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Bloomberg
JC Penney Co named Jill Soltau as its first female chief executive officer, bringing her 30 years of retail experience to the embattled department-store chain.
Soltau, who has served as CEO of Joann Stores since 2015, will step into the role on October 15, JC Penney said in a statement. Shares of the retailer surged as much as 12 percent in late trading.
The announcement removes some of the uncertainty from the company, which has suffered investors’ ire since Marvin Ellison left in May to become head of Lowe’s Cos. His departure was followed by that of Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Davis in late September. Soltau now faces a business that has struggled to correct inventory issues and whose latest quarterly report left analysts fuming.
“Jill stood out from the start among an incredibly strong slate of candidates,†said JC Penney board director Paul J. Brown, who chaired the search committee. “We wanted someone with rich apparel and merchandising experience and found Jill to be an ideal fit.†The shares rose as high as $1.75 in after-hours trading. Through the day’s close, they are down 51 percent this year.