Each month, the Austin Business Journal hosts a Face 2 Face speaker series at Whole Foods, featuring leaders of all types of industries. This month’s speaker was Terry Lundgren, CEO and Chairman of Macy’s. Macy’s is a $28 billion corporation with 176,000 full-time employees and 800 stores. Macy’s is also the 7th largest Internet company. Lundgren commented that while the company embraces technology as a powerful source of commerce, he believes “people first, technology second.” Terry Lundgren has been high on the Macy’s ladder since 1997, with his roles including president and chief merchandising officer, among others. He started his career in retail in 1975, slowing climbing his way from trainee to management to buying to director of stores before becoming an executive. His advice to young adults entering the workforce: “Bloom where you are planted,” meaning not to focus so much on where you are going next, but to perform your current job better than anyone else to get noticed. When moderator Colin Pope asked if it is lonely at the top, Lundgren responded that he has a great team of management and board members. “When we make decisions, we move forward together. Success has many fathers, but failure has none.” Lundgren is notorious for showing up to his stores unannounced, to get a real feel for the atmosphere and customer service being provided. He says he enjoys watching and learning from his star performers. He believes localization is the reason Macy’s has been able to grow while maintaining […]
Read MoreMay Face 2 Face Recap with Alejandro Ruelas
May’s Face 2 Face speaker series, sponsored by the Austin Business Journal and Whole Foods, hosted Alejandro Ruelas, the co-founder of LatinWorks. LatinWorks is a cultural branding agency headquartered in Austin. “My advice to corporations when entering the multicultural space is to not just check off the ‘appeal to minority ethnic groups’ box. Companies need to really focus on the way their minority clients live and work, and cater to the like mindsets of different cultures.” — Alejandro Ruelas LatinWorks began in St. Louis, but later moved to Austin. Ruelas said some of the reasons for the move to Austin included the diversity of the city’s people, affordability, growing size of the city and the large pool of minority graduates from the University of Texas advertising program. LatinWorks is the most awarded multicultural agency in the advertising industry. The agency has won nine Cannes Lions, was recognized as Multicultural Agency of the year (twice by Adweek and three times by Ad Age), among many other national and international awards. LatinWorks was named by Ad Age as one of the top ten advertising agencies in the country on two separate occasions in 2010 and 2014. LatinWorks clients include Anheuser-Busch, PepsiCo, Lowe’s, Domino’s Pizza and Target, among others. Ruelas said his biggest mistake when starting LatinWorks was that he took on too much work himself and did not delegate enough. “One of my biggest mistakes when building my company was to not trust the talented staff that surrounded me. I stuck my […]
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