Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer, Genesco
Search every verified Mimi Vaughn interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Mimi Vaughn, Chairman, President and CEO of Genesco, has discussed the company's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and a proxy fight with a major shareholder. Vaughn stated that the company closed all stores across its geographies, losing 85% of revenue, and described it as "a very dark day." She said the company grew its e-commerce digital business by 75% and went from a 44% revenue decline and a $70 million loss in the first quarter of the prior year to sales slightly below pre-pandemic levels and higher profits in the fourth quarter. Vaughn attributed this turnaround to the company's people, whom she described as "tenacious" and "innovative." Regarding the proxy fight, Vaughn said the company took its story to shareholders and received "a resounding endorsement" of its strategy and board. She noted that "retail has been going through such incredible transformation right now, it has attracted a lot of activism" and that "you never want to have a proxy fight; if you can have a meeting of the minds, that is the best answer for your shareholders." Vaughn also recalled advice from Jim Estepa, who told her, "You can't solve that problem, but what you can do is you can move mountains by motivating people," a principle she said she applied during both the proxy fight and the pandemic.
“The best advice I've ever received was from Jim Estepa — we were at lunch one day and I was talking to him about a problem I needed to solve.”
“He said, 'You can't solve that problem, but what you can do is you can move mountains by motivating people' — I thought of that line time and time again during COVID; Jim was right, we could move mountains by motivating people.”
“We grew our e-commerce digital business by 75%, and our business is very profitable, so that was very accretive to the bottom line.”
“It was a very dark day when you close all of your stores across all of your geographies and 85% of your revenue is off with no end in sight.”
“We took our story to our shareholders and were had a resounding endorsement of our strategy and of our board because we were driving results.”
“Retail has been going through such incredible transformation right now, it has attracted a lot of activism.”
“ESG is a real thing, particularly among our index holders, and I had a great learning experience about the things that we would have a good story to tell there.”
“You never want to have a proxy fight; if you can have a meeting of the minds, that is the best answer for your shareholders.”
“We had to solve this problem through people; I had to give them the vision of what we were trying to do and solve the problem through people.”
“We went from being down 44% in revenue in the first quarter of last year and losing 70 million dollars to actually being a little bit under our pre-pandemic level of sales in the fourth quarter and making more money than we had the year before.”
Mimi Vaughn (President and CEO, Genesco Inc) joins Dean M. Eric Johnson to discuss Genesco's turnaround and lessons from a ...
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