Management

Costco announced that Jim Sinegal has informed the company of his intention to step down as CEO effective Jan. 1, 2012. In view of Sinegal's decision, Craig Jelinek, currently president and chief operating officer, has been elected as president and CEO effective Jan. 1, 2012.

For the last 25 years, Dennis May has been involved in the retail industry — and he's loved every second of it. From his modest beginning selling audio equipment to help support himself while in college (that was the cool job at the time, May recalls) to his tenure today as president and CEO of one of the fastest-growing cross-channel retail brands out there, the one constant has been retail. But that's just part of the reason we've chosen May as our 2011 cross-channel retailer of the year.

Frederick's of Hollywood has announced that the company and Linda LoRe have mutually agreed that, effective Sept. 2, LoRe will resign both as president and as a member of the board of directors of the company and its subsidiaries.

Lowe’s is consolidating its store operations and merchandising organizations. The move is designed to improve efficiencies, increase speed to market for new products and services, and enhance the shopping experience for customers, the chain said.

With widespread accounts of rape dating back to at least 1997, Change.org is demanding that Sears admits to these cases and opens a full investigation that immediately results in the arrest of alleged serial rapist Anil Santha.

Cambodian factory workers at a plant that produces fashions for H&M are dropping like flies and management says it's baffled. The company says it stopped production after approximately 200 workers suddenly became ill and began fainting last week. According to reports, some workers claimed to smell an intense odor before fainting.

Disney's best-selling "Cars" toys are being made in a factory in China that uses child labor and forces staff to do three times the amount of overtime allowed by law, according to an investigation. One worker reportedly killed herself after being repeatedly shouted at by bosses. Others cited worries over poisonous chemicals. Disney has now launched its own investigation.

More than 1,000 people across the U.S. have joined a campaign on Change.org calling on toy retailer Learning Express to stop selling live frog "EcoAquariums." Laura Goldman, an animal welfare blogger, launched the campaign on Change.org after learning that live African dwarf frogs were being sold in 4-square-inch plastic cubes.   

Dillard’s said it's offered to relocate 66 St. Louis employees whose jobs have been eliminated from the department store retailer’s merger of two merchandising divisions. Dillard’s is merging its St. Louis merchandising division with another in Little Rock, Ark. The St. Louis division is slated to close Oct. 23.

The U.S. Labor Department said that it had opened two investigations into working conditions for foreign cultural-exchange students employed at a Hershey Co. candy warehouse in central Pennsylvania. At the same time, the organizations responsible for employing the students were seeking to resolve a standoff with them by offering a week's paid vacation and cultural-enhancing day trips to Philadelphia, Amish country, and Gettysburg.