Terry Lundgren
- Full Name
- Terrence J. Lundgren
- Year of Birth
- 1952
- Place of Birth
- Long Beach, CA
- Undergrad
- University of Arizona
- Neighborhood
- Upper East Side
- Other Residences
- Greenwich, CT
- Filed Under
- Fashion
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Who
Terry Lundgren is the chairman, president and CEO of Macy's Inc., which controls Macy's and Bloomingdale's.
Backstory
A native of Long Beach, Calif., Lundgren bagged groceries as a kid, put himself through the University of Arizona working at a seafood restaurant in Tucson, and abandoned his aspiration to be a veterinarian after witnessing the artificial insemination of a cow in biology class. In 1975, he took a $9,700-a-year trainee position at Federated, which then included such department-store chains as Abraham & Straus and Burdines, rising to division president before jumping ship to the more luxury-oriented department store Neiman Marcus in 1988. Two years later, at the age of 37, he was promoted to chief executive. In 1994, Lundgren was lured back to Federated by the company's former chief executive, Allen Questrom. Just a few months into his tenure he oversaw the massive merger of Federated with rival R.H. Macy & Company. Now the company's chairman, president and CEO—the first to hold all three positions—he presides over one of the largest retail empires in the world from an office in Macy's flagship in Herald Square.
Of note
These days, Macy's operates 815 stores in 45 states and generates some $27 billion a year in revenue, making Lundgren one of the most powerful people in both the fashion industry and American retailing. His influence increased many times over following Federated's 2005 acquisition of the May department store chain for $11 billion, which brought Macy's, Lord & Taylor, Marshall Field's and other storied department-store brands under one roof. The deal—which resulted in the closure of hundreds of locations and the re-branding of regional staples like Foley's and Hecht's as Macy's—was designed to make the company more competitive against big-box retailers like Target, Wal-Mart and Eddie Lampert's Sears/Kmart, which have been making inroads into the fashion-for-the-masses turf traditionally dominated by department stores. In May 2007, Lundgren announced the retail behemoth would drop its bland-sounding name Federated and adopt the name Macy's, Inc., part of a broader effort to unite the disparate brands.
The look
It should come as little surprise that the exhaustively-groomed 6'3" CEO with silver-fox looks is also a notorious clotheshorse. Even when he was in negotiations to buy the May department store chain—discussions that stretched for days—"Lundgren never even loosened his tie or took off his jacket," according to one board member.
Personal
He's divorced from first wife, Nancy, with whom he has two daughters, Jessica and Tracey. In 2005, Lundgren married Tina Stephan, the branding consultant and ex-wife of disgraced marketing guru Roger Blackwell. They live on the Upper East Side.
True story
In an act of control freakery impressive even for a captain of industry, Lundgren insisted on overseeing the design of Stephan's wedding dress, and even made her wear a blindfold during fittings. In August 2005, their supposed engagement party caused a stir: more than 200 guests, including Mayor Bloomberg, Kenneth Cole, Donald Trump and Vera Wang, were invited to the Frick where Lundgren surprised everyone by marrying Stephan on the spot.
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