Ron Johnson has been ousted as CEO of JCPenney as the retailer's board of directors voted on Monday to turn to his predecessor to pull the company out of the death spiral (it lost $4.3 billion in sales last year) on Johnson's watch, rather than give the former Target executive and Apple retail head the extra time he wanted to see his radical vision through to fruition.

Mike Ullman, who had been CEO of JCPenney until 2011, before Johnson, is returning to take the helm again at least for the time being, according to a JCPenney press release:

"The Board of Directors of J.C. Penney Company, Inc. today announced that Myron E. (Mike) Ullman, III has rejoined the Company as Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. He has also been elected to the Board of Directors. Mr. Ullman is a highly accomplished retail industry executive, who served as CEO of jcpenney until late 2011. He succeeds Ron Johnson, who is stepping down and leaving the Company."

The stock market appreciated the move, which comes on the same day that JCPenney resumed its courtroom clash with Macy's in Manhattan over rights to field the Martha Stewart product lines that Johnson maintained would be crucial to turning around JCPenney's fortunes.Continue reading...

PepsiCo's CMO, Salman Amin, is leaving the company for S.C. Johnson on a high note, having helped CEO Indra Nooyi deliver over the last year on a number of crucial, marketing-based promises, including something of a turnaround for the company's flagship Pepsi brand, which is still duking it out with Coca-Cola and other beverage giants.

The departure of the company's Global Chief Marketing Officer from PepsiCo's Purchase, NY, HQ to Racine, Wis.-based S.C. Johnson—maker of Pledge, Glade and other household products—was disclosed in an internal memo at PepsiCo, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

Amin's exit opens up a top marketing job at PepsiCo just as the company has been reporting gains in sales and market share for Pepsi, having doubled down on marketing following the company's market share slip in recent years in U.S. sales even behind Diet Coke.

A PepsiCo veteran of more than two decades, Amin became PepsiCo CMO only last May. He was able to leverage a $600 million increase in Pepsi's annual marketing budget and a refocusing of spending on top brands including Pepsi and Gatorade into significant gains. "Salman has made contributions that have touched nearly every market in which we do business," said Zein Abdalla, president of PepsiCo, in the memo, according to Ad Age.

Amin also launched the first-ever global marketing campaign ("Live for Now") for Pepsi and inked pop star Beyonce to a $50 million partnership that included the halftime performance during last month's Super Bowl telecast.Continue reading...

Vikram Pandit shocked Wall Street (Exhibit A: the Wall Street Journal homepage) when he abruptly resigned as CEO of Citibank Tuesday after clashing with the board and prompted his right hand, COO John Havens, to exit with him. Pandit's corner office won't remain empty for long.

Sliding right in following his ouster was Mike Corbat, who had been running Citi’s international operations of Europe, Middle East and Africa for less than a year and was clearly being groomed for the role. The WSJ calls Corbat, a Citi veteran and its former head of investment banking, the company's "Mr. Fix-It," writing that Pandit often used Corbat as a repairman of sorts, and his history at the bank backs up that notion.Continue reading...

Best Buy today released the results of an independent ethics inquiry, confirming that former CEO Brian Dunn, who resigned on April 10th, had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a female staffer. The company also named a new chairman of the board in Hatim Tayabji, chairman and CEO of Bytemobile.

According to the company's press release, "When the Audit Committee was first informed of the allegations in mid-March 2012, it hired outside law firm WilmerHale to conduct an independent investigation. In the interest of transparency and accountability, the board made a commitment to publicly release the findings."

The company is also in the midst of closing 50 of its big box U.S. stores this year.Continue reading...

As Internet Week kicked off in New York today, Yahoo execs were busy pitching its new advertising platform, Genome, while downplaying the weekend's executive shuffle that saw the ouster of resume-fudging CEO Scott Thompson, the appointment of Fred Amoroso as chairman, and the elevation of Ross Levinsohn, EVP of the Americas and the brand's head of global media, to interim CEO — not to mention three new board members.

"It's very damaging, and speaks so negatively to the (vetting process)," commented "ambi-practioner" Adam Hanft to USA Today. "(Thompson) was hired for strategy, branding and marketing — not computer science."

It was a short run for Thompson, former president of eBay's PayPal unit. Yahoo only named him CEO, its fourth in less than five years, on January 4th. Levinsohn, meanwhile, is stepping up while trying to reassure advertisers — as he did at the brand's recent digital upfront for advertisers with Katie Couric — to put their faith and budgets in Yahoo's original web programming and vision.Continue reading...

Is the head of a company or brand the most effective spokesperson? Not every CEO, after all, can be Richard Branson or "Papa John" Schnatter.

Ace Metrix’s latest white paper, “CEOs in Advertisements: What Happens When the Boss Steps into the Spotlight?” reveals that the CEO doesn't need to have a cult of personality and be a household name to help put a positive face on the brand.Continue reading...

Manoj Bhargava seems an unlikely billionaire, a man who pads around his office in New Balance sneakers, once ran the family plastics company, and dreams about making the world a better place.

Except that the 58-year-old Michigan entrepreneur came up with the idea for 5-Hour Energy a decade ago, established a crucial "first mover" advantage by creating the energy-shots category, and has held off Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Red Bull on the way to turning his enterprise into a $1-billion brand at retail last year.

By finally creating a public profile, the once-reclusive Bhargava hopes to gain attention for other business ventures that include technologies for water desalination, hydroponic farming and optimization of diesel power. And he's already made the world a much better place with the donation of $10 million to $12 million to charities, much of it to hospitals in India.

In the meantime, Bhargava told brandchannel, he's finally considering some brand extensions to add to the familiar 2-ounce plastic bottles of 5-Hour Energy and its ubiquitous yet lame TV ads.

"We are working on something, but I can't say right now what it is," Bhargava said. "When we come out with something, though, it'll be a slam dunk. It won't be a line extension that doesn't do anything; it's got to do something. If someone in my family, for example, wouldn't be interested in using the product, then I'm not going to sell it."Continue reading...

We're sure this announcement wasn't deliberately timed to St. Patrick's Day, but Citigroup today named Dermot Boden, the Irish-born chief marketing officer at LG Electronics, as its new chief brand officer.

Citi CEO Vikram Pandit praised Boden for his "creativity, thoughtfulness and the ability to execute a strategy over the course of a career during which he has contributed to the building of many different and successful brands."

Boden, who spearheaded LG's involvement in YouTube's Life in a Day project, will oversee Citi's 200th anniversary marketing next year. Before joining LG in 2007, he held business and marketing positions at Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Warner Lambert in Europe, Asia and the US.