Penney taps the Home Depot and Target pipelines that yielded current CEO Marvin Ellison.

J.C. Penney Co. Inc. is beefing up its leadership team with new e-commerce and supply chain executives as it pursues a strategy to blend online and offline channels. Both hires come to Penney with extensive experience in retail chain web sales and distribution with two Top 500 companies.

Mike Amend, former vice president of online, mobile and omnichannel for The Home Depot Inc., is Penney’s new executive vice president of omnichannel.

Amend led the development of several omnichannel initiatives at Home Depot, No. 10 in the Internet Retailer 2015 Top 500 Guide. He oversaw the rollout of buy online pickup in store; buy online, ship to store; and buy online, deliver from store. Amend also led the company’s initiative to develop mobile commerce. Prior to Home Depot, Amend was chief technology officer for global online at Dell Inc., No. 12 in the Top 500.

Amend follows close on the heels of Marvin Ellison, who formally took over as Penney CEO this week. In October Penney announced Ellison would succeed CEO Myron E. “Mike” Ullman. Ellison officially joined Penney Nov. 1 as president and CEO-designee but did not take the official CEO role until this month.

Ullman, who had been Penney’s CEO for seven years until November 2011, returned to the top spot in April 2013 when the retailer fired Ron Johnson, the former Apple Inc. executive whose tenure at Penney was marked by sharply declining sales as he sought unsuccessfully to refashion the retailer’s image.

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Ellison came to Penney after more than 12 years at Home Depot, serving as executive vice president of stores since August 2008. Before Home Depot, he spent 15 years at Target Corp. (No. 16).

Another Target veteran, Mike Robbins, formerly senior vice president of global supply chain, will join Penney (No. 37), Aug. 10 as senior vice president of supply chain. Robbins has experience in supply chain strategy, process improvement, technology and cost reduction. He most recently served as senior vice president of global supply chain and logistics for Target’s U.S. stores. Previously, Robbins held positions in marketing and supply chain for AutoZone Inc. (No. 107) and Procter & Gamble.

CEO Ellison says the new hires “are two exceptional industry veterans who have a successful track record of creating enterprise inventory networks that enable bricks-and-mortar and e-commerce to merge into one seamless shopping experience. Their backgrounds perfectly align with our long-term growth plan to become a world-class omnichannel retailer.”

Amend reports to Ellison and succeeds Mike Rodgers, who left the company to pursue other interests, Penney says. Robbins will report to Ken Mangone, executive vice president of product development, design and sourcing. Robbins replaces Marie Lacertosa, senior vice president of supply chain, who is retiring after more than 30 years .

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Home Depot won the inaugural Internet Retailer of the Year Award, which was presented at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in June. The award goes to the Internet Retailer Top 1,000 web merchant that demonstrated extraordinary performance in all aspects of e-commerce activity and on all major e-commerce metrics, according to the judging criteria. In 2014 Home Depot’s e-commerce sales increased 37% to $3.76 billion, a growth rate twice that of Amazon.com Inc.’s.

To download a copy of the Internet Retailer Special Edition: IR Excellence Awards click here.

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