J. CREW NAMES 1ST BOARD
NEW YORK — J. Crew has named its first board of directors. It has 11 members.
They include chairwoman Emily Wood; chief executive officer Howard Socol, and three directors from Texas Pacific Group, the investment partnership that purchased a majority stake in J. Crew in October 1997. The Texas Pacific board members are David Boderman, James Coulter and Dick Boyce.
The company also named six outside directors: Charlotte Beers, chairwoman emeritus and former chairwoman and ceo of Ogilvy & Mather; Gregory Brenneman, president and chief operating officer of Continental Airlines; John Burden 3rd, former chairman of Federated Department Stores; Michael Ovitz, who is becoming chairman of Livent Inc., the entertainment company; Brian Swette, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Pepsi-Cola, and John Weston, former chairman and ceo of Automatic Data Processing.
“The company was family-owned business in the past. It is now moving to the next stage of development,” a spokesman said, explaining the genesis of J. Crew’s board.
J. Crew’s retail expansion has progressed slowly over the last few years, stalled by turnover in the organization and a change in ownership last year, when Texas Pacific bought the catalog-retail operation from the Cinader family.
J. Crew currently operates 57 retail stores and wants to have approximately 100 by the end of 2000. Eight are expected to open this year. It also operates 44 outlets in the U.S. and has 75 stores in Japan licensed to Itochu.