Yesterday, Signet CEO Gina Drosos announced she was retiring, after seven years heading America’s (and by some metrics the world’s) largest retail jeweler.

She’ll be succeeded in November by J.K. Symancyk, the CEO of PetSmart, who will work out of Signet’s Dallas office. Here, Drosos talks with JCK about why she’s stepping down, what her plans are, and what we should expect from her successor:

I guess the first question is, Why are you retiring now?

We have a very disciplined succession-planning process here at Signet. I’ve been talking to the board for more than a year about my planned retirement and working with them on what would be the right succession plan and what would be the right timing. I felt very strongly that I wanted to leave the business with strong momentum.

We’ve been in what we call “engagement COVID” for the last couple of years—the three years post-lockdown, when people have not been getting engaged at the same rate. I wanted that behind us, which we now believe it is.

We obviously just had a good second-quarter earnings report, with five consecutive quarters of sequential same-store sales improvement, and a turn to positive comps in the third quarter and positive engagement units—all the signs that we expected to see, external and internal. I think it’s the right time to make a change.

I’ve had a long time here. I’ve loved it. It’s been an incredible 12 years—five on the board and seven still on the board but actively as CEO. I’m a person who doesn’t leave anything on the field. I’ve given every bit of hard work, and my best ideas and insights, into building this team, every single day. I think change and diversity of thinking is a good thing, so I’m really excited for where Signet is headed and our next chapter. We’ve got all the momentum and everything in place and a fantastic team who will welcome J.K. into this business and this industry. He brings a lot to the party, and  and I’m excited about what’s next.

Do you see yourself taking on other board or executive roles—including anything involving jewelry?

Right now I’m 100% focused on working with the team to deliver a strong back half. I’m leading the company as the CEO through the end of the third quarter [through Nov. 4] and then I’ll remain in the fourth quarter as an adviser for the business [through Feb. 2].

The board also took steps to retain strong leadership on my team. [Chief financial and operating officer] Joan Hilson took on an expanded role; [president] Jamie Singleton is here and runs our biggest businesses [Zales, Kay, Peoples, and Banter by Piercing Pagoda], along with merchandising and marketing. So the entire leadership team is focused on delivering.

I haven’t made firm plans after that. I serve on two boards: Foot Locker and the United States Golf Association—both of which I enjoy. I’ve worked in big companies and small companies, always with a growth and transformation mindset. I love the entrepreneurial nature of a transformation, and I love the innovation that can come from smaller companies. I’m sure I’ll find myself helping to grow and mentor people and companies in that direction.

But I’m going to going to let my own dust settle for a little bit first. Maybe I’ll get a few more days snow skiing than usual, which I love to do—I lived in Switzerland earlier in my career. Maybe I’ll get a few more rounds of golf and be able to invest in time with friends and family.

Can you tell us about your successor, J.K. Symancyk?

What I think the board is very excited about, and was looking for, is someone who’s steeped in retail expertise and who has led companies to growth behind some of the same kinds of investments that we’ve been making—[such as] our investments in data and a world-class consumer data platform to drive consumer relationship marketing and personalization. He has experience in services, which has been a growing business for us, and we think there’s continued upside.

When I think about the numbers behind our transformation, I’m very proud. The best peer group that we would compare ourselves to is the XRT retail average [the S&P Retail Select Industry Index], and this team has delivered total shareholder return almost 5½ times higher than that group: 540% during our transformation, versus 100% [for the retail average]. So we wanted someone who will keep driving growth.

We’ve gotten our balance sheet in great shape, unlevered the company, and invested more than $1.3 billion in driving competitive advantage. There’s more juice to squeeze there. There’s a lot that we can continue to do to grow our revenue and expand our market share now that our banners are positioned in more differentiated ways. We’ve returned more than $2 billion to shareholders. We have a very healthy company now. We recognize the importance of our leadership in the industry.

J.K. will come in with the right skill set to be able to add to them, but will also have the right respect for the expertise that we have in the company and on our team for diamonds and for jewelry.

What did you tell J.K. about his biggest challenges?

I know that he’ll want to engage with the industry and learn from experts, both in our industry organizations—which are so important—and our vendor community. All of our partners have been a big part of Signet’s transformation success. I think he will want to get to know all of those experts, and our team will be very welcoming of him and want to ground him in the important aspects of our industry.

You made a number of acquisitions during your tenure—Blue Nile, James Allen, Diamonds Direct. How do you see them?

Big picture: We have developed a diversified portfolio of banners that data indicates appeal to 80% of jewelry shoppers. And we currently have a 9% market share, so there’s a lot of room to grow and attract more customers into our banners. We’ve had some hiccups with the integration of Blue Nile, but it’s getting back on track. [Blue Nile] has a very strong equity in the world of jewelry. It’s retail—you will always have two steps forward and half a step back. That has certainly happened to us. But we’ve stayed very focused on the big picture. We have grown our market share about 50% during our transformation.

When you talk about Signet’s “transformation,” what do you think has been transformed?

We’ve always thought about our transformation as three buckets—strategic, financial, and cultural—and how do you create a flywheel that continues to fuel all three of those.

So first, having a consumer orientation and really thinking about the customer journey all the way through the process. We know that almost 80% of customers go online first to search. We’ve invested to have a world-class digital presence, and as a result we’ve grown our e-commerce business more than fourfold, to more than 20%.

But we also know that people buy most often in-store, so having an incredible store experience—[including] the right assortment, the right training for our jewelry consultants, and the ability for them to reach out to customers in between shopping trips through digital storefronts, the investments that we’ve made in technology around the consumer experience—has been a hallmark of the strategic change.

We were in a place [in 2017] with high debt leverage where we’ve couldn’t invest in the business. We’ve driven out costs that weren’t making a difference to invest in things that did, like our team.…

We’ve created a culture where we listen and learn from our team. We love diverse points of view. We’ve built a diverse team at every level of the organization to encourage that. We pride ourselves on being a more innovative and agile company than we were historically. We can do that because we use diversity to see around the corner and anticipate change more quickly. That has really been the hallmark of our success.

A transformation at a company is never about one person. It’s about a team of people who come together with a common purpose—ours is to inspire love—and they are empowered to make that happen in their day-to-day jobs. And that’s what I love about Signet.

Photo courtesy of Signet Jewelers

Follow JCK on Instagram: @jckmagazine
Follow JCK on Twitter: @jckmagazine
Follow JCK on Facebook: @jckmagazine