Boston, MA 05/05/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT), a $39 billion retailer that is struggling to improve sales amid intense competition from online retailers, has announced the resignation of its CEO Gregg Steinhafel and his immediate replace.
The CEO took personal responsibility in the data theft fiasco and decided to step down from his position.
Based on the development, Target has announced CFO John Mulligan as the interim CEO as the company seeks a new and permanent leader. In the company’s board of directors, board member Roxanne Austin has been picked to replace Mr. Steinhafel as the board chairman on interim basis.
Though Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) accepted the resignation of Mr. Steinhafel, the company observed that the outgoing CEO will always be considered a member of Target family. Mr. Steinhafel, 59, is a 35-year veteran at Target who rose within the ranks and ended up serving six years as CEO before his surprise exit from the company. Mr. Steinhafel was tapped for the CEO position given his strong merchandizing ability that was required to return glory to the giant retailer.
Widespread Data breach
In addition to declining sales are reduced customer traffic to stores, Target has another added disadvantage that its data protection seemed so weak that data thieves gained access and compromised about 40 million credit card details and 70 million in personal data such as numbers and addresses. The disclosure about the widespread data theft was made in mid-December during the usually busy shopping season.
The disclosure did not only impact sales in the month but also raised concerns about the company’s data protection system. The company that was already suffering from diminishing sales was thrown into confusion by massive data breach fiasco.
Old wounds soon bleed
In addition to heightening consumer and regular concerns over Target’s data handling abilities, the developments also brought to the fore the health of the company under Mr. Steinhafel who led a money-losing growth into Canada. Therefore, given the embarrassing database attack, it seemed as if all was ready for Mr. Steinhafel to call it a day at Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT).
Following the disclosure of the database breach, the board of directors of Target has been meeting regularly to address the situation. According to Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT)’s spokeswoman Dustee Jenkins, the last meeting of the board was held two weeks ago.
As Mr. Steinhafel announced his resignation, Target had already announced plans to upgrade its store-branded cards in efforts to strengthen data security.
