A Company That Preaches Integrity (and Then This Happened)

To understand why the Buchanan scandal matters as much as it does, you have to know what kind of company Kohl's has built itself up to be. Not just as a business, but as a brand identity. Because what makes this case so uncomfortable isn't just the conflict of interest. It's the gap between what Kohl's says about itself and what its own CEO did.

So let's start with the company.

Kohl's goes back further than most people realize. It started in 1927 when Maxwell Kohl, a Polish immigrant who'd been working in Milwaukee-area factories, used his savings to open a corner grocery store in the city's Bay View neighborhood (Kohl's, 2026). By 1946 he'd built that into the first modern supermarket in Milwaukee, complete with an in-store bakery and deli. The grocery business grew into a regional chain of nearly 50 stores.

Then in 1962, supposedly frustrated by a bad experience trying to buy a shirt, Kohl opened his first department store in Brookfield, Wisconsin (Immigrant Learning Center, n.d.). He positioned it in a gap nobody else was filling: cheaper than the high-end department stores, but better quality than the discounters. That formula worked. British American Tobacco took a controlling interest in 1972, a group of investors bought the chain in 1986, and by 1992 Kohl's was public on the NYSE. Revenue hit $1 billion that year.

The company went coast to coast in 2003 and became the largest department store chain in the U.S. by store count in 2012. Revenue peaked at $19.2 billion in fiscal year 2019 (Kohl's Corporation, 2025a). Today it operates about 1,100 stores in 49 states out of its headquarters in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, trading under the ticker KSS.

Kohl's mission statement is "to inspire and empower families to lead fulfilled lives" (Kohl's Corporation, 2025b). Their corporate values are organized under something called the CARE framework: Customer First, Accountable, Resourceful, and Empathetic. In September 2024, the company launched a branding campaign called "Where Families Come First." Through their Kohl's Cares program, they've donated over $440 million to communities nationwide focused on family health and wellness (Kohl's Corporation, 2025c).

And among the values they list for associates, one stands out: "Act with Integrity." Kohl's defines this as earning trust by living up to the company's commitments, treating people with respect and fairness, and making decisions that support the organization's reputation (Kohl's Corporation, 2025b).

Kohl's ESG

Read that definition again. Act with Integrity. Living up to commitments. Making decisions that protect the company's reputation. Then think about what Buchanan did: secretly steering multimillion-dollar vendor deals to a romantic partner, hiding the relationship across three companies, and doing it all within his first few months on the job.

If your values only exist in documents and press releases, do they actually mean anything? That's the question I keep coming back to. In the next post, I'll look at how Kohl's responded to the scandal, what they got right, and where I think they fell short.

References

1. Howland, D. (2025, May 1). Kohl's fires CEO Ashley Buchanan over conflicts of interest. Retail Dive. https://www.retaildive.com/news/kohls-ceo-ashley-buchanan-fired-conflicts-of-interest-vendor-transactions/746843/
2. Immigrant Learning Center. (n.d.). Maxwell Kohl. https://www.ilctr.org/about-immigrants/immigrant-entrepreneurs/hall-of-fame/maxwell-kohl/
3. Kohl's. (2026, February 15). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohl%27s
4. Kohl's Corporation. (2025a). Form 10-K. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
5. Kohl's Corporation. (2025b). Environmental, social & governance. https://investors.kohls.com/esg/overview/default.aspx
6. Kohl's Corporation. (2025c). Who we are. https://careers.kohls.com/who-we-are