J.C. Penney in April 2013, took to the podium in May, as a guest lecturer at Stanford University. Johnson discussed with Stanford Graduate School of Business students J.C. Penney, Apple and Target, and the lessons learned over his career in retail. Looking back on his time at Penney, Johnson believes it was the pace of his transformation plan, as opposed to the plan itself, that was wrong. It was too fast for a company as traditional as Penney.