Personnel

Beauty retailer Sephora has promoted Mary Beth Laughton to executive vice president of U.S. omni retail. Previously, Laughton was senior vice president of digital. “Mary Beth is a visionary and strategist with a deep understanding of how customers are evolving,” said Calvin McDonald, chief executive officer and president of Sephora Americas. “During her time at…

Diamond and fine jewelry retailer Blue Nile has announced the appointment of Frédéric Cumenal, the former chief executive officer of Tiffany & Co., to its board of directors. Cumenal held various executive positions of increasing responsibility at Tiffany and served on the company’s board of directors. Prior to his work with Tiffany & Co., Cumenal…

Consumers often decry the early appearance of holiday shopping commercials and decorations. For retailers, however, preparing for the holiday shopping season has become a year-round effort, especially when it comes to fulfillment center staffing. With e-commerce continuing to grow in popularity, much of today’s labor demand has shifted from brick-and-mortar stores to fulfillment centers. As…

Consumers often decry the early appearance of holiday shopping commercials and decorations. For retailers, however, preparing for the holiday shopping season has become a year-round effort, especially when it comes to fulfillment center staffing. With e-commerce continuing to grow in popularity, much of today’s labor demand has shifted from brick-and-mortar stores to fulfillment centers. As […]

Wal-Mart wants to make sure its employees who take time off to serve in the military never have to take a pay cut. The company on Tuesday announced a new pay policy for all full-time and part-time workers who leave for voluntary or involuntary military assignments. Wal-Mart's pledge is to cover the difference in pay…

The retail industry announced 11,669 job cuts in April, the highest total among all industries, bringing the year-to-date total to 50,133. That's up 36 percent from the 36,977 retail sector job cuts announced in the first four months of 2016. The retailers responsible for the most job cuts this year include Macy's (10,000), J.C. Penney…

Target Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian Cornell got no bonus and saw his pay cut by one-third after a year marred by disappointing sales, customer defections and executive departures. Cornell’s compensation declined 33 percent last year to $11.3 million, most of which came from stock awards valued at $9.65 million, according to a proxy statement filed…

Amazon.com will add another 100,000 full-time jobs over the next 18 months, company founder and CEO Jeff Bezos proudly announced earlier this year. The new jobs are great, but a closer inspection shows Amazon may simply be adding back jobs it helped kill off. For example, Amazon played a large role in eliminating more than 50,000 jobs…

Academy Sports + Outdoors, a sports, outdoor and lifestyle retailer, named Sam Johnson as its executive vice president of retail operations, effective April 24. Johnson joins Academy after seven years with HHGregg, where he most recently served as chief retail officer. At HHGregg, he led store operations, customer relations, commercial sales, real estate and visual merchandising. Prior…

The Estée Lauder Cos. Inc. announced this week that Thia Breen, group president of North America, is retiring after 40 years with the company. Breen will be succeeded by Chris Good, Estee Lauder's president of U.K. and Ireland, while Philippe Warnery, current general manager for Canada, will be named senior vice president and general manager for…