Federated Department Stores Inc. (Cincinnati) has named company veteran Ronald Klein as chairman/ceo of Macy's East, its New York-based division, effective Feb. 15, 2004. Klein, who previously served as vice chairman of Macy's East, succeeds Hal Kahn, who is retiring after having served as chairman/ceo of the 104-store division since 1994.
The company also announced that Michael Krauter, currently executive vp/director of stores at the Rich's/Lazarus/Goldsmith's-Macy's division (Atlanta), will assume a new position as president/chief merchandising officer of the division where Klein had been chairman since July 2001. Krauter will join with David Nichols, who remains divisional president/chief operating officer.
“Ron will join with Jim Gray, who has been president of Macy's East since 1994, in creating a dynamic leadership team in this important division,” said chairman/ceo Terry Lundgren. Lundgren said that under the new management structure at Rich's/Lazarus/Goldsmith's-Macy's, both the merchant and operations principals will report to Susan Kronick, Federated's vice chair responsible for all department store operations. Klein, in his new capacity as chairman of Macy's East, also will continue to report to Kronick.
Federated also announced the creation of a centralized organization to be responsible for overall strategy, merchandising and marketing of home-related categories of business in all of its 425-plus stores nationally that carry the Macy's nameplate.
In addition to all Macy's department stores on both the East and West coasts, stores affected by the change in home store operations include Rich's-Macy's, Lazarus-Macy's, Goldsmith's-Macy's, Bon-Macy's and Burdines-Macy's stores. Bloomingdale's is not affected.
The new Macy's Home Store organization will be headquartered in New York and headed by Eric Salus, who currently is president of the company's Seattle-based Bon-Macy's division. Salus will take over as president of the new division effective Feb. 9, 2004, reporting directly to Lundgren. There are no plans to replace Salus at Bon-Macy's.
In 2003, home categories — including textiles, tabletop, housewares and furniture — represented approximately $2.6 billion in annual sales for Federated, or about 19 percent of total sales in the Macy's-named divisions.
“The primary driver behind this initiative is to accelerate sales by improving and further differentiating our home assortments,” Lundgren said. “A more coordinated, centralized approach to home buying, merchandising and marketing will enable us to work more effectively with our vendors to better edit assortments, secure unique product and introduce newness. This is the underlying platform of our strategy.”