JCPenney CEO Ron Johnson came to the brand from Apple and shook things up from day one, but shoppers rejected change and the leader has been ousted. JCPenney CEO, Ron Johnson joined the company a year and a half ago, bringing with him an esteemed Apple pedigree that promised to shake up the stale brand and bring it into modernity.
Before Ron Johnson was hired in 2011, J.C. Penney had been effectively stagnant for more than two decades. In inflation-adjusted terms, the company had actually lost billions of dollars worth of ground—ground that its competitors have now claimed. We could also do that math in terms of market share, but you get the point already.
Johnson then bought roughly that same amount of J.C. Penney stock for himself, in the form of warrants that he can cash in only if the stock gets back to nearly $30 a share. That’s about twice its current value.
In late February, the Wall Street Journal quoted JC Penney COO Michael Kramer voicing his distaste for the company as it was before Johnson took over. “I hated the J.C. Penney culture. It was pathetic,” Kramer said. Like Johnson, Kramer is also a veteran of the Apple Store.
Ron Johnson and the Destruction of J.C. Penney. The Johnson era at J.C. Penney will go down in history as one of the most destructive reigns by any CEO at any company—ever.
About two years ago, the company hired Soltau to spearhead its turnaround effort after its former CEO Marvin Ellison left to lead Lowe's.
Ron JohnsonRon Johnson (businessman)Ron JohnsonBornSeptember 25, 1958NationalityAmericanEducationStanford University (B.A.) Harvard University (M.B.A.)OccupationCEO of Enjoy2 more rows
The company was saddled with debt and spent the last decade with a continual turnover in CEOs, new store designs that couldn't spark interest, initiatives and rebrands that didn't resonate with customers. The once-beloved retailer has been unprofitable since 2010 with net losses of $4.5 billion.
Marc Rosen (Nov 1, 2021–)JCPenney / CEO
Simon Property GroupAlso back is further change, however, at least if it's true that J.C. Penney's owners — Simon Property Group and Brookfield Asset Management — have bid nearly $9 billion for rival Kohl's.
Its debt rating cut to junk status. For the first nine months of J.C. Penney's fiscal year ending October 27, 2012, the retailer saw sales decline 23.1%, gross margin drop 31.4% and comparable store sales drop 22.3%. Worse still, net income fell more than 100% from the prior year.
He Didn't Test Ideas in Advance Well, one reason is that he didn't really ask them. When Johnson floated plans for the chain's radical makeover, he was asked about the possibility of trying the new pricing strategies on a limited test basis. Johnson reportedly shot down the idea, responding, “We didn't test at Apple.”
Under the new ownership of Simon Property Group and Brookfield Asset Management, JCPenney continues to operate 671 stores across the U.S. and Puerto Rico, as well as our flagship store, jcp.com, to ensure our valued customers have access to their favorite brands and compelling merchandise.
Some felt that the firm was too crippled and damaged to survive. The retailer even abandoned its Plano, Texas corporate campus. But the company has proven those skeptics wrong. JCPenney is still open.
Simon Property Group and Brookfield Asset Management, owners of JCPenney, bid $8.6 billion ($68 a share) to buy Kohl's. If the offer is accepted, the brands will continue to operate as separate stores. However, the owners would combine operations to cut overall business costs.
Correspondingly, he was removed as CEO not because he came up a little short of the goals set for the company. He was ousted because he failed in spectacular fashion. The superlatives used to describe Johnson’s failures surfaced long before he lost his job.
He thought that people would show up in stores because they were fun places to hang out, and that they would buy things listed at full-but-fair price. But early and often during the Johnson era, critics pointed out that JC Penney was not the Apple Store.
It didn’t take long for people to note that Johnson’s no-coupons, no-sales experiment was failing to attract shoppers. Sales collapsed through early 2012, and by the summer, even Johnson acknowledged the stores had made a big mistake.
Ullman doesn’t envision a complete return to pre-Johnson policies , however. “I wouldn’t recommend that we go back to the way J.C. Penney was when I left. Things change.”. He Totally Misread the JC Penney Brand. Johnson pictured coffee bars and rows of boutiques inside JC Penney stores.
This is not fiction. Bill Ackman was the primary engineer and architect of recruiting Ron Johnson to the company. He and Ron Johnson co-authored a strategy that has fractured the company and ruined the lives of thousands of J.C. Penney employees. ….
Penney’s financial free fall. And among those who had criticized Ackman for it was Howard Schultz, the billionaire CEO and founder of Starbucks. (Ullman, not at all coincidentally, has long served on Starbucks’ board.)
Ackman urged his fellow board members to oust longtime CEO Mike Ullman and to replace him with Ron Johnson, the savant behind both Apple’s Genius Bar and the computer company’s sleek retail stores. But Johnson’s tenure at the top of J.C. Penney was anything but tidy.
Johnson grew up in Edina, Minnesota, and is the son of an executive at General Mills and a homemaker. He was captain of the Edina High School soccer and baseball teams. Johnson received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Stanford University and a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School .
At Target, Johnson was vice president of merchandising, where he was responsible for launching the Michael Graves line of consumer products.