Sears Holdings has brought in turnaround specialist James Andrew as chief administrative officer to oversee a wide swath of corporate functions.
Andrew comes to Sears from Royal Philips, where he helped resuscitate its performance and productivity as chief strategy and innovation officer.
Before that he spent 25 years advising Fortune 250 companies as, successively, a staffer, senior partner and managing director at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
For Sears, he will be responsible for the retailer’s financial planning and analysis, business finance, procurement, legal and human resources, among other corporate support functions.
“Jim is a proven executive with deep expertise leading business performance improvement, corporate strategy and delivering on key objectives,” said Sears chairman/CEO Eddie Lampert. “His range and depth of experiences managing corporate transformations and capability development makes him a strong fit for Sears Holdings as we pursue our member-focused transformation.”
Lampert, who suffered a brutal Q4, is hoping some of Andrew’s magic will rub off: At Royal Philips he also led the company’s digital transformation and a major repositioning of its portfolio, while as founder and global leader of BCG’s Innovation Practice, he provided organizations with support on product development, speed, innovation strategy, portfolio management and resource allocation.
His appointment follows a rash of high-level hires at Sears headquarters last year.
