A particular Lowe’s district was underperforming in both top-line sales and bottom-line profitability. The prior District Manager had retired, and the position remained open for four months during the height of the pandemic. Furthermore, senior leadership positions were 30% understaffed and the market was facing challenges with social unrest due to a highly publicized shooting and subsequent trial.

Visited all stores to assess overall store environment, in-stock conditions, customer service, and associate morale. Conducted business reviews in collaboration with the district support team and store managers, then developed an action plan centered around the identified business review results in five core areas. Finally, implemented the plan and evaluated its execution and success through store visits and weekly reporting.

As a result, increased top-line sales and surpassed the annual sales plan by 18% with comparable growth of 21%. This performance improvement was carried into the next fiscal year with a 10% beat to plan and 4% comparable growth.

As a District Manager for JC Penney, oversaw a total of 27 stores across four states. The stores’ merchandise assortment was not localized to the needs of the community, but the organization was not open to change. Additionally, the buyers and merchants did not understand the opportunity to grow sales and develop brand loyalty by expanding or setting specific product lines based on store needs.

Reviewed store needs by specific product groups. For example, discovered that five stores serviced college towns but did not carry commuter length winter outer wear or coats, and several stores in southern Michigan and northern Indiana did not offer swimsuits for plus-size individuals. Solicited store leadership input and partnered with the field merchant to develop a list of items needed by store or geographical area. Then worked with each product group merchant to outline store needs by assortment depth and size quantity, set arrival dates, and revised merchandise set plan-o-grams. Once the product was received, utilized set and sales numbers to ensure localization opportunities were capitalized across all the region’s stores.

The district gained $9 million in incremental sales within only ten months. Furthermore, company merchants began soliciting store feedback twice per year to confirm they aligned with local community and environment needs.

The Home Depot had changed its process for reporting key metrics with one retail scorecard. This scorecard reported 40 key metrics that highlighted the overall health of the business and determined year-end review results for impacted leaders at the store and district levels. The process change, however, was not announced to leadership prior to implementation. It required that leaders look at their business from a new lens, and it was exceedingly difficult for tenured managers who were accustomed to leveraging their own processes to influence business results.

First, became a subject matter expert in the new reporting and what impacted each metric. Held a district staff meeting to review and assign functional leaders to train on the metrics, then delivered districtwide training on the new scorecard for all salaried leadership. Reviewed store-level results each week and conducted one-on-one discussions with district leaders who required assistance. Performed weekly store visits and walked functional leaders in their respective areas to confirm understanding and execution. Finally, ensured leaders were not pulling alternative reporting or data mining their own metrics and continually reinforced the benefits of using the new scorecard.

By successfully transitioning district leadership to the new scorecard, the district was the first to deliver on each of the 40 key performance metrics by the end of the year.

When promoted to Regional Director of Asset Protection for The Home Depot, undertook a region that was on the verge of missing its shrink goal for the year. The region was trending over 2.5% shrink performance, leading to a negative margin impact. Additionally, all ten districts missed both their workers’ compensation and general liability goals, which had increased controllable expenses.

Met with key stakeholders to review their results and determine what they needed from their asset protection business partner. Then convened the asset protection team to set expectations around three key areas of operations in order to gain the fastest result and set a foundation for future operational success. Finally, upgraded the team’s talent as needed.

These actions ultimately led to $60 million in operational savings and significantly improved the company’s bottom line.

Hand selected to lead a cross-functional team of seven personnel in identifying ways to reduce loss on the front end of stores. The team had 12 weeks to identify and present recommendations to the executive leadership team. However, the team was not provided the exact amount of loss known or a list of the front-end areas that were causing the largest amounts of loss.

Using subject matters experts, available reporting, and case studies, identified self-checkout as the primary focus. Assigned research materials and actions to all team members in order to build problem trees around front-end loss. The team was then divided into groups to work with IT, finance, asset protection, and store operations to gain buy-in from all stakeholders.

The team presented its recommendations to executive leadership, demonstrating the potential for a more than $200 million reduction in loss. The recommendations also included high-impact actions that incorporate state-of-the-art technology, transform aspects of the stores’ omnichannel business, and add Earnings Per Share (EPS) returns.