Editor’s note: This article was originally published on October 2, 2018.
New York
CNN Business
—
Jill Soltau, a veteran retail leader who most recently ran Joann fabrics and craft stores, will be tasked with turning around JCPenney.
The company announced on Tuesday that Soltau will take over as CEO effective October 15. JCPenney has been leaderless since Marvin Ellison left in May to take over the top job at Lowe’s.
According to Fortune magazine, Soltau, 51, will become the 25th woman currently leading a Fortune 500 company. She will be Penney’s fifth CEO in the past decade.
She has a base salary of $1.4 million, a $6 million signing bonus and is eligible for annual performance-based bonuses.
Soltau shares rose 10% in after-hours trading, a sign that Soltau has received Wall Street’s approval.
Soltau will face a daunting task: turning around former retail giant JCPenney (JCP), which has seen its stock price drop more than 50% this year to near $1.50 a share. Penney currently has no chief financial officer. Jeffrey Davis resigned last week after just 14 months on the job.
The challenges facing JCPenney are enormous. The company has more than $4 billion in debt and has been profitable in just two quarters of the past four years. Penney lost $101 million in its most recent quarter.
JCPenney’s decline comes as rivals Nordstrom (JWN), Kohl’s (KSS) and Macy’s (M) are demonstrating their ability to reinvent their businesses in the age of digital shopping.
Soltau will have to make tough decisions about Penney’s store layout. The company has 860 stores, hundreds of which are located in struggling malls. JCPenney’s warehouses and stores are also filled with excess clothing.
Penney was looking for a leader with sales experience to help it make better decisions about which brands to sell in its stores.
“We wanted someone with extensive apparel and sales experience and found Jill to be an ideal fit,” board director Paul Brown said in a release.
Soltau succeeded Joann in 2015. She also worked at Shopko, Sears and Kohl’s.
Penney’s selection of Soltau signals the company’s strategy to move away from Ellison.
Ellison was a former Home Depot executive who led Penney into the appliance industry. But his tenure brought mixed results: Washers and dryers were not the main draw for customers, and its clothing assortment suffered.
Penney considers its core shoppers to be middle-aged women. Earlier this month, Penney launched Artesia, a new line of fashionable women’s clothing priced under $30.