Parting’s Sweet Sorrow

 
 
 
 
 
I’ve been at NRF for 34 years and proudly served as CEO for 17 of them. In just a few weeks I’ll begin my new life as a retiree. Looking back, it’s hard not to be proud of NRF’s many accomplishments. Looking forward, life is an open road and one I’m eager to travel.

You can’t be in retailing without loving it – all of it. It is the most exciting and dynamic industry in the world — simultaneously stimulating and frustrating, energizing and enervating, inspiring and seductive. While I will no longer be an official member of the retailing community, we all know that no one really ever leaves retailing: It stays in your blood forever.

I’ve learned a lot over the years — most of it from NRF directors and members, people whose love of retailing and commitment to this crazy industry is as palpable as mine. I’ve learned to see retailing – and retailers – with an insider’s perspective and to personally feel the successes of a great year and the disappointments of a failed brand.

I’ve come to recognize that our members want – and need – NRF to succeed as much as I do and are willing to help us achieve our goals. I will miss those partnerships, working together to protect and improve our industry and to make NRF the strong, powerful organization that retail deserves.

As I prepare to say goodbye to our incredible staff and members, I reflect often on what NRF has become. Over the past few decades, it has been transformed from a department store organization to one that represents the entire breadth and diversity of retailing, including new members like Meijer, Wendy’s and Louis Vuitton.

NRF’s powerful brand is recognized around the world, and as retailing’s association powerhouse, it has achieved tremendous accomplishments. We’ve defended retailing against potentially game-changing legislation and scored a number of critical public policy wins. Our conferences have helped inform, educate and inspire, and the exhibit floor at Retail’s BIG Show is second to none. Networking opportunities have connected people across the globe. Programs we developed are improving the image of retailing as a career, and our technology standards help retailers improve efficiency and reduce costs.

None of this could have been possible without the remarkable talents and dedication of the NRF staff – each one eager to contribute to the ongoing success of the retail industry, each one shouldering industry distress or individual company misery as if it were their own. Like me, the NRF staff cares deeply about this industry. That will continue long after I’m gone.

When NRF’s new president and CEO Matt Shay joins the staff next month, I have no doubt that he’ll build off of these incredible success stories and help elevate NRF to another level entirely. I look forward to seeing what Matt, the NRF staff and retailers around the world have in store for all of us. If the last 34 years are any indication, it’s bound to be one exciting ride.