Macy’s named Paula Price as its new chief financial officer, replacing retailing veteran Karen Hoguet, who is retiring. Price will begin her new role July 9, while Hoguet will remain as an adviser until February 2, 2019, The Cincinnati Business Courier reported.
Hoguet has been with the company for 36 years, 21 of them as CFO. Her retirement was announced last month.
Price was previously an executive vice president and CFO at Ahold USA, a Dutch international retailer.
She has taught at the Harvard Business School since 2014 and is member of the board of directors of Accenture, Dollar General, and Western Digital.
She was also chief accounting officer and controller and contributed to the execution of the merger of CVS and Caremark in 2007. She started off her career at Arthur Andersen.
“She is an accomplished financial executive with an impressive breadth and depth of retail experience and will be a great addition to the team,” Macy’s Chief Executive Jeff Gennette said.
“Having led finance in a variety of complex and dynamic retail organizations, Paula’s insights and experience will serve Macy’s well.”
Gennette called Hoguet “one of the great leaders in retail.” She was named a CFO to Watch by CFO in 2015.
Macy’s has closed more than 100 stores since 2015 in the face of competition from the likes of Amazon, but it’s stock was up 31.5% year-to-date through Tuesday.
The company announced a new loyalty program in a recent earnings call. It has also launched discounted clothing offering Backstage and has begun making more products available online. According to The Wall Street Journal, 9% of Macy’s customers account for 46% of annual sales.
Price will oversee the finance, accounting, investor relations, and internal audit functions and will report to Gennette. She will be based in New York.