Editors’ Note

Shawn Outler has held her current post since February 2016. Prior to this, she was Senior Vice President - Weddings, Gifting Strategy, and Multicultural Business Development; Group VP - Fashion Forecasting and Operations, Leased Businesses and Multicultural Development; Group Vice President - Multicultural Merchandising and Vendor Development; and Divisional Vice President-Merchandise Manager Better Traditional Sportswear. She has also been Divisional Vice President - Merchandise Manager Updated Classic Sportswear and Buyer-Better Dresses, Status Denim, Women’s Casual Sportswear, Suits, and Leather Outerwear for Lord & Taylor. She received her B.S. in Marketing and Transportation/Distribution from Syracuse University.

Company Brief

Headquartered in New York and Cincinnati, Macy’s, Inc. (macysinc.com) is one of America’s premier omni-channel retailers, operating about 880 stores in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico under the names of Macy’s, Macy’s Backstage, Bloomingdale’s, Bloomingdale’s Outlet, and Bluemercury, as well as the macys.com, bloomingdales.com, and bluemercury.com websites.

Will you talk about the areas you oversee and provide an overview of each function?

I manage our lease businesses, so my team works closely with our partners, such as Finish Line and Sunglass Hut, to leverage their expertise to fill white space opportunities and deliver the best brands, environment, service, and experience to our customers.

Will you touch on other areas you’re leading?

I also lead multicultural initiatives. So much of that is focused on business development. As a company, we are focused on being inclusive, not only with our customers, who are very diverse, but also in our vendor base.

My team identifies companies that are owned by minorities and women, who also offer unique products. We then partner with our merchants to leverage those offerings to drive their merchandise strategies.

We have authored a program called The Workshop at Macy’s, which is a four-and-a-half day boot camp geared toward helping educate and prepare vendors who have been in business for two years or more about what it takes to engage in a sustainable business partnership. There are two parts to the program: one is about how Macy’s and other retailers operate and the metrics we look at that denote success. The second half is where we partner with Babson College to help the companies gauge and improve their financial fitness.

We have run the program for six years. To date, we have trained over 90 companies and we have launched 10 at Macy’s. We have also built a nice pipeline for the industry of potential key players for the entire marketplace, so we’re really excited.

The third part of my role is pricing operations. I oversee the team that partners with our merchants to analyze the business at a global level to identify pricing opportunities. They strategically and proactively manage markdowns to drive profitable sales.•