Ladies and gentlemen, retail has spoken. On Fortune’s coveted Businessperson of the Year list, retail leaders hold four of the top ten spots – more than any other industry. What an incredible testament to the power, ingenuity and leadership among us.
Congratulations to these four executives, who were honored by Fortune earlier this week:
- Howard Schultz – Founder and CEO, Starbucks (#1). Schultz has restored the coffee company to its greatness, the article says, but has also been making news as a result of his comments on “dysfunction” in Washington and his call for a boycott on political campaign contributions. Don’t miss David Kaplan’s great cover story on Schultz.
- Jeffrey Bezos – Founder and CEO, Amazon (#2). The Kindle Fire is just one of the reasons that Bezos landed the #2 spot, according to Fortune. As a CEO, Bezos is “engaged” and “shareholder-friendly” and there are several opportunities for company growth on the horizon.
- James Skinner – Vice Chairman and CEO, McDonald’s (#5). Since Skinner took the helm at McDonald’s in 2004, company revenue has increased 5% a year through new products that rival Starbucks and healthier menu options. And of course, all that growth means more jobs – 62,000 of which came in the month of April.
- Tim Cook – CEO, Apple (#8). After inheriting “the world’s most valuable technology company” from Steve Jobs, Cook has opportunities to grow one of America’s most-loved brands even more.
And the accolades don’t end there. Other retail executives who were recognized as one of the top 50 businesspeople in America include:
- Burberry’s Angela Ahrendts (#39)
- Costco’s James Sinegal (#19)
- Dollar Tree’s Bob Sasser (#32)
- Lululemon’s Christine Day (#23)
- PetSmart’s Robert Moran (#36)
- Ralph Lauren Corp’s Ralph Lauren (#17)
- TJX’s Carol Meyrowitz (#31)
- Walmart’s Mike Duke (#29)
- Whole Foods’ John Mackey and Walter Robb (#22)
As NRF works to promote the value of retail and the innovation that lies within our industry, these executives each serve as an example of the opportunity, promise and achievement that a career in retail allows.
One Comment
Morning Ellen:
Thanks for this great post and I would suggest it is pretty evident the reason for presence of these heavy weights in retail is testament to its importance as one of main drivers of the American economy. Retail sales has and will always be a great indication of consumers confidence which is on the rise as proven by the recent surge of sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
I also think this surge in consumers’ intention to purchase can be tracked in social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, message boards, etc. Specially during these big shopping days, consumers express their intentions to purchase before they actually make a trip to these retailers.
For your information, we partnered with CNBC to track top 20 retailers during the past couple of weeks and understand what the buzz, purchase intent, and problems were around and towards these retailers. As you can see in CNBC video below, our ‘Purchase Intent Index’ correctly placed Kohl’s and Gap at the bottom of the list which correlated to their weak sales data bringing their stock down few days after Cyber Monday.
I also blogged extensively about this partnership and our approach which hopefully you’ll have some time to read and find interesting and intriguing enough to contact me to discuss some ideas I would like to run by you on a powerful joint research.
Again, thanks for posting this interesting discovery and happy holidays.
CNBC Videos on our partnership and social media correlation to retailers’ sales data:
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000060115
My related blog posts:
http://mershsays.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/cnbc-collective-intellect-accurately-analyzed-social-space-to-track-retailers-sales/
http://mershsays.wordpress.com/2011/11/26/how-cnbc-used-our-social-media-monitoring-for-live-reporting-of-black-friday/
My interview with Boulder Daily Camera on our company and approach:
http://www.dailycamera.com/business/ci_19564543
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