Myron E. Ullman III, the unassuming retail executive who gave Macy’s a strategic makeover, revitalized J.C. Penney during two stints as chief executive, and held key positions at Starbucks and the French conglomerate LVMH, died on Aug. 6 in Grand Junction, Colo. He was 77.
His wife, Cathy Emmons Ullman, said the cause of his death, at a hospice facility, was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, cancer and other ailments. For much of his career, Mr. Ullman zipped through store aisles on a Segway scooter because of a progressive neurological condition that made walking difficult.
In a business of grandiose personalities, Mr. Ullman stood out for being a measured executive with a keen analytical mind and an intense focus on customer satisfaction, which included stocking merchandise and sizes that were popular in local communities.
“I think the best shopping experience is when there really is a stimulating environment — things you haven’t seen before, variety, newness and freshness,” Mr. Ullman told Women’s Wear Daily in 2015. “Its hard to describe, but you know it when you feel it.”
He was operationally shrewd and lacking in bravado.
“He never sought the spotlight, and he really defined for me and others what servant leadership truly means,” Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, where Mr. Ullman was a director and chairman, said in an interview. “The success that Starbucks enjoyed while he was the lead director, and at my side, is very hard to even measure. It’s incomparable.”
Mr. Ullman didn’t start in retail. After working for IBM as an international account manager and serving as vice president for business affairs at the University of Cincinnati — his alma mater — he joined Federated Department Stores in 1982 as an executive vice president at its Sanger-Harris department store chain in Dallas.
Four years later, he became managing director of Wharf Holdings, a real estate investment group in Hong Kong. There he met Edward Finkelstein, the flamboyant chief executive of Macy’s, which was nearing bankruptcy.
Mr. Finkelstein hired Mr. Ullman in 1988 to impose financial controls and reshape the company’s strategy; for example, he stocked stores with merchandise that more closely reflected the tastes and figures of local shoppers. To do so, Mr. Ullman introduced computerized systems that tracked customer preferences so store managers and buyers could react rapidly to changing trends.
“He was very good about doing the dirty work, the operational stuff, making sure that store operations were working functionally well,” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at the Yale School of Management, said in an interview.
But the underlying financial troubles at Macy’s were too much to overcome. The company filed for bankruptcy in 1992, and Mr. Finkelstein resigned. Mr. Ullman took over, but he left after Federated Department Stores bought the company in 1995.
Not long after, Mr. Ullman became the chief executive of DFS Group, a chain of duty-free luxury outlets in airports. LVMH — led by Bernard Arnault, widely considered the most powerful figure in retail — bought a controlling stake in DFS Group in 1996. Mr. Ullman became LVMH’s second in command.
While he was working at LVMH, a progressive neurological condition that doctors struggled to diagnose grew more debilitating. He retired in 2002. After moving to a ranch in Colorado, he joined the boards of several corporations, including Starbucks in 2003. He became the company’s chairman in 2018 and held that position until 2021.
In 2004, J.C. Penney approached him about becoming chief executive. The company was facing fierce competition from Macy’s, Target, the Gap, T.J. Maxx and online shopping. To Mr. Ullman, the offer was tantalizing — and not just because of the operational challenges.
“I was grieving the fact that I had to leave because of my disability,” he told The Wall Street Journal in 2009. “That was not the right way to end my career.”
At J.C. Penney, he added popular higher-end lines like the makeup brand Sephora and Polo by Ralph Lauren. He revamped the company’s marketing, introducing an ad with the tagline “Stepping Up Our Style.” And he daringly opened a store near Herald Square in Manhattan, home to the flagship of his former company, Macy’s.
“We’re the David, and they’re the Goliath across the street,” Mr. Ullman told sales associates at the store’s opening.
In 2005, J.C. Penney’s operating profit jumped 22.5 percent from the previous year, to $1.6 billion.
“It’s quite a departure from your mother’s J.C. Penney,” Mr. Ullman told investors at the company’s annual meeting in 2006. “Our long-range plan is designed to make J.C. Penney a leader in the retail industry, and our excellent performance in the first year of this plan underscores that we are well on our way.”
Still, there were significant headwinds for department stores — especially with customers shifting to specialty stores and discount retailers. And from 2007 to 2009, the Great Recession hammered the entire retail industry. Activist shareholders, including William A. Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management, ultimately forced Mr. Ullman out in 2011. His replacement was Ron Johnson, the former head of Apple’s retail stores.
Taking the reins with “celebratory bravado,” as an advertising agency blog said, Mr. Johnson tried to make stores more hip with in-store boutiques. He also introduced a “fair and square pricing” policy that eliminated discounts — which had the unintended result of making customers feel that they were no longer getting good deals.
“Fourteen months later, J.C. Penney is America’s favorite cautionary tale,” the business writer James Surowiecki wrote in The New Yorker. “Customers have abandoned the store en masse: over the past year, revenues have fallen by twenty-five per cent, and Penney lost almost a billion dollars, half a billion of it in the final quarter alone.”
Mr. Johnson was fired. J.C. Penney rehired Mr. Ullman, who brought back his original initiatives, dismantled Mr. Johnson’s and was credited with stabilizing the company.
Myron Edward Ullman III, known as Mike, was born on Nov. 26, 1946, in Youngstown, Ohio, to Myron Edward Ullman Jr., a mechanical engineer and designer, and June (Cunningham) Ullman. He grew up in nearby Canfield.
He studied business at the University of Cincinnati and graduated in 1969. The university awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2006.
Mr. Ullman served on the boards of numerous charities, including Mercy Ships International, which sends hospital ships to coastal Africa to provide medical care.
He married Cathy Emmons in 1969. In addition to her, he is survived by their six children, Cayce, Tryan, Peter, Kyrk, Kwynn and Maddy Ullman; his siblings Chris Stubbins, Gretchen Tisone, Curt Ullman and Greg Ullman; and six grandchildren. Two siblings, Carl Ullman and Deborah Shaw, died before him.
Mr. Ullman’s wife said shopping with him could be disappointing. He was only ever interested in analyzing a store’s layout, customer service and merchandise offerings.
“When you went to a store with him, you weren’t shopping,” she said. “You were just walking the store to see how everything worked.”
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