Daily News
From Home Furnishing Business
Kirkland’s Restructures Management Team
January 20,
2020 by Laurie Northington in Business Strategy, Industry 
Kirkland’s, Inc. (NASDAQ: KIRK) has announced management changes, parting ways with President and Chief Operating Officer, Michael Cairnes. Woody Woodward, the company's CEO, will add the role of president and will oversee operations in addition to his ongoing responsibilities across merchandising and marketing.
The company has promoted John Stacy, currently VP of Supply Chain, to SVP of Supply Chain, and Jeff Martin, currently VP of Transformation, to SVP of Omni-Channel Retail. Stacy will continue to lead initiatives focusing on supply chain and direct sourcing and Martin will oversee store and e-commerce operations. Both have extensive experience in retail operations, and each has been involved in building Kirkland's current initiatives.
"We wish Mike well in his future endeavors and thank him for his service to Kirkland's the past three years," said Woodward. "I look forward to working with John, Jeff and the Kirkland's team to achieve our financial goals and to optimize the Kirkland's customer experience."
"While the environment remains challenging for home décor retailing, our business overall remains on track with our expectations. Seasonal and e-commerce sales are driving a sequential improvement in the comp trend, and we have managed a better transition to January than in recent periods," added Woodward. The company expects to report fourth quarter sales in late February.
In connection with the executive changes, Kirkland's is continuing to aggressively manage its operating and infrastructure costs. The company has further reduced expenses at its corporate office and is planning to close 27 stores in early 2020, with the potential for further reductions in the store base later in the year as Kirkland's moves forward with its goals to right size the store base.
"These moves reflect steps to streamline the organization and further accelerate our initiatives to transform the business to a more profitable model," said Woodward. "As we have outlined, our plan includes efforts to improve the relevancy and quality of our merchandise assortment, to operate with greater efficiency, and to lower our cost of goods as we evolve to a true omni-channel model that reinforces Kirkland's value heritage. We believe the initiatives included in the plan are the right path for the future of the Company and look forward to providing updates regarding our progress in our fourth quarter earnings release and conference call."