Greg Russell CIO resigned??? Rumor or real?
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Ah yes, the courage to break systems during business hours, so products that are supposed to be delivered are never delivered, or ordering systems that are down for days because of sh--ty IT, resulting in countless upset members lost. "Courage". If it ain't broke don't f---ing fix it.
He didn't want to sign arbitration agreements so he left. He told us he hates two hours commute to work. He rather be back in Seattle in his riveredge mansion with his wife. I think he stayed long enough to keep his signon bonus and to collect retention bonus. It was a short stint that paid off handsomely for him. Peter Lai will take over the cio role until a new body is found to lead. Under him many systems are now on AWS. Finally mainframes will be gone by end of year and there will be only single source of products data. Great achievement that we have enough courageous people who are not afraid to break stuffs so we can free ourselves from legacy systems.
Who was smoking what when Sears came up with Alfie? Sears' lone tech hardware product with people taking orders because lol Sears voice recognition? Sometimes it would take half an hour or more to get a response. Like something a seven year old without an ounce of sense would have come up with in the 1980s.
Eddie: "this is the transformation I'm talking about!"
Another $100M gone
"Transform your IT and reap huge profit, just like all our other success stories. . . ummm. . . Sears?"
Awkward.
Any CIO at any company that ever considered for an instant it would be a good idea for Sears to host their data center or provide IT consulting services should be shot on general principle. And there was more than one company that signed up for it too, before realizing, no, we're id--ts. Eddie thought this was a business we could be in.
I see some comments on Metascale..dont think it was Eddie pushing it then. It was setup by our then CTO, who brought in Hadoop and sold the idea internally that all mainframes would be replaced. And then, him and his cohorts pitched that they could take this externally and make money out of their 'IP'. to Eddie this probably sounded like Sears AWS moment. There was certainly some merit to it, back then.
Sadly the idea was also being implemented by other consulting firms so why would anyone come to Metascale aka Sears with its lack of good, solid programmers?
Fun times..those people still thrive well outside. They did have some good tech going.
MetaScale was so stupid. For all of Eddie's bull about Shop Your Way, if any of it actually worked, it would show up where it matters. Better inventory management. Customer retention. Gross Margins. Profit. It did none of these. Sears was always about transferring the real estate and brands into Eddie's own pockets over time, while trying a bunch of other stuff he thought he was good at but really didn't have the slightest clue.
I think we all know which "staff" Leena was Chief of with her level of competence. Only Eddie would make Fountainhead a double entendre. Does Eddie suggest that associates read stupid Ayn Rand books too?
Jeff B was the last sane CIO, I think.
Sears CIO is the world's best temp job. Get paid a million to fail to implement Eddie's delusional transformations, then leave a year or two later when you're sick of his b---s---.
Remember when Sears was going to be the next IBM with Metascale and the Alfie because of all the brilliant things we did by transforming our IT with Shop Your Way? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
I’m surprised he stayed as long as he did. How is the project going where they were going to replace almost every system in 12 months? LOL!
Good old Eddie. In his "brilliant" mind, investment in Hadoop, Shop Your Way, and irrelevant metrics trumps clean floors and customer satisfaction every time.
I also recall when he started with Sears a couple years ago... he had a meeting to tell us how he was going to turn things around. I am not surprised he left so soon, his work history was: "....a year here, a year or two there...., 6 months here, 2 years there" ....he told us he would only stay until he made changes and then he would be off to his next project... what a bunch of BS... Russell made his millions and golden parachute while the rest of us got laid off and got partial severance packages. And you are correct, @3xrx, it's really tough to support the Sears systems since they are comprised of so many different software packages, from so many different vendors....some are not on supported versions. Good luck trying to find documentation of how things all fit together. That information resides with a few subject matter experts who are keeping the company hostage because not many know how all this stuff works. When those last few I.T. folks leave it's going to be lights out... the people left won't be able to fix the issue because the systems are ruled by difficult to follow 'spaghetti code' .... a literal 'cast of thousands' of programmers who made changes thru the years and did not leave much documentation behind because Sears didn't have the money to do things properly. The mentality was just 'get r done' as quick and cheap as possible.
Leena used to be Timothy's (a former Sears CIO) "Chief of Staff" (sorry....I don't recall his last name... was it Kasbe ??) this was maybe 5 to 7 years ago... after he was bounced she became a director and quickly rose thru the ranks... why...?? I don't have an answer for you. She's one of Eddie's "Favourites" (I spelled it like one of last years top movies)... what's going on behind the scenes that we don't know about? I will leave that to your imagination.
It's hilarious that Sears has all this heavy duty Mainframe/Middleware/BPM/Messaging services on premises on Google Cloud, and AWS from like 500 different vendors to support a 400 store company, when you could run the whole company from QuickBooks at Transform's current size and transaction volume. This is the genius of losing $500M a month with 500 stores. Well that, and giving customers $500 giveaways for buying $500 of product.
You must see the SHI office. It's practically empty and they are struggling to get new resources. People moving out every day and people still there are looking for new jobs. What a sad state things have come to.
Leena has zero competence to be a CIO. What does she know about running IT infrastructure? When things break, things stay broken. Security breaches out the wazoo. No regulatory compliance. Database people and programmers are leaving the building at light speed. Eventually the accounting and billing will fall apart. Maybe she can come up with another terrific idea like the Alfie. Transform will be running off of pen and paper if you leave Leena in charge for too long.
Lena is taking over Gregg responsibilities. Finally transformation will be complete.
Greg walked out because Eddie's turned into a paranoid schizophrenic obsessed with trying to track down leaks on this board instead of trying to run a profitable company.
OMG if TCS walked there goes night time pager support.....that means whomever is left in I.T. has to carry the pager and answer 2 am calls.... I wish all who are left good luck, you are going to need it. My old manager used to complain about TCS all the time but at least they took some pressure off of us , we would only get these calls once and awhile now it's going to be every night.
You're an I D 10 T 😧😧
Its a REAL rumor 👍👍
Will you people stop using acronyms! I have no idea what you guys are talking about!
By the way TCS, one of the IT contracting companies, walked last week and took all their peeps with them. IT lost a big chunk of support with that. Can’t blame the CIO for leaving when they can’t pay their contractors
Yup it’s real. Another one bites the dust, and another one gone, and another one gone....another one bites he dust....
Who is Greg Russell?
Never heard of him
Eddie should hire me anyway