- 1-800-Flowers founder-CEO Jim McCann says he is stepping down from the CEO job. He will remain as chairman. Adolfo Villagomez will take over as CEO, with a focus on updating technology, which has been a pain point for the company, costing it millions of dollars per quarter due to missed orders.
Jim McCann has run 1-800-Flowers for almost 50 years, but the time has come, he says, for the floral giant to get some new blood.
The 73-year-old founder of the company tells The Wall Street Journal that as business is slowing “the best thing I can do is fire myself and hire someone who’s much more skilled than I am in the areas that are important to the company going forward.”
Taking McCann’s place in the CEO office will be Adolfo Villagomez, who most recently was CEO of single-family housing rental firm Progress Residential. Villagomez is expected to implement newer technologies, including artificial intelligence.
This most recent run as CEO was McCann’s second at the company. He stepped back in 2016, installing his younger brother in the role. In 2023, his brother faced some health challenges, and McCann came back, but did so solely with the intention of finding someone to take over the job.
He will keep the role of chairman despite his “dismissal” from the CEO role.
The need for more advanced technology was underscored this past holiday season, when problems with the order management system at subsidiary Harry & David led to canceled orders, frustrating customers and costing the company $20 million in sales. In the most recent quarter, 1-800-Flowers reported a net loss of $178 million, again largely due to order system issues.