Postcards
Power Point: Deliver value
November 6, 2008: 6:22 PM ET"In my mind, there is no doubt that this is Wal-Mart time. This is the kind of environment that Sam Walton built this company for."
-- Lee Scott, president and CEO of Wal-Mart (WMT), in The New York Times today. Consumers are going for value and there's no better evidence than Wal-Mart's October sales. Same-store sales at Wal-Mart increased 2.4%, beating expectations. The stock dropped only 1% on a 443-point down day for the Dow. And it's up in after-hours trading. Meanwhile, Target's (TGT) per-store sales dropped 4.8%--more than anaysts predicted. Gap (GPS) and J.C. Penney (JCP) took even bigger hits, and even sales at Costco (COST) fell 1%. No mercy these days.
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Power Point: Be the change
"Be the change you want to see in the world."
Blake Mycoskie, founder and Chief Shoe Giver of TOMS Shoes, says that this Mahatma Ghandi quote is his favorite--and he even sells shoes that display those words. I met Mycoskie last evening at Arianna Huffington's house in Los Angeles, and he so impressed me that I visited him this afternoon at TOMS headquarters in Santa Monica. Fascinating business: For every pair of MORE
Patricia Sellers - Oct 11, 2008 1:48 AM ET
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Fortune Most Powerful Women
Sheryl Sandberg:
Gina Bianchini
In her first public interview since taking on the CEO gig at Yahoo, Marissa Mayer outlines her priorities both in and out of the company. Watch
Brenda Barnes famously quit a big job to be with her kids. Years later, a massive stroke nearly killed her--and her daughter returned the favor. Watch
Fortune senior editor at large Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Marissa Mayer: Ready to Rumble at Yahoo," "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), and "Remodeling Martha" (Martha Stewart). She has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" package every year since its launch in 1998. Pattie is Executive Director of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business and beyond. She oversees MPW programs that enable women leaders to extend their influence and empower the next generation—such as Fortune MPW Entrepreneurs and the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Beyond her Fortune duties, she is also developing Live Content across Time Inc. Pattie grew up in Allentown, PA, graduated from the University of Virginia, and started at Fortune in 1984. Her blog, Postcards, is about how power players lead, manage others, and navigate their careers.
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The Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership brings rising-star women from countries around the world to the U.S. for three-week mentorships with participants of the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit - among them Ursula Burns of Xerox, Laura Lang of Time Inc., Marissa Mayer of Yahoo, and Tory Burch.
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