In March of 2020, Kohl’s CEO Michelle Gass was preparing to unveil a retooled strategy for the retailer. Instead, she had to shelve those plans and face the coronavirus pandemic. In this episode of Leadership Next, she details many of the hard decisions she and her team had to make to keep employees safe and the business running. Kohl’s has long called itself an omnichannel retailer and, as Gass shares, its digital footprint certainly helped blunt the economic blow of COVID-19. During this time Gass also started hosting live weekly meetings for the entire company – something she had never done before. She was particularly glad to have this communication method in place when news of the George Floyd murder broke – she explains why.  Gass goes on to talk about the diversity efforts at the company, Kohl’s plans to be the go-to retailer for healthy families, and her approach to stakeholder capitalism. 

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