YouSaid · the spoken record

Helena Foulkes

lines on the record: 52
first: 2019-03-09
most recent: 2019-03-09
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Well, no, I can't name a particular brand, but there are many sad stores we all walk in and you say to yourself, wow, you know, this retail's hard. And one of the things I love about the business that I'm in is we really do have great brands. We don't have too many stores, which is fantastic. And we're in amazing real estate locations. So I think we have a foundation from which as long as to your point, we're creating great experiences, fantastic customer service, and really good digital integration. I think we have a real opportunity to win.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Beaumarchais in Paris. Why? It's an amazing experience. So visually, when you walk in, there's a new art installation every two months. They're rotating the store, so many areas of the store are rotating every two months with a theme. So it makes it very exciting. You have to go back frequently to see what that feels like. And I think they've done an amazing job editing the product.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because of the way we want to treat the brands, but it doesn't always make it as consumer friendly as it is as it should be. On the other hand, it's still very interesting to me to have a partnership with someone who has that level of traffic and to figure out how we can make each other better.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that was one of the examples of the things that intrigued me when I got the call because they'd already announced this deal. So the theory behind the partnership is all the eyeballs that are going every day to walmart.com, which vastly outweigh the number of eyeballs that we get on the Lord and Taylor website. And the idea that Walmart could really use those eyeballs and itself create its new positioning around a more premium brand of clothing. So, you know, look, I think the jury is still out and we're both looking at it really hard and learning a lot every day and figuring out what's working, what's not. I think the idea is still very intriguing. I think the challenge is still for both of us around the execution of it, which is still not as easy as it should be. So if you're confused when you go, I can see why some of it's walled off, for example, in a pre-”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were fairly traditional up until last year selling the traditional mattresses you would expect to find in a department store. And we knew that the world was moving towards the Caspers. And I think it's a great example of someone like Casper saying, wow, Hudson's Bay has 90 stores everywhere I would want to be. I don't need to go open storefronts. I can partner with Hudson's Bay and we could do something really unique together. So we're looking for more things like that. There are more opportunities in sleep. But actually across the store, I mean, isn't it so interesting that more and more online businesses, you mentioned Real Real, are opening up stores. And I would like to be the place that they come to. So for those of you who run online businesses and think there's a connection in store, come reach out because I think that's the world that we're going to live in. It's going to be much more integrated.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thank you for bringing that up. It's a great example. So, one of the things that we've been looking at is the sleep category. It's a critically important business. I knew it from my days at CBS. I mean, it's one of the top issues that keep people up at night.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, there's really a deep emotional bond that people have. And I'm excited because I think there's even more we could do at Hudson's Bay around the same things we've been talking about, experiences, services, the beauty business needs to be completely reinvented. And we've got, for example, a couple partnerships that are exciting. We put a WeWork in two floors of our Toronto Hudson's Bay store because we love the idea of people coming to work in a department store. I think that's really cool. It's going to bring more bodies in the door. We had a whole FAO Schwartz partnership this year. We did a partnership where we showcased the top young designers in Canada to show the world what they were doing. So I think it's a very exciting business. It's more on the early stage of its growth curve, I would say, than SACS, which is clearly humming along.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm very excited about Hudson's Bay, and I'm sure if you're American sitting in this audience, you're not very clear about who Hudson's Bay is. I was not a year ago. But Hudson's Bay, we own 90 department stores, and basically we're everywhere the people in Canada are. There is no akin to. That's what's amazing. That's what really struck me. People in Canada feel this immense loyalty and connection to and fondness for Hudson Bay.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The biggest thing I fear right now actually is our own inability to move fast enough. It's just the complexity it wakes me up at night to think about are we moving fast enough because the world's moving so fast?”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I do think you're. All right, anybody get up for questions? We have questions in a minute. The last question I have for you, Helen, who do you fear? Is it Amazon? I mean, Jeff Bose has gotten distracted lately, obviously. But he'll be back. He'll be back when he settles down.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think it's going to feel like theater and entertainment and a place that you're going to feel this level of excitement to be at. And at the same time, the beauty of, look, the things that we buy, there's a touch and feel about them, which is you can't get just buying online. So it's how do I, when you walk in that store, I know you immediately and I make it easy for you. I will say that department stores can be hard to navigate. So how do we help you as soon as you walk in the door to find the things that are going to really make you walk?”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, Vanessa came from Stitchfix, and before that, she was in the department store industry. I brought a CTO from CVS, and my head of marketing came from BJ's. And so it's other industries. It's people who don't really, aren't really wed to this particular industry. But by the way, I grew up at CVS. I was there for 25 years. You can be a challenger inside a company with longevity. And we have plenty of those as well. It's people. I think it's the people who are dissatisfied with the status quo and are always looking around and trying to figure out what's new.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think one of the things I've done. Yeah, one of the things I've done that we haven't talked a lot about is I'm really proud of the team that I have. I would say roughly at the top of the house. Half the people in the seats were there when I arrived, and half of them are new. And for me in any company, that's how you create healthy tension because the people who've been around are going to give you perspective on what you might be missing. But the new people that I've brought in didn't come from this industry. And so they're challenging the status quo.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The last thing is where do the fresh ideas come from in an older business? How do you innovate into new things? I mean, whatever you think of these businesses like Stitchfix or Runt the Runway or Glossier, they on and on and on. They're so interesting.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, look, I've always believed that it's a two-way street. People share their data if they get something useful from it. And the usefulness that we can provide our consumers with data is to know what you love and to make it more relevant and easy for you to shop with us. So yes, we use data because we know the kinds of brands you've bought and we can then recommend other things we think you'll like or you have a stylist and she knows that you've always had your eye on this particular jewelry line and something new came out. So I think as long as we are doing it in a trusted way and using that data to serve our customers, that's the guiding principle we look to use.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How do you think of data right now? Because obviously that's getting a lot of attention. You know, Facebook did it daily screw you person with your data, with your phone today, like they can now hack your phone because Facebook did something stupid. Like the data that's being misused by a lot of these, they did. Look it up. Turn off your phone thing on Facebook immediately. Please. But the lack of care for your data is something that I think is an opportunity for stores, for old businesses That think more strongly about privacy just naturally. But do you use a lot of data or how do you look at it?”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“First of all, Sachs is doing a lot of things right, so I don't want to be critical of the business or the industry. I do think in this particular marketplace, for whatever reason, there's been more of an inward focus than an external focus, I would say. Looking at ourselves and our direct competitors who are exactly like us as opposed to saying, how's the consumer evolving? I always like to use this term, Clay Christensen used it. What's the job she's trying to get done So when you think about the job that she's trying to get done, it's actually much more than just buying product. It's like I'm getting ready for my daughter's wedding. What are all the things that are related to that? And how do we fit in and help her do that? So I think it opens your aperture”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I'm really excited about digital SAX because what we're doing, I think, is really, it goes from this belief I've always had that you can never out Amazon Amazon, right? We're never going to be like the best pure play retailer. What we have to do is marry digital tools with our store experience so that when you want to come in, we've got the right experience, digitally power for you, but when you”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Our competition is everyone who sells our product, but I would say there's obviously the traditional big box luxury department stores, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom being the two. But you could be home buying from Neta Porte or Farfetch as well. So I think what we have to do is figure out.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And Excel Saxo Fifth is probably in one of the best sectors of retailing right now. We've not been doing so well, but I see a good path for that business to turn around as well. Because it's almost like a textbook for everything that you would do in that category. The former team had made some other decisions, but we're making changes. So, for example, we were buying it like we were department store retailers, which we are. But instead of being out in the market and turning that product quickly and looking for deals ourselves that we brought to customers, so we're just making that shift where we had moved to everyday low price strategy. We're moving back to what people expect out of a sex all fifth. And so we're bringing more sax product into the stores. It's a great outlet for us from a product that isn't selling the sacks. So if you look at just last year, every quarter we improved our performance, and I do see that business turning around.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“40 sack stores, and it's a very healthy business. We expect that to grow significantly. I've got big ambitions for it from both the top and the bottom.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Do we like in Germany? I know there's we need we're gonna we're gonna add more food because we have on the fifth floor we've got a small coffee bar called Vika which is really nice for a little break but one of my observations I was just in Europe looking at some spectacular retails over there and they have more food options on more floors so it's something that I'd like to do in that as well”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you could have cellulite reduction, you can have your nails done, you can have a brow bar, you can have facials. We have 15 different rooms for facials and other services.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Services is like the idea that people want to come in and enjoy the story. I agree. I think the three things that are critical for offline retail, I covered retail for seven years actually for a long time, so I have some knowledge of it, is experiential. Customer service and merchandising that you can't get in, that you can't get Amazon. You can get it on Amazon, but you can't put it together. You don't put it together the same way. What other things, like, okay, face Jim? All right, what else?”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tell I'm not going to get a bite. So, anyway, we have a bunch of services. We also opened a spectacular new restaurant called Lavenue. The original Lavenue is in Paris, and this is the first outpost outside of Paris. It's really magnific”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we open the window so all the glorious windows on Fifth Avenue had been blocked because they had the stock room back there. So we took all that down. The sunlight is pouring in. And we have lots and lots of services. So my favorite is one called Face Gym. You can go and have your face worked out for 30 minutes. You should do that. You travel a lot.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, but we opened it all up. And so it's really bright. We took, we got an escalator designed by Rem Koolhaus, and we have an escalator now right in the middle, and it goes up to the beauty floor, and it will go down to the jewelry floor.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Experiential services. So, what I mean by that is if you, I would love all of you to come see the new SACs on Fifth Avenue in New York. It is honestly spectacular. We opened it on February 7th. I'd been under construction all through that Christmas period, which was challenging. But we took the whole main floor and tripled the number of handbags on that floor. It is spectacular. We took One of the problems with the SAC shopping experience is when you walked in the store, the sight lines were tough and you didn't know where the elevators and back escalators were.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sachs is doing really well. So the last quarter we had over 7% comps at Sachs. And it is a business that is, I think, really redefining luxury. And so what are we trying to do there? I would say the two big thrusts as we think about luxury are to obviously really win in digital and personalization space. And then secondly, it's to win from an experience perspective. And when I say experience, it means both the in-store, the online, but also services, which I think is a big important factor for all of us who have real brick and mortar retails is we've got to figure out how to get people in our stores.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It would shop at all. So I just had people bring me things. And then I grudgingly buy things from Amazon. And I try stitch fix, but they never get it right. I told that story here last year where they finally, the stylist said you're too simple and androgynous for us. Accurate. But I don't like to shop. I never did. Don't worry. It's not you. It's me. But what are you trying to do with SAX? I did love Sax. That's sure.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Take all the, you know, it was in great people working in our stores, but kind of Me Too products and quite frankly, all the great products that we were selling the stores we had nearby in a Hudson Bay store anyway. So we really didn't eat it.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we closed home outfitters. Yes, I have been busy closing. I hadn't really thought about it this way until you started hitting me with all that. I had. So home outfiters has a chain of 67 stores in Canada focused in the home. And it was.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, but I think our real focus is on Saxon Hudson's Bay. Right. And so the real job that I have in this business with all of the pieces that we own is to figure out where is their great upside as I think about the next.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I don't think you can go up so high, but the woman shopping our stores is really in her early 50s. She's working her income is good. She's got kids she's taking care of. So she's got the income and she's looking for quality. We score way off the charts on quality. So we're doing a lot to really make her happy. We have overcomplicated that business, but the brand itself and the product we sell has a lot going for it.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Can't go down. I think you have to get personal and local. You have to stop saying we're a chain. You have to say I'm in Westfield, New Jersey, and I'm going to be incredibly relevant for this market that I serve. I'm going to bring in new services, stylists, and do things that really matter to the people who live in this community.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's really, so I think it's, and we have a fairly high cost structure, and I've brought in a new leader. She's here today. Vanessa is the president of Lord and Taylor. She's doing amazingly innovative things with that business, but it is handicapped by its positioning in the marketplace.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The flagship Lord and Taylor building we closed down and we said we will sell up to 10 other Lord and Taylors and so we're doing that. Lord and Taylor is, I think, has amazing loyalty among the people who shop there. There are not enough of them, but they're amazingly loyal, and we have incredible people working in that business. I think it's in the toughest part of retail, the middle, the middle, exactly. It's neither the high-end luxury where you can really own it, nor is it the low-cost deep discount retailer.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The hard decision. Now, so then you've also been closing Lord and Taylor, it's like moving them to closing them down and you close some stores, the home outfitter stores too. Going to get to what you're going to do, I know, right.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Anthony. And really, what I thought was that there were a lot of really great technical people who we have absorbed and they've really helped us as a company. So there were many good things we got from the acquisition. But I thought that was not a hard decision.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, it really wasn't that hard because it was so obvious that it was going in the wrong direction. Before I arrived, they had let go the leader of that business. But as I spoke to the person who's leading Saxo Fifth, 80% of my conversations were around guilt distraction rather than how do you optimize the Saxaw Fifth business. And Saxaw Fifth has its own digital problem.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Good on paper is something everyone bought. You had the permission to do this, presumably. But to make that decision, to get rid of an internet part of the company, because that was a very busy business.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Focused on where is the economic value in this partnership. And for SACSAW Fifth, which is a big successful company, distractions from a small internet player that sounded good on paper, but really were not lifting both votes was not worth the effort.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no, we're not anymore. Exactly. We sold guilt very quickly. Guilt was a business that could see why we bought it. It was this idea, obviously. You're all in the space that if you're in the apparel business, you should try to have something that's online only. I think it may have been a really good idea that was probably not well executed. And when I came in, what I saw was it was a massive distraction for the SACSO-15. So they were spending more time worrying about that than they were running the business. And so again, everything. I think they were worrying not so much, and this has been a common thread, not so much about how to make guilt great, which was obviously something we needed to do, but how to look for cool integration points with SACSOF fifth. And I think that's always been, it's something I learned at CVS is you got to really be careful and”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Me, it allowed me to get closer to it. But what was really the gem of that business was the real estate that we had bought. Yeah, get that off the plate.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Getting into the numbers, I could see where the cash was being burned, and that became a compelling place for me to focus on what to do. All right, where was that? So the first of those was our European business. We had bought the largest German department store, the largest department store in Belgium, and we did a startup of department stores in the Netherlands. This had all been in the course of the previous three years. It was not doing well financially. It was distracting us. I was over there a lot trying to figure it out. And it just really struck me that if there was a buyer out there, we should be very open to that. It was also very clear that, look, I had grown up in a U.S.-based company. We didn't have expertise on how to run a European business. I had to let go the first guy who was leading the European business, so I had the three reporting.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And different, and therefore appealing to me. Why not sell it to those guys with all that ridiculous money? But go ahead. And so they looked like a company that was willing to get out of the box, and that was what I was looking for. Okay. And so when you went in, you've done quite a lot of changing. And it's mostly selling and shedding, it seems like. So talk about your strategy. Have you been there? How long? One year, one year. One year. So you've gotten cleaned out a lot. You've cleaned out a lot. Yeah, it was... What was your thinking? Was that the idea when you came in? Was to clean the place up? I didn't know. I didn't go in with preconceived notions. All I knew when I went in was that these were amazing brands not doing well financially. So the year before I arrived, the company had lost a billion dollars in free cash flow. The EBITDA was half of what it had been three years before. And when I started...”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Waiting for the next rung was going to be a while and I was feeling hemmed in and a little frustrated. So I started peeking around. And what attracted you to this opportunity? Yeah, it's interesting. I got a call from a recruiter and she said Hudson's Bay Company had never heard of it. Right. Okay. So Hudson's Bay, for those of you who don't know, we own SAX, Lord and Taylor, Saxaw Fifth. Hudson's Bay is the largest department of search chain in Canada, and we own three department store chains in Europe. What got me really interested actually was they were doing very innovative out-of-the-box things. I wasn't sure if they made sense, but I thought it was intriguing. So they had just announced the sale of the Lord and Taylor flagship building to WeWork, which I thought was...”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We had, when I left 10,000 stores, including about 1,700 stores inside Target. And so, yeah, about 220,000 people reported to me. So explain to me the process of going, you obviously were talking you were to be CEO of something to really run something. Yeah. Talk about how you got here. Oh, yeah, it's sort of like, how do you go from that to a department store? And we're going to get into why you'd want to run a department store at all. We are. Okay, good. So how did I get there? I was never looking to leave CVS, actually. I was really happy. I loved healthcare. I tell people all the time that I had joined a retailer that became a healthcare company. And for me, from a purpose perspective, I was really wedded to that. I felt like it was important work. But honestly, I got to the point where I felt like I was at this rung and”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But at that point, I think they were still thinking and I was still thinking. And you were at CBS? I was. I want to start first at CBS to get people a sense of who you are and what you were doing there. You ran a massively complicated speaking reason they would call you for Uber is because you ran a very complex pharmacy, all the retail operations, is that correct? I did. It was an 80%. Can you talk a little bit about what you did there? Yeah, so I went to CVS right after business school, and I spent 25 years there. And I had almost every job in the company. And I became the president of the retail business, which does about $80 billion in sales.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had a conversation. Yes, yes. And what did you think about that? I was really early in the process. I was early in my process too. So when you broke that news, it was uncomfortable at work for me. Thank you very much on that.”
2019-03-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Hudson's Bay Company CEO Helena Foulkes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT