08.20.22
Foot Locker Inc. named former Ulta Beauty Inc. Chief Executive Mary Dillon as its next CEO. She will succeed Richard Johnson who is retiring. The move is effective September 1. Dillon will also join the Foot Locker board. Johnson, 64, will remain executive chairman through Jan. 31, 2023. He will then become a senior adviser to the CEO until early April 2023.
Johnson said that the board evaluated internal and external candidates and that Dillon’s strong record at Ulta and McDonald’s Corp., where she previously served as chief marketing officer, made her the obvious choice. An obvious choice, but a rare choice. Dillon, 61, joins an exclusive group. Within the S&P 500, about 30 CEOs are women, according to data from the Conference Board and data-analytics firm Esgauge. That is up from five years ago, but women still lead only roughly 6% of S&P 500 companies. Foot Locker’s lead independent director, Dona Young, will assume the role of nonexecutive chairman on February 1, making Foot Locker one of a few publicly traded companies to have women in the top two jobs.
Dillon takes over Foot Locker during interesting times. The retailer operates about 2,800 stores in 28 countries, but is moving out of shopping malls to reduce its dependence on Nike Inc., which is curtailing shipments to retailers as it focuses on selling more of its goods directly to consumers. Nike accounted for 70% of Foot Locker’s merchandise purchases in 2021. The chain said in February that no single vendor will make up more than 60% of total purchases in the current fiscal year.
At Ulta, Dillon improved digital operations, where e-commerce accounted for more than 30% of the beauty company’s sales in the year ended Jan. 30, 2021, just before she stepped down. E-commerce accounted for about 4% of Ulta’s sales during her first year on the job.
Now, she'll try to do the same for Foot Locker.
“Ninety-nine percent of our customers connect with us digitally but only 20% buy digitally,” Johnson said in an interview. “How can we create a better experience for them to click and buy?”
Johnson said that the board evaluated internal and external candidates and that Dillon’s strong record at Ulta and McDonald’s Corp., where she previously served as chief marketing officer, made her the obvious choice. An obvious choice, but a rare choice. Dillon, 61, joins an exclusive group. Within the S&P 500, about 30 CEOs are women, according to data from the Conference Board and data-analytics firm Esgauge. That is up from five years ago, but women still lead only roughly 6% of S&P 500 companies. Foot Locker’s lead independent director, Dona Young, will assume the role of nonexecutive chairman on February 1, making Foot Locker one of a few publicly traded companies to have women in the top two jobs.
Dillon takes over Foot Locker during interesting times. The retailer operates about 2,800 stores in 28 countries, but is moving out of shopping malls to reduce its dependence on Nike Inc., which is curtailing shipments to retailers as it focuses on selling more of its goods directly to consumers. Nike accounted for 70% of Foot Locker’s merchandise purchases in 2021. The chain said in February that no single vendor will make up more than 60% of total purchases in the current fiscal year.
At Ulta, Dillon improved digital operations, where e-commerce accounted for more than 30% of the beauty company’s sales in the year ended Jan. 30, 2021, just before she stepped down. E-commerce accounted for about 4% of Ulta’s sales during her first year on the job.
Now, she'll try to do the same for Foot Locker.
“Ninety-nine percent of our customers connect with us digitally but only 20% buy digitally,” Johnson said in an interview. “How can we create a better experience for them to click and buy?”