- I'm here at Macy's
at its landmark store in the heart of New York city,
to chat with Jeff Gennette
about its future and the future of retail.
You are known as a trendspotter.
- I always think about being a merchant like driving a car,
and so you're looking out your windshield
because you're always looking at what's next.
You're looking in the rear view mirror
because you gotta protect history.
You're looking in the side mirrors 'cause you wanna know
what the heck's going on in your competition.
- Did you always have your eye on the C suite?
- I didn't.
Being openly gay and not seeing anybody at those levels,
back in 1983, I really took it outta consideration.
- I'm Monica Langley and this is The Inflection Point.
This is like the coolest place.
I've been coming here for decades,
and thank you for having us today.
- Yeah, it's great to be with you.
- When was that moment in your life when everything changed?
- So it was my first year in my career,
and it was 1983 and I came out in college
and I had to make a decision as I was entering Macy's.
It was Macy's California,
at the beginning of the AIDS crisis in San Francisco,
and I had to make a decision,
was I gonna keep my personal life a secret,
or was I gonna integrate it into my professional life?
At that time,
gay people both inside and outside the workplace,
they were facing big challenges.
I didn't see gay people as role models within the company,
and I thought, is this gonna hold back my career?
But I made the decision to, basically work out loud
and I've never looked back.
- That's powerful.
Even though today, I mean,
gay rights and acceptance have come a long way,
but take us back to 1983.
A lot of people don't remember or weren't even born then
that are watching our show- - Yeah.
- To know what it was like back then.
I mean, AIDS was only discovered,
in 1981 or something, right? - Yes.
- And then it was called the gay plague.
I mean it was a very discriminatory place.
- Yes. - Back then.
- It was. - So that was a very bold step
for you to do that.
- When I really kinda weighed the pros and cons of this,
I was always, I was raised to be very, very truthful
and live your full self,
and I don't think I could have separated it.
I wouldn't have, been the person and executive that I became
if I had separated it so I really didn't have a choice.
- So when you started at Macy's, how did you land there?
I mean you were at Stanford.
- Yeah, I was. - As an English major
and I'm sure Stanford got
every big time employer coming there.
From Goldman Sachs to who knows where,
and the tech companies, being in California.
So what made you go to the Macy's to interview?
- So this is a good story.
Take you back to kind of the spring of 1983,
and Stanford at that point gave all seniors
a number of interview points,
and we each got like 400 points.
Then when the IBMs and the MBIs came to campus,
Xeroxes, all those were the companies at that point,
it would take you 150-200 points
to be able to get into those interviews.
The Macy's- - So you were giving up
a lot of points?
- Well, the Macy's interview was free.
(laughs)
- What does that say about Macy's?
- Well, what it said was that
you could practice your interview skills
you may not end up there,
but, there was something about that.
It was the idea about,
it was the management experience
that you could get at age 22.
Well, I thought I was gonna stay for a couple years.
I thought I was gonna go to business school,
and here I am 38 years later.
And, I got the fever.
I was running the young men's area.
It was called The Tiger Shop in the Macy Stanford store
and I'll never forget this,
there was a short sleeve woven program
called The Kingston Trio that arrived one day
and it was on the back wall,
and about a third of it sold in the first day.
Those were customers that found it.
So I picked that- - All the way in the back?
- All the way in the back,
I picked it up and put it on a fixture
right by the register.
I called the buyer, I said, send more.
That skew, that one shirt,
ended up being about 30% of the entire business
and we ended up going-
- In that store?
- In that store and for the company.
That was the idea that a customer with the right content
at the right value with the right service,
you'd immediately see the results of that
in your sales, was just intoxicating.
- You are known as a trendspotter,
tell me about that?
- I always think about being a merchant like driving a car,
and so you're looking at your windshield
because you're always looking at what's next.
You're looking for, what are the signals in pop culture
that are gonna define where customers are thinking about
what they want on their body, what they want in their home.
You're looking in the rear view mirror
because you gotta protect history.
You gotta know what are those things that produce profit.
And you're looking in the side mirrors
because you wanna know
what the heck's going on in your competition.
If you're not looking at your competition at all times,
you're gonna miss things.
- Well, let's go back a little to your inflection point
which really, I think made you the perfect CEO
to focus on diversity and inclusion
which is so important always and especially today.
- I think Macy's has been a front runner of this
but we're still in many respects
in the early innings of this,
and I would talk about it in a couple of ways.
The first one is that,
I think we were always pretty good with diversity,
and the idea about getting, all of the various,
be it ethnicities or genders, into the tent.
But getting them onto the playing field
and getting them participating and figuring out a way
to have them bring their authentic selves,
with their unique contributions to the fore,
that's been the journey.
And that's what we've really been focused on.
We do a good job with pay equity.
When you look across gender or ethnicity
whatever the job type is wherever it is,
we have 100% parity.
But, we have a huge opportunity to make sure that
from the front line all the way to the boardroom,
that we have, symmetry with the communities that we serve.
- So would you say this has become
one of your priorities as a CEO?
- Absolutely.
- What is another of your priorities as CEO
- Major priority is to grow profitably and-
- That's a good idea. - Is that a good idea?
So when you think about it we have,
on the Macy's brand we have,
and the Bloomingdale's brand
we have a thing called the Polaris strategy,
and that was launched
right before the pandemic in February of 2020.
The good news is that it has proved quite durable
and we've just gotten our cost base dramatically down.
We've sped up the metabolism of our team.
We've reduced layers.
We invested early into digital
and we now have the number two website
in our categories in America.
So this is something that has been a position of strength.
- Given that Macy's was founded in like 1850
or something like that,
you're so, have such a storied history.
- Yes. - I mean,
all of us have heard of Macy's all of our lives
and in my mind's eye, when I think of Macy's,
first I think of this store.
But, now you say you're digitally led-
- Yeah. - Was this a big shift for you
to think it's digitally led
and just the stores are part of that omnichannel?
- Yeah, what I'd say is that
the customer has moved towards digital
so we always follow the customer, but customers love stores.
Over 60% of our business remains in stores.
- Did you always have your eye on the C suite
when you became a management trainee out of Stanford?
Did you think, one day I wanna be the CEO of Macy's?
- I didn't and I will tell you
it goes back to that inflection point.
Being openly gay and not seeing anybody at those levels,
back in 1983, I really took it outta consideration.
But I love the work, I love the teams.
I love the work that I did
and the contributions that I could make,
and that's what led me to this, on this journey.
- But you've had a pretty straight trajectory.
You have gone up, up and up.
Now you are the chairman and CEO,
have there been setbacks for you, Jeff?
- There certainly has been setbacks.
I left the company a couple of times
and one of them was foolhardy.
But what I tell you is that I had amazing mentors,
over the years that were always tapping me on the shoulder
before I thought I was ready,
or probably before I was ready.
My predecessor Terry Lundgren who is a big mentor of mine,
says, he has this phrase says 'bloom where planted.'
And I think that is a great mantra for anybody in retail
that has talent and has ambition.
If you're ready to go because the industry is so rich
with opportunities between marketing and merchandising
and tech, and data analytics
that you can go anywhere in there
and if you're ready to like,
go into different cities or states,
you're gonna learn about new customers.
It's just gonna enrich your talent base,
your experience level to be a more effective executive.
- The retail industry as you're just describing it
with all the different divisions,
is seriously complex, in a way.
And on the other hand though,
does retail get the respect as other industries?
- Well, I would tell you it's definitely complex
and I don't think it gets the respect that it deserves.
- So does it tick you off
that retail doesn't get that respect
when you see how good it's been in your life?
- What I say to people is that
because it doesn't get the respect that it deserves,
you can just do extremely well
if you have talent and you have ambition,
and there's so much
that's gonna keep you interested over the years.
- Let's talk about you as a leader.
What would you say is the one characteristic
that you bring as the CEO that all your team would say
that's why I wanna follow Jeff Gennette.
- Yeah, I would say that, I'm pretty optimistic.
If you interviewed my mother she would say,
I was born on the right side of the bed.
I wake up each day
and I've got a pretty wellspring of energy and optimism
and I channel that, and I over the years have had a knack
for bringing that out in others.
With this authenticity the opportunity is,
if I'm gonna be myself and I'm gonna talk about my failures,
I've been open, very open about my noble failures
and the things that have just been train wrecks
in my career and sharing of that
because there's other times
in which I've swung for the fences
and I've had some major hits.
Sharing of those stories,
asking everybody to bring their full self to work has been,
and doing it with an optimistic spirit
because, think about what we just went through
for the last 18 months, it was harrowing.
I mean it was hard, lots of obstacles.
And yet if you keep your eye on a future,
if you keep your eye on the consumer
and talk about those possibilities,
you present a vision that is out there
and you're honest about the things
that aren't going right, people will follow.
What I find is that by being vulnerable
as an individual, as an executive,
that breeds vulnerability in others,
and that is a foundation that I think develops trust.
- Jeff, you've mentioned authenticity a few times.
Why is that so important?
- So I know for myself, and I know have learned from others
that when you can bring your full self to your workplace,
it just unlocks so much potential.
You're not checking yourself at the door,
you're bringing all of your ideas, all of your thoughts,
everything that you saw, everything that you feel
into the workplace, and from that it breeds creativity.
It breeds, trust, it breeds the opportunity for you
to exercise that what you believe and are passionate about.
And when you can do that,
if you can unlock people's ambition and talent
with the passion that they have, you're gonna win.
- Was that the key to your success?
- In retrospect, I think it was.
I didn't know it at the time
but, in reflection, I believe it was.
- Let me ask you this.
You go to stores? - I do.
- Do you go as Jeff Gennette, CEO,
or do you like slip in anonymously?
- So it's 50:50. - Okay.
- So there is about 50% of my visits they're scheduled,
and it's like, I'm going there to see my team in action
and the stores look great, but I'm meeting with colleagues.
My favorite thing to do is to really see
and just get a sense of these amazing sales colleagues.
And these are men and women
that just are so passionate about their customers
and I learned so much from them.
Half the time, I go in unannounced,
but within about five minutes I'm recognized.
- You are? - Yeah.
'Cause I do a lot of video and so I am recognized,
but it's always good because I don't see the preparation.
I see what the customer sees.
- Do you go to competitors?
- All the time.
- All the time? - All the time.
- And they don't- - In their websites-
- But the- - No they don't recognize me.
- Yeah, so they don't know who you are
so you're in their shopping.
What if you're in a competitor-
- Yeah. - And you see something that,
I wanna wear this, can you buy it?
- So what I do because I live in Brooklyn,
I support a lot of local retail around there.
And just being, a good citizen of,
my part of Brooklyn which is Park Slope,
and there's a lot of really struggling businesses.
I've always done that,
in all the cities I've lived in
I've taken advantage of local-
- Okay, but those are probably local businesses.
- Those are local businesses-
- What about other big department stores
that are Macy's competitors?
- I don't buy from them. - Never?
- I buy from Bloomingdale's and I buy from Macy's.
- So, what about your daughter?
Does the same rule apply?
- I'd love you to interview my daughter.
My daughter doesn't buy anything at retail.
She is simply secondhand.
She goes into- - But she has you as her dad.
- Doesn't matter.
She's got this sustainability bug in her head
and she's not gonna do anything
that is going to increase carbon footprint or any of the-
- How old is your daughter?
- She's 21.
- Does that drive you crazy?
Like we've got beautiful stuff for you honey.
- It gives me a good window into,
her generation, which I find quite helpful.
- If she won't buy anything new and she's only secondhand,
how can you bring that mentality
where your job is to sell new things?
- Well first off she's not, thank goodness,
representative of all of American youth,
which I love. (laughs)
A lot of people buy things.
Actually, her inspiration was what led me,
with James Reinhardt to do a collaboration with thredUP,
which was an opportunity to basically bring,
used clothing into our stores
to kind of have that virtuous loop of apparel consumption.
So, but, what I would say is that there is always needs
that this younger consumer has
they might not buy apparel but they're buying fragrance,
or they're buying jewelry,
or they're buying something for their home.
She certainly is a consumer on that just not an apparel.
- Let's talk about Macy's as, it's storied history,
it's something we all have grown up with.
Honestly who hasn't heard of Macy's?
So many children and adults in this country
have grown up on Thanksgiving morning
with the Macy's Day Parade.
And, it's a very multi-generational store.
My mother, when I told her
I was interviewing the CEO of Macy's
she goes, my favorite store.
And my daughter born in New York city and of course,
Santa to her will always be the Macy's Santa.
- Yes. - So I ask you,
as the parent of a daughter as I am,
will your legacy as you're thinking about it,
how can you ensure that our daughters
will one day, not anytime soon,
but will one day bring their children to Macy's?
- Making the brand relevant in the 21st century,
and we're on our way.
We definitely have had some setbacks.
But I think that with our strategies and our ambition,
the brand is eternal.
I really do believe that.
It's now our opportunity to execute our strategy
because when we make happy customers,
we make happy shareholders.
And so, that's our journey
we feel like we've got the right path,
we now just need to continue to execute it.
- Thank you so much for having us
in Macy's today Jeff, it's been a pleasure.
- It's been a pleasure, Monica.
Great spending time with you.