When Lillian Vernon turns over the reins as CEO of her namesake corporation, her replacement will be in the uncomfortable position of having to pull the cataloger out of a slump.
Sales have declined, the stock is performing poorly and the company has warned that it faces higher losses for fiscal 2002 than it did for 2001. Catalog circulation was reduced last year, while employees were laid off and others took salary cuts.
Still, no one would argue that Vernon is one of the direct marketing industry’s iconic figures, for over 50 years the matriarch of a kitchen-table startup turned gold mine.
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