Macy’s CEO Was Told Being Gay Was a Problem When He Came Out
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When Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette joined the company in 1983 he wrestled with coming out.
Mr. Gennette had come out in college at Stanford University, where he majored in English. But being openly gay in American corporations at that time was risky, he said. “It was the beginning of the AIDS crisis,” said Mr. Gennette, 61 years old. “So it was a scary time to be a gay person and be out and open,” he told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in a wide ranging Q&A.
Mr. Gennette said he decided to be honest about his sexuality with his colleagues because he wanted to bring his authentic self to work. It is a philosophy that helped him climb through the ranks at Macy’s and informs his leadership style now that he is Macy’s chief executive. “You’re going to see opportunities for customers that maybe you wouldn’t have otherwise if you had people who all looked the same or all acted the same,” Mr. Gennette said.
That same drive to be authentic is what he brought to the way he managed the company and it’s what saved the company during Covid.
“Macy’s came out of the pandemic a smaller but more profitable company. It paid down debt and eliminated layers of management, which facilitated faster decision making. By getting team leaders to work more closely together and modernizing its supply chain by using more data and analytics, Macy’s avoided the worst of the inventory glut that this year tripped up other large retailers, including Walmart Inc. and Target Corp.”
On his colleagues reaction to his coming out:
There were definitely a couple of times when it was made known to me that it could be a deterrent in my career by being openly gay.
On being and bring his authentic self to work:
“It’s your values, what you care about, what you have an opinion about. So you can authentically contribute to the dialogue, to the strategy, to the work that is being done. And you don’t have to groupthink. You don’t have to process it through another lens. You have a perspective that, if properly encouraged and you have the confidence and the talent, you can express it. And that makes a difference in the decisions that we make as an organization. If you think about the diversity that we serve in America and you bring in how that is reflected in the management, you’re going to make better decisions.”
“Workshop was something we started 11 years ago to create opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses. It was the opportunity to train them, to get them ready. We help them with P & Ls. We work with them through Babson College. We did that year after year. And it kept coming back to what if we did some funding for these companies, what if we put money up to help them get on their feet?”
“These minority- and women-owned businesses have products that our customers want, but they just couldn’t bring all the elements together to do it at scale.”
WSJ: How about among your executives?
Mr. Gennette: WyQuasia King is a dress buyer. She is a member of the Divine Nine sorority, [a Black sorority system]. She worked with two of our major manufacturing partners and developed Divine Nine colors for the sororities from suits to dresses to accessories.
it gave us the opportunity to then give them funding for their scholarships and to be a part of that. So to enmesh ourselves in that community in a more deep and meaningful way than we were previously.
We would never have been on that if it hadn’t been for WyQuasia coming in and saying to us, “Hey, I’ve got an idea, let me run with this.” And this thing now is well over $10 million in annual sales. We’re now looking at the fraternities that are the complement to the sororities.
More than 50% of our sales come from diverse customers, more than 50% of our hourly colleagues are diverse, and nearly half of our managers are diverse. And then you’ve got a very diverse boardroom.
That diversity ultimately led to success.
