Home Depot Names CEO Menear To Additional Role Of Chairman, Succeeding Blake

(RTTNews) - Home improvement retailer Home Depot Inc. (HD) said Friday that its board of directors has elected CEO and president Craig Menear to the additional role of chairman, effective February 2. He will succeed Frank Blake, who will retire as chairman.

In late August 2014, Home Depot named Menear as CEO and president of the company, effective November 2014. He is a 17-year veteran of the company, and was the first merchant to be named chairman and CEO since co-founder Bernie Marcus.

Prior to becoming CEO, Menear served as President of U.S. Retail, Home Depot, from February 2014 to October 2014. He has more than three decades of experience in the retail and hardware home improvement industry.

The outgoing chairman, Blake, has served as chairman of Home Depot since 2007. He has also served as CEO from January 2007 to October 2014.

Previously, Blake served as vice chairman from October 2006 to January 2007, and as executive vice president - business development and corporate operations from 2002 to January 2007. Prior to joining Home Depot, Blake served in a variety of executive positions at General Electric Co. (GE).

In mid-November, Home Depot reported a 14 percent increase in profit for the third quarter, on a 5 percent increase in sales and growth in comparable store sales.

Home Depot confirmed in September 2014 that its payment data systems were breached, potentially impacting customers using payment cards at its stores in the U.S. and Canada.

In November, Home Depot disclosed additional findings related to the breach of its payment data systems. The company noted that in addition to the previously disclosed payment card data, separate files containing about 53 million email addresses were also taken during the breach.

HD is trading at $100.72, down $0.29 or 0.29 percent on a volume of 1.21 million shares.