Recommended Reading - Target's inner circle - Fortune

Jennifer Reingold wrote a terrific story for Fortune entitled, Target's inner circle, published March 18. The story examines the unusual approach the, soon-to-be-retired, CEO of Target TGT (NYSE), Robert Ulrich (earlier blog) and his long time number two, and soon-to-be successor, Greg Steinhafel have followed to manage the company. According to Reingold,

...Ulrich has transformed a Midwestern discounter into one of the most admired and imitated companies in the world. Target now ranks 33rd on the Fortune 500 - making it bigger than Microsoft, Pfizer, and PepsiCo, and more than double the size of Cisco Systems.

...Though everyone knows Target (TGT, Fortune 500), hardly anyone's even heard of Ulrich. ...Even Ulrich's own employees often don't recognize him during his twice-monthly store walks, when he strolls the aisles dressed in Target's standard red shirt and khakis. Neither he nor his company has ever before graced the cover of a major magazine - highly unusual for a corporation its size. In fact, Ulrich has deliberately stayed so far under the radar that Bob Thacker, a former Target marketing executive now at OfficeMax, dubbed him the "silent Sam Walton." Says Thacker: "He has no public persona."

In a world of high profile CEOs, Ulrich's approach is refreshing and overall has been quite successful.

Check it out.