Everyone Belongs

We’re using this platform to share frustration with the bias in hiring for Senior Vice President Level positions and above at Neiman Marcus. In looking at nearly 30 hires or promotions Neiman Marcus CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck has made during his tenure, the data is clear. Geoffroy hires externally and does not like to promote from within. He prefers to hire white and Asian women. And then he favors men who are gay and/or European. Just like him. The typical straight US male has been ignored and has been hired one time. Statistically this is impossible unless it’s by design.

A secondary conclusion is that we could identify one promotion to SVP of someone who has been here before Geoffroy started at Neiman Marcus. He’s never valued anyone who has a longer tenure than him.

We started to study this after senior promotions in Technology and then became curious about all other senior hires made by Geoffroy. We relied on announcements and memory. Asking HR for the data could lead to retaliation. If this list isn’t complete it’s very close and it is a robust data set.

The data set includes the names Nabil Aliffi, Katie Anderson, Christina Demuth, Tatiana Ferreiria, David Goubert, Cheryl Han, Ann Marie Janke, Tiffin Jernstedt, Hannah Kim, Bob Kupbens, Natalie Lockhart, Amanda Martin, Matt Marcotte, Daz McColl, Ginger Mollo, Katie Mullen, Rene Paradise, Darcy Pennick, Brandy Richardson, Paola Riva, Ryan Ross, Amber Seikaly, Eric Severson, Yumi Shin, Lana Todorovich, Stefanie Tsen Ward, Melissa Xides.

Hannah Kim was hired as Chief Legal Officer after Tasha Grinnell served as interim for six months and then was denied the promotion. Darcy Pennick and Ann Marie Janke were given senior roles in Technology after Chief Technology Officer Vijay Karthik was denied the promotion and left. Tasha, who is Black, and Vijay, who is straight, don’t fit the profile Geoffory normally hires to.

Chief Supply Chain Officer Amanda Martin is the only person who has been promoted to Senior Vice President and has more tenure at Neiman Marcus than Geoffroy. Nearly 30 positions and everyone else was brought in by Geoffroy. That is astounding. Today Geoffroy’s direct reports consist only of white and Asian women and gay men. There’s exclusion happening at the most senior levels by the most senior person.

This complaint was filed anonymously on Ethicspoint in August and asked when will straight US men be welcomed at the most senior levels at Neiman Marcus? And the same for Black leaders? What does Diversity, Equity and Inclusion mean at Neiman Marcus? Is it for everyone or just the groups deemed important by Geoffroy? What can be done to prevent this from happening in the future?

We communicated back and forth with no answers for two weeks but only an insistence that we file on a different platform called AllVoice. We started to do this but saw that our phone number is required and our IP address is captured. Anonymity is promised but then we found that our Chief People and Belonging Officer has a prior relationship with AllVoice. Perhaps that is the reason for the request to refile and the promise of anonymity seems compromised. We do not want to be tracked due to the sensitive topic and fear of retaliation.

Then all communication stopped. Geoffroy and his team want this to just go away. But this is different than the carefully crafted articles that are done in partnership with WWD or BOF. This is data. This is the truth.