The Citi Trends, Inc. Board of Directors appointed Ken Seipel as interim CEO, effective June 2. In connection with Seipel’s appointment, David Makuen has stepped down as CEO and board member.

To ensure a smooth and successful transition, the company said Makuen will serve as a senior advisor to the CEO and the leadership team in the coming weeks.

Seipel has been a member of the Citi Trends Board since April 2017. His prior CEO experience includes three years at West Marine and four years at Gabriel Brother, Inc. Before this, he also held senior leadership roles at Old Navy, Shopko, and Target after starting his retail career at JC Penney.

The Board’s independent members are commencing a search for a new permanent CEO and reportedly plan to retain a national executive search firm to support the process. The Board said it would consider external candidates, including Seipel, in the CEO search. Citi Trends’ Board includes independent members with prior experience conducting CEO searches.

“On behalf of the Board and the company’s employees, I thank David for his dedication, hard work and strong leadership during his four years as CEO,” offered Peter Sachse, executive chairman at Citi Trends, Inc. “David’s contributions include guiding the organization through the challenging COVID-19 pandemic and leading it to a record year in terms of financial performance in fiscal year 2021. The Board’s decision to appoint Ken and initiate a search for a new permanent CEO is intended to position Citi Trends to return the company to past levels of profitability and beyond. Ken has had success in several turnaround environments.

“Ken previously served as the CEO of West Marine, and, prior to that, led the transformation at Gabe’s, an off-price retailer operating with very similar customer income demographics as Citi Trends. As CEO, Ken balanced profitable growth with strong cost controls to drive record profitability. He has our full confidence,” concluded Sachse.

Makuen stated, “It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as CEO of Citi Trends. This is an incredibly talented organization with some of the smartest and most committed individuals in the retail sector. Together, we led the company through an unprecedented period of disruption during the pandemic and subsequent inflationary pressures while maintaining strong customer loyalty and advancing many strategic initiatives designed to drive future brand growth. I look forward to watching Citi Trends continue to delight customers and deliver value for many years to come. I wish the Board and my colleagues the very best.”

Seipel concluded, “I want to thank the Board for its confidence and David for supporting a smooth transition. As interim CEO, I intend to leverage my experiences driving profitable growth, capturing efficiencies and operating across economic cycles to position Citi Trends for enhanced value creation. We will focus on driving sales, sharpening our product assortment decisions, streamlining costs, optimizing our supply chain, improving inventory returns and leveraging benefits from recent technology investments. Although this represents a period of transition, the Board and I plan for the coming months to be very productive and foundational for our long-range growth.”

As a result of these changes, the Board will include eight members, and in line with corporate governance best practices, Seipel will step down from his Board committee roles.

The company provided the following summary of preliminary first-quarter 2024 results before its official release on June 4 as follows:

  • Total sales of $186.3 million;
  • Same-store sales increase of 3.1 percent; and
  • EBITDA loss of $0.8 million.

Images courtesy Citi Trends