JCPenney hires new CEO, Jill Soltau

JCPenney has been without
a CEO since May.
Business
Insider/Jessica Tyler

• JCPenney
  has hired a new CEO, Jill Soltau.

• The struggling department store has been without a leader
  since May, when its former CEO, Marvin Ellison, resigned to take
  up a new role at the head of Lowe’s.
• In September, JCPenney’s CFO, Jeffrey Davis, also announced
  he would be resigning effective October 1.

JCPenney
has a new CEO. 

On Tuesday afternoon, JCPenney
announced that Jill Soltau, formerly CEO of Joann
Stores, will be taking the position.

Soltau replaces JCPenney’s former CEO, Marvin Ellison, who
resigned in May to run home-improvement retailer Lowe’s. Ellison
joined JCPenney in 2014 and became CEO in 2015.

Ellison launched a turnaround effort to bring JCPenney back from
the brink of financial disaster. His immediate predecessor, Ron
Johnson, tried to make the store more upmarket but alienated core
customers in the process,
leading to a $1.42 billion operating loss in 2013 and nearly
$5 billion of debt.

Ellison had seen some success, but analysts say he jumped ship
before the job was finished. In the past few years, sales at
JCPenney have stabilized, and Ellison has worked to reduce its
debt load. However,
the retailer still carries $4.1 billion in long-term
debt. 

At the end of September, the department store’s
CFO, Jeffrey Davis, announced he would be stepping
down effective October 1.