Coldwater Creek CEO to Retire Oct. 30
Dennis Pence, CEO of women’s apparel multichannel retailer Coldwater Creek, based in Sandpoint, Idaho, has announced his retirement effective Oct. 30, after 23 years as head of the $1 billion-plus company. Although he will remain chairman of the company, the current president and chief operation officer, Daniel Griesemer, will replace Pence.
An article in the Spokane Spokesman-Review describes Coldwater Creeks’s beginnings:
“Pence and his former wife, Ann Pence, founded Coldwater Creek in 1984, after making a quality-of-life move to Sandpoint from New Jersey. He was a former marketing manager for Sony Corp. She was a freelance advertising copywriter. . . . The couple arrived in Sandpoint on Christmas Eve in 1983 with $40,000 in savings. They launched a small mail-order business from their apartment, exhausting their savings and a line of credit before Coldwater Creek finally turned a profit in 1985.”
I am so very sorry to see an industry leader such as Dennis Pence retire. It is truly amazing what he has achieved, building Coldwater Creek from a start-up catalog to an Internet giant to a major retail merchant. Because of Pence’s leadership, the company is legendary in terms of customer service. Customers who call the Coldwater Creek phone center, get answered on the first ring by a person, not an automated IVR. While that costs in terms of expenses for CSRs and telephone lines, I think that meeting that standard certainly differentiates Coldwater Creek from 99.99999999% of the contact centers in any industry.
Pence has cited health concerns for stepping down—he suffered a minor heart attack a few weeks ago. His decision is certainly understandable, and we wish him well.