Carol M. Meyrowitz is the Executive Chairman of the Board and the Chairman of the Executive Committee of TJX Companies, the leading off-price retailer of apparel and home fashions in the United States and worldwide.
Born in 1954, she graduated from Rider University with a bachelor’s in marketing and management.
“Fashion runs in my family. My father was in wholesale, and my mother is an artist. My dad was a very good businessperson, smart and empathetic. I grew up spending a lot of time in his store in New York, and I knew early on that business and working with people were my passions. Before and during college, where I majored in marketing and management, I was a part-time salesclerk at Fortunoff,” she once explained.
After graduation, she started as an assistant buyer at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York and then went to Bamberger’s.
In 1983, she joined TJX Companies where she climbed the ladders, growing with the business. In 2001, she became Executive Vice President of the company, as well as the President of Marmaxx, the largest division of the company. After a stint as Senior Executive Vice President and advisor, planning to leave the company, she was offered in 2005 the position of President. The next year, she became member of the board of directors, before finally being appointed Chief Executive Officer in 2007. After nine years at the helm of the company, she stepped down from the latter position in 2016.
Throughout her career, she has developed several retail brands, providing low-cost options to shoppers, and has steadily brought growth to the company. She is credited among others with its international expansion and “globalizing the company’s merchandizing capabilities by adding more buyers to pull in a greater assortment of products from other countries”.
Her hard work and dedication have enabled her to reach some of the most desirable senior positions in the world. As such, it is hardly surprising that she was granted in the past spots on Forbes, Fortune and CNN’s lists of the most powerful women in business.