Marc Saffer, Chief Information Officer of J.Crew

Episode Overview

Among other topics, Marc discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:

• The structure and dynamics of the CIO office at J.Crew
• The perceived gap between business demands and IT support at the company
• Marc’s focus on company culture, business strategy and people management in preparation of his role as J.Crew’s new CIO
• Marc’s multi-staged people assessment and project selection strategies to align business strategy and IT infrastructure in the first few days in his new job
• The need for business units and IT departments to communicate with and understand each other, which prevents the organization from suffering intra-division distrust and communication gaps
• Eye on the trends: The critical role of business and IT alignment in success of J.Crew’s new projects: international expansion and supporting websites, enterprise selling capability

Marc Saffer’s Biography

Marc is Chief Information Officer of J. Crew, a role he has held for three and a half years. During that time, he has played an integral role in transforming J. Crew’s technology, and helped improve the organization’s e-commerce operation.

J. Crew is the fourth company that Marc has served as CIO, having held that role at Duane Reade, Columbia House, and Footstar Corporation. He also was a vice president of IT at Macy’s, and he can still be seen every Thanksgiving morning piloting a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

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