CEO Jeff Gennette: ‘Macy’s Is A Healthier Business Coming Out Of The Pandemic’

The pandemic last year may have thrown a wrench into Macy’s best-laid turnaround plans, but CEO Jeff Gennette appeared undaunted during a video keynote address Thursday at NRF Retail Converge. “2020 was an unprecedented year,” he said. “And I think the headline is that Macy’s is a healthier business coming out of the pandemic than we were going into it.” Certainly, the extreme circumstances ushered in by the disease outbreak led many companies, including Macy’s, to slash operating costs at a level that might otherwise seem drastic. The retailer last year cut its corporate workforce by nearly 4,000, along with other staff reductions, for example, engendering some $630 million in annual savings — $365 million of that in the last fiscal year alone. “We know that we will be a smaller company for the foreseeable future,” Gennette said at the time. Read more at Retail Dive.