So I brought it up to our buyer at the time, I called her and said, ‘these are selling like hot cakes, send me more.'”Īs more product poured in, this little fixture he had set up in the corner of his store ended up producing 50% of Macy’s entire tiger shop woven’s business in California. “The customer found the far reach of that area and they bought this content. I started to notice that by the end of the day, like 40% of the supply on the back wall was gone,” Gennette reminisces. One day, the Kingston Trio – which was this short-sleeve candy-striped woven – came in, in three colors. We had like thirteen fixtures on this floor and a back wall. “I had a thing called the tiger shop, it was young men’s. He prefaces these stories by noting how addicting it can become to work in retail, especially when considering the immediate gratification one can receive from customers as a result of same-day efforts. While speaking with Mark Weber, radio host of Always in Fashion, Jeff Gennette reveals that two seminal moments occurred during his tenure at the university’s location that would forever change the trajectory of his career. “I thought I would get in, get out, and go to business school. “I originally thought I was only going to stay that year and a half,” he remembers. His first year and a half with the company would be spent as a sales manager no further than the floor of the Macy’s store on Stanford’s campus. “Where Stanford prepared me,” he says, “was in critical thinking, and the ability to manage strategy and communication.” Stanford Store He’d ultimately graduate from Stanford University in 1983. Swept up in the magic of Macy’s, Jeff found himself admitted into their executive training program that’s meant to mold bright young talent into industry leaders. Little did he expect so promising a conversation to take place with the iconic retail corporation’s recruiter. “The Macy’s interview was free and it was sort of considered the ‘practice’ interview.” “All the different companies that came courting would require points to get an interview for example, IBM could cost you 400 points and you had a total of 1,500 points you would be able to use,” explains Gennette. With graduation approaching, Stanford arranged for a multitude of employers to visit the school and meet his class of top-notch students. Well into his collegiate experience, he still wasn’t sure what he wanted to do professionally. Not long after arriving on campus, he earned a living by bussing tables at the university’s Faculty Club, with time he worked his way up to a manager position.ĭespite studying English in his coursework, Jeff grew more and more comfortable with coordinating the day to day operations of a service industry store. “I didn’t know what topsiders were until I went to Stanford,” Gennette told the Wall Street Journal, referring to the popular Sperry boat shoes. With college around the corner, the steady shifts gave him an opportunity to save up for his eventual prestigious undergraduate landing spot, Stanford University. “I loved it, there was a commission, and I never looked back,” he says. He got his first job at a local shop that sold mopeds when he was just 16 years old. Reading became a passion of his at an early age. The youngest of four siblings, his mother was a nursing instructor and his father a history teacher. Jeff Gennette was born in San Diego, California, and grew up in a suburb of the city known as El Cajon.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |