Harry and David is a company founded in 1910 in Seattle, Washington. The company is well known for high end gift baskets and holiday gift towers. The company within the last year filed for chapter 11, bankruptcy. After the board of directors fired the previous CEO, they hired an interim CEO named Kay Hong. Hong has been in charged since February and has helped the company back into profitable quarters. Harry and David announced their new CEO earlier this morning as Craig Johnson. Craig Johnson and Kay Hong will work together till the end of the year to help ease the transition process for the company.
Craig Johnson is the former chief supply chain officer for Guitar Center. Johnson recently released a statement saying, “With its successful restructuring now complete, improved capital structure in place and an outstanding harvest and holiday gift selection, the company is poised for a successful holiday season.” Johnson has been in several leadership roles and sounds excited to start working with his new team. In my opinion I believe that Johnson should learn as much as he can from Hong while he still has him as a resource. Hong is only there to make the transition phase easier for Johnson but he has to prove that he is a vital replacement for Hong. Kay Hong has led the company out of a recession and back into profit. Harry and David is not a Fortune 500 company; however Johnson needs to be careful because he has a lot of employees that work underneath him that might be disappointed with the decision to go against Hong. It will be large shoes for Johnson to fill even though Hong was only there for a short time.
It sounds like Craig Johnson has a good amount of experience from previous positions, but I wonder if he'll be able to make a smooth transition from working with supply chains to the gift and gourmet food industry. I wish the article discussed more of what Hong did to get Harry and David out of bankruptcy and what changes he had to implement.
ReplyDeleteAt least he will be there to help Johnson get used to the work environment and hopefully Johnson will be able to keep the company on the right track. Does anyone else have any thoughts on the transition that Johnson is trying to make? Do you think he will be successful after Hong leaves?
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Daniel Changelon