Theresa Strickland
Chief Home Design Strategy and Branding Officer
Sears Holdings
As Chief Home Design Strategy and Branding Officer at Sears Holdings, Ms. Strickland is responsible for Sears, Kmart and Land’s End’s Home store strategy, branding and design execution of all home merchandise. Her past history is inclusive of the following: After graduating from college, Theresa joined the Macy’s West training program where she spent the next 10 years working her way up to the Vice President of Tabletop and House wares. She left Macy’s West to become the Senior Vice President of Pottery Barn where she helped to develop the retailer into one of the most successful multi-channel branded retailers of today’s environment. That experience took her to Cost Plus World Market where she served as Executive Vice President of Merchandising, Marketing, Design, and Planning. During 20 years of management experience Ms. Strickland has excelled in leading a variety of merchandising initiatives.
Using her financial expertise, Ms. Strickland has conducted several company-wide vertical integrations creating product development, merchandising, planning teams and an international sourcing organization that resulted in substantial volume growth. She also directly supervised company activities including full profit and loss responsibility, development of inventory, operating plans, sales plans, and her staff’s execution of approved merchandise plans and objectives.
Strategizing for companies she formulated retailer’s merchandising objectives and translated them into realistic merchandise programs, assortment plans, and sales and profits. She is considered proficient at identifying and forecasting trends that are developed into strategies for implementation of branded programs to maximize the impact these trends have on fashion and consumerism.
Strong leadership skills allow her to build consensus with management and develop superior professional merchandising teams. Ms. Strickland is adept negotiating with business partners in both domestic and foreign markets, and working with analysts and Wall-Street’s investor community.
Whenever possible, she serves as the Professor of “Introduction to Business” and “Leadership” classes at Santa Clara University. She was awarded by the Women in Leadership in the Board Room and the Executive Offices for Cost Plus World Market.
She received a BA in Fashion Design and Merchandising from Chico State University, and an MBA from Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University.
Theresa has been married for 23 years and has two grown children that attend the University of San Diego and Rutgers State University. Being a consummate athlete, each year she participates in the annual AIDS-Lifecycle fundraising event with her husband, which is a seven day, 545 mile cycling event from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Theresa lives in both San Francisco and Chicago with her husband and two dogs.
