December 7, 2024

Man Who Helped Image of Wal-Mart Steps Down

Wal-Mart said on Friday that Leslie Dach, a former aide in the Clinton administration who is credited with polishing the company’s image through energy conservation, environmentally friendly packaging and philanthropy, is resigning after almost seven years.

He is leaving as the company deals with international bribery investigations, questions about factory safety among its global suppliers and scattered protests at stores. Mr. Dach said that his decision was not related to the global giant’s recent problems but that he believed he had accomplished many of the goals of making Wal-Mart palatable to a range of groups.

“When things are going really well, that’s the right time to do it,” said Mr. Dach, who will stay on until June.

As the executive vice president of corporate affairs, his duties included overseeing government and public relations and the Walmart Foundation. The president of the foundation, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, was nominated this month by President Obama to lead the Office and Management and Budget, potentially leaving another gap at the company.

Even critics of Wal-Mart give Mr. Dach some credit. “Wal-Mart became much more adept at constructing a public image that would appeal to liberal audiences after he came on board,” said Stacy Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which encourages environmentally conscious development and frequently opposes Wal-Mart’s policies.

Mr. Dach arrived at the company in August 2006 as public opinion soured with criticism of its pay and benefits and claims that its pressure on vendors to cut costs was sending jobs overseas.

According to the YouGov BrandIndex Buzz index, which measures whether people have recently heard positive or negative things about a company, in mid-2007, the earliest data available, Wal-Mart’s score was about a negative 5 on a scale of negative 100 to positive 100, but it rose to the 20s in 2009. After an article in The New York Times last April reported that executives had ignored evidence of bribery in Mexico, it sank to about 7. It recovered before falling again around the holidays, when unions threatened a Black Friday protest and another New York Times article about bribery in Mexico was published. Its score is now around 10, in line with discount retailers as a whole.

 “He helped position them as being good — good for seniors, good for families, good for the community — and they really were perceived as bad,” said Michael W. Robinson, executive vice president of Levick, a public relations firm based in Washington. Shares closed on Friday at $73.03, well above the $45 range when Mr. Dach was hired.

Mr. Dach was a Clinton aide who went on to run the Washington office of the public relations firm Edelman. At Edelman, he advised Wal-Mart executives on strategy, including a surprising speech in 2005 in which H. Lee Scott, then the chief executive, said Wal-Mart was going to become more environmentally friendly.

 When Mr. Dach began working with Wal-Mart, he said in an interview on Friday, Wal-Mart wanted “to open itself up to those who it might’ve kept at arm’s length before.” Until then, the company largely closed ranks when it was criticized, and unions, environmentalists and other foes were creating ever-louder opposition to the company.

 Mr. Dach steered Wal-Mart toward setting energy-reduction goals, pushed some of its vendors like Procter Gamble to redesign products to make them more environmentally friendly, and added more sustainable products, like fluorescent bulbs and concentrated detergent.

On the environmental front, the company has not met all of its goals — Mr. Scott wanted 100 percent of store waste to be diverted from landfills, and 80 percent now is — but it has made progress. While critics say Wal-Mart is, by definition, environmentally unfriendly — as a brand-new big-box store selling disposable goods largely from overseas — others say its size can force real change.

 And on other issues, like selling $4 generic prescriptions and healthier food, and donating to hunger prevention and veterans and women’s causes, it has gained allies, including Michelle Obama and the World Wildlife Fund.

Labor groups continue to criticize Wal-Mart for unfair wages and poor labor practices overseas, among other issues. The Mexico inquiry continues to loom over the company, and Wal-Mart was shown to be using suppliers in a Bangladesh factory where a fire killed more than 100 workers in November.

 John Podesta, chairman of the Center for American Progress and a longtime friend, said Mr. Dach “has had a career both on the civil-society side and in the business world, and I think he wants to do a little bit more of the former.”

 Mr. Dach, whose compensation is not disclosed, said he was looking forward to avoiding the commute from Washington to Bentonville, Ark., which he now makes weekly. He will continue consulting for Wal-Mart, its chief executive, Michael T. Duke, said in a note to employees.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/09/business/man-who-helped-image-of-wal-mart-steps-down.html?partner=rss&emc=rss