Andy Caine’s Post

Check out the link to the webinar in the comments. Great insights into CEO succession planning!

Levi Strauss's decision to reduce its workforce, even in the face of rising sales, underlines the complex challenges and opportunities that retailers face today. It highlights the critical need for agility, innovation, and efficiency in an increasingly competitive and digitally-driven market. Such strategic moves not only impact the companies directly involved but also set precedents and benchmarks for the entire sector, influencing future strategies, operational models, and market dynamics. This shake-up could prompt other retailers to reevaluate their own strategies, leading to further changes across the industry. https://lnkd.in/g6HpckjY

With CEO Succession planning, a big question from boards is, should we look at internal candidates to be the next CEO, or an external candidate? As Chip Bergh, the outgoing CEO of Levi Strauss & Co. explained in Boardspan's last webinar, the answer is that the right candidate can be both. As Bergh transitions his CEO role to Michelle Gass this week, business publications are talking about Levi's unique approach to succession planning, citing it as a possible model for the future. In The Art of CEO Succession Planning, Chip talks quite a bit about the novel approach he and the board took. If you want to hear the story, the link to the full webinar is in the first comment. The whole webcast is fascinating and I really enjoyed being part of it. #contentmarketing #webinarinsights #thoughtleadership

Michelle Gass took on the top job at Levi Strauss this week after a relatively unusual CEO handoff. When she left her role running Kohl's in 2022 to become president of Levi, the denim maker all but assured her the top within 18 months. This is rare on a lot of levels: It’s rare for a named heir to come from the outside. In fact, it’s rare for companies to pick an outsider at all; less than 20% of companies do it, in part because the data shows they don’t perform as well as homegrown talent. But in this case, the Levi board used a year-long transition to turn an outsider into an insider. It’s a bet that it will give them the best of both worlds — an injection of fresh thinking alongside a deep understanding of how the company works. More of this, please. Not necessarily the exact Levi model, but more companies willing to shake things up when it comes to CEO succession. It’s the most important job corporate boards have, and all too often they fail miserably. Research has shown that the market value erased by bad CEO and C-suite transitions among the S&P 1500 is almost $1 trillion a year. Nearly a third of directors say companies don’t spend enough time on succession planning. And getting it wrong has tainted the legacies of many otherwise exalted CEOs. Added bonus: This column was edited by the great Kristen Bellstrom, who just joined the Bloomberg Opinion team. Thrilled to be reunited with this all-around excellent human!

You can have a great brand & great product, but still have a challenging business if not effectively managed to its full potential & staying maniacally in tune with your audience. Global denim powerhouse Levi's has had is share of ups & downs as cited by current CEO Chip Bergh who has been at the helm of the top role since 2011. One of the the major challenges Bergh speaks to in the article is not being decisive & action-oriented towards off-loading underperforming talent. And in the retail industry talent can and usually does make or break the business. But, with a brand as BIG & vast as Levi's there's a lot more intricacy at play given the brand's global scale & vertical + wholesale business model. The latter greatly increases points of distribution & customer reach, however, it dilutes the brand's operational execution & consistency for the consumer. Maintaining a consistent, curated brand experience across all the channels/audiences is easier said than done. This oftentimes translates to a varying degree of brand projection from geography to geography & channel to channel. The CEO of the world’s most famous denim jeans company said he knew from his second day on the job that the best way to turn around the company was to fire more than half of his executives. “The easiest way to change the culture is to change the people. I had 11 direct reports, and in the first 18 months, nine of them were gone,” Charles Bergh, CEO of Levi’s Strauss, said. Still, Bergh told CNBC’s Christine Tan that his biggest regret was not firing the wrong people fast enough. “My biggest regret is that we didn’t lean into some of these great leaders, and we lost some because I held on to somebody longer than I should have.” #levis #retail #brandstrategy #brandmanagement https://lnkd.in/eNr-9Pbp

Succession planning, at all levels, is critical to long-term business success. If part of that plan involves hiring, then onboarding is the first critical, and often overlooked, step to successful succession. In this story about Michelle Gass at Levi Strauss & Co., a line stood out to me that applies to all organizations hiring talent: you have to “turn outsiders to insiders.” What do the twenty-year veterans in your industry or company know? What patterns, cycles, or trends have they lived through that a new person would benefit from? What needs to be learned to achieve success? And then there is the next set of questions. Where is the hockey puck going? How can an outsider pull insights, recognize new patterns, enhance the relevance, and provide a fresh frame to the deep knowledge that exists in your organization? That is when you have not only successfully made an outsider an insider (perhaps creating onboarding practices that allow you to do it again, even better), but you’ve also given your insiders fresh eyes. Thanks for the share Beth Kowitt. #leadership #succession #onboarding #impact

In #QuantumProgression, I wrote the chapter "Detach From Your Job Title" because of the important role forward, backward, and lateral moves play in your career progression, particularly if you need to improve your #GenAI acumen. Of course titles matter but when considering new career opportunities that can propel your career, up-skilling (entry or executive) is more important in the long run. Get ready: https://lnkd.in/gfnA9yhj

With succession as one of the perennial weaknesses of corporate governance, the approach of Levi Strauss & Co. is notable — as is the approach of Michelle Gass to take a demotion on the road to succeeding to CEO. It’s a great leadership lesson company- and career-wise.

As your brand greets target customers in their increasingly non linear purchase journeys at different touch points make sure those touch points positively disrupt, delight and keep those target shoppers going in the right direction of travel. Lovely touch point example here. Levis’Store #retailtouchpoints #TopRetailExpert