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Macy’s Inc. chief legal officer Elisa Garcia is getting ready to cap a nearly 40-year career and prepare for a busy travel itinerary.
The Cayman Cookout, a food and wine festival slated for mid-January 2024 hosted by acclaimed chef Eric Ripert at the Ritz-Carlton on Grand Cayman’s Seven Mile Beach, is the first trip on Garcia’s post-retirement docket this winter. Garcia said she’s waited years to attend the event, which started in 2008.
“I will meet my celebrity chef crushes and enjoy great meals,” she said.
Garcia hopes to follow her Cayman Islands escape with another jaunt to northern Spain to visit family sometime in the spring. Next fall she’s scheduled a “small barge trip” in Burgundy, France, a region popular with wine connoisseurs.
Garcia’s official retirement date from Macy’s, a New York-based retailer known for its iconic Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, will be another holiday, this Halloween. The somewhat “ominous” date has “always been one of my favorite days of the year,” she said.
Wendy Schmidt Beadles, a veteran in-house lawyer who has worked at Macy’s for more than 20 years, will initially serve as the company’s interim legal chief, Garcia said. “Wendy will ably guide the ship upon my departure,” Garcia said.
Macy’s, poised to install a new chief executive officer next year when Tony Spring is promoted to replace the retiring Jeff Gennette, will eventually name a permanent successor to Garcia. Macy’s hired Garcia in 2016 to succeed former legal chief Dennis Broderick, who retired after nearly 30 years at the company.
Garcia previously served as the top lawyer for Office Depot Inc., where she worked on that company’s ultimately scuttled $6.3 billion merger with retail office-supply rival Staples Inc., and Domino’s Pizza Inc. She began her career as a corporate associate at Willkie Farr & Gallagher before going on to hold in-house legal jobs at GAF Corp. and Philip Morris International Inc.
Macy’s, which disclosed Garcia’s impending retirement earlier this year, put her total compensation at $2.3 million in 2022, according to its most recent proxy statement. She owns nearly $2 million in Macy’s stock, per Bloomberg data.
During her time at Macy’s, which in recent years has sought to redefine the traditional retail model, Garcia played a key role in helping the company navigate a variety of business challenges, including disputes with activist investors and the Covid-19 pandemic, as she described in a conversation earlier this year with legal search and advisory firm BarkerGilmore.
Garcia, who in the past has called herself an “accidental lawyer” since she worked as an energy analyst prior to earning a law degree, has no plans to return to the C-suite but like many lawyers looking for a late career act hopes to stay active in the boardroom. Garcia, already a director at Canadian retail chain Dollarama Inc., said she’ll be looking to “see if another board can use my skills.”
Garcia’s also been an ardent supporter of diversity and inclusion initiatives in the legal field. Garcia said she’s mentored “aspiring” general counsel for years through programs like the Hispanic National Bar Association’s Poder25 project.
She expects that work to continue. “It’s a lifelong commitment,” Garcia said.
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