Management

Tiffany & Co. announced Monday that its longtime chief executive officer, Michael J. Kowalski, will retire effective March 31, 2015. Kowalski, who is also a member of Tiffany's board of directors, will continue to serve on the board in the role of non-executive chairman. Frederic Cumenal, president of the international luxury jewelry retailer, has been named to be the next CEO. Kowalski, 62, joined Tiffany in 1983, became its CEO in 1999, and assumed the role of chairman of the board in 2003.

Express Chief Executive Officer Michael Weiss, who has run the business since it was an eight-store experiment by Limited Brands in 1980, is passing the reins to President David Kornberg next year. Weiss will stay on as nonexecutive chairman after Kornberg takes the CEO job on Jan. 30, the Columbus, Ohio-based company said yesterday in a statement. Weiss, 73, had previously retired in 2004, though he returned in 2007 when the business was acquired by Golden Gate Capital Corp. The management change comes at the same time as a possible takeover fight. 

Big Lots officials are hammering away at numerous changes they hope will fatten the bottom line, company executives told investors at a recent conference. They're so confident, in fact, that they recently initiated a cash-dividend program for shareholders, a first for the company. Many of the changes are those that have been reported before: making furniture a key part of the business, becoming the Hostess snack-cake thrift outlet, and working harder to appeal to Big Lots’ target customer, nicknamed "Jennifer." But one change that's underway might surprise the industry and customers alike: improvement to the store's electronic security systems.

In a world where professional titles help people advance their careers, earn more money and gain stronger social status, Zappos.com is saying goodbye to what so many professionals work so hard to gain — job titles. This past November, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh first announced that the retailer would soon become a "self-governing" system, aiming to have transparency among all workers. Known as holacracy, this type of management style encourages self-lead workers and teams of workers — also recognized as circles — with Zappos planning to have around 400 circles by the end of its roll out in December 2014.

Despite having a pulse this year after a disastrous 2013, J.C. Penney can't secure a permanent CEO to take the reins from current leader Mike Ullman. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Mindy Grossman, CEO of Home Shopping Network and a highly regarded retail industry executive, turned down the chance to become J.C. Penney's next chief some two months ago. That means Grossman turned down the gig around the time of J.C. Penney's May 15 first-quarter earnings report, in which it delivered both top- and bottom-line results that were ahead of Wall Street expectations.

Guru Hariharan spent half-a-decade at Amazon.com, but says he had little face-to-face contact with the man he considers his idol, CEO Jeff Bezos. A former junior engineer who rose up the company ranks before departing in 2009, Hariharan only ever talked to Bezos once in his five-and-a-half year Amazon career, answering questions for him and his senior executives during a three-hour annual review. "If you think about labor as the most painful thing in life, that surpassed it probably," says Hariharan, who remembers spending several weeks preparing a six-page document on the successes of Amazon Webstore.

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.

American Apparel will get $25 million from investor Standard General LP in an agreement that shakes up the board and lets the struggling retailer pay off a $10 million loan, a person familiar with the matter said. Under the pact, Standard General will add three board members to American Apparel and two other directors will be chosen mutually, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the deal hasn't been made public yet. Co-Chairmen Allan Mayer and David Danziger will be the only current directors staying on American Apparel's seven-member board, according to the person.

lululemon athletica's founder Dennis "Chip" Wilson is sniffing around options to take the company private, people with knowledge of the matter said last week. Wilson has met with private equity firms, including Leonard Green & Partners, to explore his options, although no deal is currently in the offering, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Target is "respectfully" requesting that shoppers not bring guns into its stores. The retailer posted a notice on its website Wednesday and quickly drew attention on Twitter — #ontarget. "Our approach has always been to follow local laws and, of course, we will continue to do so," the notice says. "But starting today, we will also respectfully request that guests not bring firearms to Target — even in communities where it's permitted by law."