Business Leadership & Pivots: Jenny Ming, CEO Charlotte Russe

Ming - main imageMing - main image logo

 

Jenny Ming is a dynamo.

Former president of Old Navy and one of its founding executives, and today the CEO of Charlotte Russe, the women’s fashion clothing retailer that operates over 550 stores, Jenny seems to continually be moving at a frenetic pace.

In person, she is quite warm and charming. Quick to get to the point and a straight shooter when it comes to dialogue, she has had one of those incredible life and business stories in a rag-to-riches kind of way.

In today’s blog, I trace aspects of Jenny’s career and glean insights from her business efforts and the legacy that she has already established.

As shown in Figure 1, I will cover some key business lessons and do so as illustrated by Jenny’s career starts and stops.

 

Ming - Figure 1 with lessons learned

 

 

THE BEGINNING

At the age of 9, her parents brought her to the United States, settling in the San Francisco area. She was in 4th grade at the time. Not yet conversant in English, she was put into an English as a Second Language (ESL) curriculum at school. She found that watching TV was one of the best ways to pick-up English and was glued to the set whenever she could do so.

Her mother simultaneously insisted that Jenny learn Chinese. Jenny thought this was an absurd notion at the time and that her focus should be on becoming truly fluent in English. Nonetheless, at her mother’s insistence, Jenny made the trek into Chinatown to learn Chinese.

This aspect of learning Chinese was actually later in life proven to be a stroke of good fortune. Jenny later in her career was able to make a big splash in business by negotiating with various manufacturers and distributors overseas due to her fluency in Chinese. Had she not been forced into learning Chinese at this earlier age, she probably would not have had been able to leverage capability that then stoked her career path.

 
COLLEGE AND HER MAJOR

Going to college at San Jose State University, Jenny was unsure of what to choose as her major.

Somewhat to her surprise, she discovered that there was a major in home economics and she gravitated in that direction. She figured that perhaps she might teach home economics, especially to middle school students.

Her boyfriend at the time, and later to become her husband, prompted her to consider taking some business classes. She did so and got a minor in business.

Graduating in 1978, she proceeded to work at various jobs, most notably working at Mervyn’s, the department store.

In some ways, working at Mervyn’s readily leveraged her home economics degree. Working out on the floor of the store, she performed as a sales associate, working directly with customers and getting a sense of what was selling and what was not selling. She was able to interact with customers and offer tips and suggestions about selections for home use.

Jenny was eventually promoted into becoming the departmental manager in domestics, which included home related items such as towels, bed sheets, pillow cases, and the like.

 
A FIRST-TIME MANAGER BUSINESS LESSON

It was during the first month of her becoming a manager that she learned a valuable business lesson.

Having come up the ranks, many of her now subordinates had previously been her peers. They were all a friendly lot and were used to the kind of comradery that goes along with being co-workers. Now, though, she was their boss. They continued to interact with her as though she was a co-worker, and she treated them as co-workers rather than being “the big boss,” so to speak.

In her first month as a newly minted manager, one day her boss brought her into the office and confided in her about a potential issue. The sense was that Jenny was not willing to play the tough role of making sure the sales associates were properly doing their job. They were at times chatting when they should be providing assistance to customers. Her manager told her that she was perhaps too nice to be a manager and should reconsider whether it was really what she wanted to be.

This often happens to an individual contributor that is first promoted into a supervisory or managerial role, and especially when they remain in the same functional area that they had while working as an individual contributor. It can be very hard to switch hats and become the boss. There are friendships that were formed with co-workers that can become stressed in such circumstances. The frivolity that one had as a co-worker must now be set aside and the heavy responsibility of overseeing others needs to take root.

A first-time supervisor or manager can react to this awareness in one of several ways. There are some that immediately become the bulldog and start bossing around their subordinates. This typically creates ill will and can be bewildering to the former co-workers that perhaps believe the job of supervisory role has gone to the person’s head.

Another approach involves trying to break-up the chit chatting co-workers and parcel them out to other supervisors, hoping that the friendliness among the co-workers will be diminished in terms of impacting on the job performance. This is also not usually very satisfactory and creates other adverse consequences for the other supervisors too.

After her manager essentially reprimanded her, Jenny went home that night after work and contemplated what she should do about her bosses’ admonishment.

One option was that she could retreat back into a sales associate role. Maybe she wasn’t fit for a manager’s job. Or, maybe she needed more time to get seasoned and be better prepared for the manager’s job.

Doubts flowed through her mind that night.

The next morning at work, she gathered her subordinates. She told them what had happened, deciding to be direct with them. She explained that they were going to need to refocus on the customer and curtail the chit chatting.

Jenny offered that she could schedule their breaks so that they would have time to go on chit-chats throughout the day, if that would help. And, she pointed out that if they weren’t willing to find a means to deal with the problem with her as their boss, Jenny herself might get replaced by someone else that would be a lot less accommodating as a boss and maybe be a real ogre in comparison.

Her former co-workers appreciated Jenny being so forthright. They indeed reduced the chit chatting and were able to shift their attention back to the customer and worked more seriously as sales associates.

For Jenny, this incident had several important business lessons.

She realized that the perception of her by her boss was that she didn’t seem tough enough to be in management, and so she opted to ensure that she would showcase a stronger impression.

She also decided that being forthright with her employees was better than trying to hide issues from them or sneakily trying to fool them into changing. It is this business lesson that seems to have stayed with her all these years, including today that she still prizes being open with her employees.

She also realized that as a manager she had not set expectations with her team. She should have made it clear from the start as to what she wanted them to do as sales associates. Without having set expectations, the team was able to wander aimlessly and one could say innocently did not realize that they were not living up to what was expected of them (since they didn’t know what the expectations were).

 
COMING TO THE GAP

In 1986, Millard “Mickey” Drexler at The Gap recruited Jenny to come on-board at The Gap. He had been in merchandising throughout most of his career. Beginning his career at Bloomingdale’s, he had eventually served as CEO at Ann Taylor, and was a rising star at The Gap, destined to soon become President and then later on become CEO.

She was asked to be a buyer. This was a crucial step in her career and would ultimately show her ability to gauge what styles were in, and find ways to get good deals for the goods to be displayed in stores.

Drexler was a crucial mentor for her. Providing key guidance to her, she was able to perform and provide ongoing validation of having her come to The Gap.

After three years as a buyer and merchandising manager, she was promoted to vice president. Then, about four years later, she was promoted to senior vice president.

She describes those years as ones of back breaking hard work and great devotion to The Gap.

 
GAP WAREHOUSE EMERGES

Target stores had noticed the rise of The Gap, which during the 1990s had a particularly hot clothing line that was seemingly insatiably sought by consumers. Target sent signals that it was going to copy The Gap and mimic their clothing line. Worse still, Target was going to provide the clothing line at lower prices than The Gap.

Drexler gathered his top executives, which included Jenny at that time, and they brainstormed what to do about the potential competition from Target.

If they did nothing, it could mean that The Gap would see its sales radically diminished once Target grabbed a chunk of the marketplace that wanted lower prices for the same kind of gear. On the other hand, if they were to lower their prices at The Gap, it could undermine their profits, and create a perception that The Gap was no longer a haughty line of clothing.

They decided that they might was well do the same thing that Target was threatening to do, namely provide The Gap style clothing at lower prices, but they would establish a whole new business that would do so. In this manner, they would hopefully not create any stench for the conventional perception of The Gap, and yet could also get some of the glow from The Gap as its say little sister or little brother.

What to call this new entity?

They decided to go with the name of Gap Warehouses. It was pretty common at that time to think of warehouse stores as offering lower prices. By putting the word warehouse after the word Gap, they expected that consumers would realize that this was an entity of The Gap but that it was a discounted version.

To try and inexpensively launch the Gap Warehouses, they decided to take existing Gap stores that were under performing and convert them into Gap Warehouses. This seemed like a good way to approach the new entity, avoiding distributing any well working stores of the The Gap and dealing with stores that anyway were struggling.

Jenny became part of that start-up team of the Gap Warehouses. After some discussion and bickering about how many such Gap Warehouses there ought to be at the start, Drexler said he would go for a round number of 50 such Gap Warehouse stores. They then looked at the under performers of The Gap stores, picked 49 of those, and tossed one brand new Gap Warehouse into the count of 50.

Opening in August of 1993, within about 6 weeks they had ample evidence that they had picked a winner of an idea. Revenue was looking good. The store locations that had previously done poorly were now performing well. Consumers seemed to like the Gap Warehouses.

For Jenny, this was an exciting period of time.

She was involved in essentially a brand new start-up.

At the same time, unlike a from-scratch start-up, they had all of the infrastructure of The Gap to borrow from to get the new chain underway. This also had downsides as there were occasional difficulties of taking attention from The Gap, and some within the The Gap that either resisted the Gap Warehouses or felt that it was diverting precious resources away from their rightful place at The Gap.

Unlike a conventional The Gap store, these Gap Warehouses were devised to have a warehouse-like feel to them. There were barren floors of cement, metal shelves rather than stylish racks, and other elements that said these were warehouses. They also had large aisles, put impulse purchase items at the front, and even had gaudy shopping carts that were more accepted in grocery stores than in a clothing line shopping store.

 

OLD NAVY EMERGES FROM GAP WAREHOUSES

One aspect that they had not anticipated was confusion about the name of the new entity.

Many consumers were confused by the new name. Was this something associated with The Gap? Was it something different or just The Gap with a different name? What made a The Gap different from a Gap Warehouse?

Rather than trying to fight this battle and attempt to further brand the Gap Warehouse name per se, top management decided they would try to find a different name for the Gap Warehouse.

Jenny tells the story of how they sought to identify a better name for the Gap Warehouse.

Apparently, a high priced consultant was brought in, and studied in-depth what the Gap Warehouse was. They interviewed everyone on the top management team. They did surveys of consumers. They researched and researched.

Finally, the vaunted consultant asked to have the top management team assembled so that a short list of new names for the entity could be shared and discussed.

At the start of the presentation, the consultant announced that there were three solid names that had been carefully and systematically identified.

With baited breath, Jenny and her fellow executives excitedly waited to hear what the three names were.

The first name presented, and which was done with great flourish, consisted of one word, Forklift.

Jenny was stunned. The thought that they might christen the Gap Warehouse as the Forklift just seemed crazy. Imagine consumers saying that today they are going over to the Forklift to get a new shirt or pants.

The reaction of the top team was one of hesitation and certainly not of enthusiasm, but they also knew that there were two names left to go.

The second name announced was Elevator.

At this point, I am sure some of the top executives might have thought they were getting pranked. After paying the big bucks to this consultant and consulting firm, they so far had two words, Forklift and Elevator.

Perhaps the third word was the charmer. Maybe it was the new name they were waiting for.

Cutting the suspense, the consultant then announced the third name, Monorail.

The assembled executives were nearly speechless. After excusing the consultant to exit from the room, they sat around trying to decide what to do next.

Should they hire someone else? Should they have the consultant try harder? Should they give up and not try to do a renaming?

Suddenly, Drexler spoke up and offered a potential new name. What about Old Navy, he asked the group?

He explained that he used to enjoy going to a pub in Paris that had the name of Old Navy. He had often thought it would make a good name for a another business someday.

Everyone at the table was already a bit shell shocked from the Forklift, Elevator, and Monorail names, and so they agreed to think over the idea of using Old Navy. They asked the marketing team to put together something to show what a logo of Old Navy might look like.

When they all got back together to revisit the naming options, marketing showed-off some mugs and T-shirts that had the Old Navy name and logo.

They decided it sounded and looked pretty cool.

To be safe, they made sure that no one was already using that name, and they even bought the name from the Paris pub.

Of course, today, the name of Old Navy seems just perfect and we all have come to accept it. At the time, though, it was a gamble as to whether the marketplace would think it acceptable, and whether it would do better than the Gap Warehouse name.

This story also illustrates some other facets of business lessons. High priced consultants aren’t necessarily always going to provide the best of advice. Furthermore, the advice by consultants is just that, it is advice, and so it is still up to management to decide whether to accept or reject the advice. Another facet was the kind of instinct that one sometimes has, including that Drexler just seemed to believe that the Old Navy name had a ring to it.

 
TAKING A LEAP FORWARD OR NOT

By 1996, Jenny was promoted to Executive Vice President of merchandising for the spin-off. She had come quite a long way from her days as a sales associate on the store floor of Mervyn’s.

In the early days of her career, she had been passed over for a promotion. She was confused and upset that she had been skipped. She worked up the courage to go see her boss and find out why she had not even been considered for the promotion.

Upon discussing the situation with boss, he told her that he did not know that she sought the promotion had not thought she was that ambitious.

Jenny felt that because she had children and that because she was a woman that her boss had made an assumption that she would not be seeking higher and higher positions.

She vowed that henceforth she would make it abundantly clear that she was interested and eager to progress in her career.

And that regardless of having children this was true.

And regardless of being a woman that this was true.

She also realized that there was a glass ceiling that she needed to be watchful of.

To this day, she explicitly tries to help women to advance in their business careers. She asks all on her team to think about what they want to achieve. What is the dream job they wish to someday get.

She also pays attention to work-life balance. For example, on weekends, she tries to get herself and her teams to shut off work and focus on their personal lives. She believes that the “time lost” of working on weekends is gained by having happier workers that are more satisfied in their work and that are loyal to the company for aiding them in achieving a work-life balance.

Around 1998, she was approached about moving from being the EVP at Old Navy to become the president of the company. At first, she politely declined the notion. There were various personal reasons and other factors that led her to do so.

Eventually, she changed her mind and indicated that she would like to become president. Indeed, in 1999 she became president of Old Navy and remained in that position for seven years.

 
A NEXT STEP

Taking about a year off, Jenny traveled and contemplated what she would do next.

Having gotten on the cover of Business Week and being named as one of the top fifty women in business, she was hunted by many of the top executive recruiters.

Eventually, Charlotte Russe was brought to her attention. It was essentially in the same line of business that she already knew well, and it had a kind of start-up appeal to it in that it was still in a growth and maturing stage.

She has established a casual kind of environment there, encouraging those at all ranks to speak-up. She purposely does skip level touch bases, ensuring that she hears what is going on from those lower in the company.

Having ten direct reports, which is more than what normally might be expected, she believes that in a smaller firm it is doable to have that many direct reports, and perhaps even necessary.

A believer of surrounding yourself with others that can complement your own strengths and weaknesses, she indicates that for example it is important to her to have a strong CFO since she is somewhat less versed in the financials side of the business.

She still relishes knowing what is selling and what is not selling in the stores. They routinely have meetings where they bring in a rack against a wall of what is selling, and another rack of what is not selling. They then figure out what is making the selling stuff sell, and try to do more of that. For the stuff not selling, they try to figure how to convert it into something that will sell or otherwise remove it from their line.

She travels extensively and always makes sure to visit their stores wherever she goes.
As seen in today’s blog, Jenny has had quite a business career. Her drive to succeed has been her hallmark.

Enough said.