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Nordstrom hires Dollar General’s turnaround CFO behind stock surge

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Good morning. Kelly Dilts turned heads by steering Dollar General through massive operational shifts and soaring stock gains—now she’s set to bring her playbook from deep discounts to the deep pockets of the luxury world of Nordstrom.

Dilts resigned from her role of EVP and CFO at Dollar General (No. 112 on the Fortune 500) on July 11 and her final day is Aug. 28, according to an SEC filing. The company has begun a search for her successor. Dollar General declined to provide additional comments. On Aug. 29, Dilts will join Nordstrom, Inc. (No. 291) as CFO, the retailer announced on Thursday.

Kelly Dilts will join Nordstrom, Inc. as CFO on Aug. 29.

Courtesy of Dollar General Corporation

Dilts became CFO at Dollar General in May 2023. She joined the company in July 2019 as SVP of finance, where she oversaw financial planning, procurement, margin planning, decision science and analytics, and investor relations. Previously, she served as EVP and CFO at Francesca’s Holding Corp. and held senior finance roles at other major retailers.

With nearly three decades of financial leadership experience, Dilts was praised by Nordstrom co-CEO Erik Nordstrom in a statement, calling her a leader with “a proven track record of driving strong results at large-scale omnichannel retailers.” He expressed confidence in her ability to help strengthen the business. As of late May 2025, Nordstrom is no longer a publicly traded company, having completed its transition to private ownership under the Nordstrom family and El Puerto de Liverpool.

In Nordstrom’s announcement, Dilts said, “Nordstrom is a company with a strong legacy, a clear sense of purpose, and a deep commitment to its customers, employees, and brand partners. I look forward to working alongside the leadership team to build on that foundation.” Dilts succeeds Cathy Smith, who left Nordstrom in March to join Starbucks as CFO.

Shrinking ‘shrink’

Dollar General has faced notable challenges, responding to shifting consumer needs, regulatory pressures, and competitive headwinds, along with CEO transitions. In a December 2023 earnings call, Dilts said that “shrink”—an industry term referring primarily to theft—“has been pretty significant for us for a while, and it’s definitely going to carry into 2024.”

She has credited improvements in this area to the company’s Back-to-Basics strategy. Notably, Dollar General used AI to analyze self-checkout purchases, identify stores with the highest levels of theft and mis-scanned items. That determined the company’s decision, led by CEO Todd Vasos, to eliminate the option of self-checkout in the vast majority of its stores. 

In Q1 2025, Dollar General’s gross profit as a percentage of sales rose to 31%, up by 78 basis points, a gain Dilts attributed to reduced shrink and higher inventory markups. “Our shrink mitigation efforts have continued to drive positive results, including a year-over-year improvement of 61 basis points in the first quarter,” she said on the June 3 earnings call.

A top-performing retail stock

Amid tariffs and inflation, Dollar General and other discount retailers have attracted more middle- and higher-income shoppers. After strong Q1 results, Dollar General raised its full-year guidance.

DG stands out as the leading consumer/retail stock and one of the biggest movers since the market’s February high. DG’s share price increased from about $74 in mid-February to more than $113 by mid-July, a gain of over 50%. It is especially noteworthy as the leading gainer among major retailers and a driving force behind the S&P 500’s latest rally. 

For the rest of the year, Morningstar equity analyst Dan Su expects Dollar General to remain attentive to tariffs, given that about 20% of sales are from imports. Su told me that the company has done a “solid job” in attracting new shoppers, and he anticipates continued investments in merchandising, store renovations, and labor to sustain same-store sales growth.

As Dilts moves on to Nordstrom, she will have the opportunity to once again execute a transformative strategy at another major retailer.

Have a good weekend.

Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com

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More Fortune 500 Power Moves

Leeny Oberg, CFO and EVP of development at Marriott International (No. 171) has decided to retire effective March 31, 2026, after spending more than two decades with the U.S. hotel operator. Oberg, CFO since 2016, will be succeeded by Jen Mason, who joined Marriott in 1992 and currently serves as global officer, treasurer and risk management. Mason is also a former CFO of the U.S. and Canada at the company. Shawn Hill was promoted to the role of EVP and chief development officer, effective Jan. 1. Oberg has been in that role since February 2023.

Daniel S. Tucker, EVP and CFO of Southern Company (No. 161), an energy provider, plans to retire. David P. Poroch, currently SVP, comptroller and chief accounting officer, was promoted to succeed Tucker, effective July 31. Tucker will transition to a senior advisory role reporting to the CEO until his retirement on Oct. 1. Poroch began his career with Southern Company in 2012 as VP and chief audit executive of Southern Company Services. From there, he served as EVP, CFO and treasurer of Georgia Power and then EVP and CFO at Southern Company Gas in 2021. Before joining Southern Company, he was a partner with Deloitte & Touche LLP.

Every Friday morning, the weekly Fortune 500 Power Moves column tracks Fortune 500 company C-suite shiftssee the most recent edition

More notable moves this week:

Mukul Mehta was promoted to CFO of pharmaceutical company Novartis (ECN), effective March 16, 2026. Mukul succeeds Harry Kirsch, who has served as CFO since 2013, and will retire from Novartis after a 22-year career with the company. Harry will continue in his role as CFO until March 15, 2026. Mukul brings over 20 years of experience at Novartis. He was recently appointed to the role of head of BPA, Digital Finance and Tax, where he will continue until March of next year. His career includes serving as CFO International for three years, ad-interim President International, CFO Pharmaceuticals business unit, CFO Novartis Business Services, CFO Pharmaceuticals Europe business, and Country CFO of France, Poland, and Norway.

Brandy Richardson was appointed CFO of multi-brand luxury retailer Saks Global, effective Aug. 18. Richardson succeeds Interim CFO Mark Weinsten, who joined Saks Global to lead the company’s finance organization through the initial stages of its transformation following its acquisition of Neiman Marcus Group (NMG) in December 2024. With nearly 25 years of experience, Richardson joins Saks Global from Tailored Brands, Inc., where she has served as EVP and CFO. Richardson spent the majority of her career at NMG, where she held several finance leadership roles of increasing responsibility over her 15-year tenure.

Sandy Mahatme was appointed CFO and chief business officer of Vor Bio (Nasdaq: VOR), a clinical-stage biotechnology company. Mahatme joins Vor Bio with more than 30 years of executive leadership experience. He most recently served as president, chief operating officer, and CFO of National Resilience, Inc., a biomanufacturing company he cofounded in 2020.

Mark Mesler has stepped down from his position as CFO of Archer Aviation Inc. (NYSE: ACHR), effective July 7, according to an SEC filing. Mesler had been on medical leave since September 2024. During his absence, Priya Gupta has served as CFO and acting principal financial officer. Gupta will continue in these roles. Harsh Rungta will also remain as SVP of finance and chief accounting officer and principal accounting officer.

Karyn Ovelmen, EVP and CFO of Newmont (NYSE: NEM), one of the world’s biggest gold miners, has resigned, effective July 11. She will be replaced on an interim basis by Chief Legal Officer Peter Wexler while the company searches for a permanent replacement. 

Sarah C. Young was appointed CFO at Bell Partners, a privately held company specializing in apartment investment and management, and will succeed John Tomlinson upon his planned retirement effective Aug. 22. Young joined the company on July 14 and will report to Lili Dunn, CEO and president of Bell Partners. After his retirement, Tomlinson will remain as an advisor to the company through the end of 2025. Young previously served as CFO and senior managing director at Quarterra Group, a subsidiary of homebuilder Lennar, where she worked for 10 years. Before that, Young was part of the finance group at Walton Street Capital. 

Corleen Roche was appointed CFO of Iovance Biotherapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: IOVA), a commercial biotechnology company, effective Aug. 6. Roche brings to the role 30 years of experience in the biotech and life sciences industry. Most recently, she served as CFO of CG Oncology. Her previous roles included CFO of Immunome, U.S. CFO at Biogen, North America CFO of CSL Behring, and various CFO roles within Sandoz, Wyeth and Pfizer.

Big Deal

A survey by Gartner, Inc. finds that 37% of CFOs are already pausing some capital spending as we enter the second half of 2025. This pause is driven by a mix of cost pressures, policy shifts, and geopolitical risks.

The survey of 197 finance leaders, conducted on June 19, revealed a strong inclination toward caution, with many willing to pause or deprioritize capital spending. Three percent of respondents reported pausing or deprioritizing more than 25% of their capital spending for 2025.

“There is a near absence of planned increases in capital expenditures in the second half of 2025,” said Alexander Bant, chief of research in the Gartner Finance practice. Bant noted that this reflects a cautious strategy in response to the current economic and policy uncertainty facing organizations.

Another key finding: 67% of finance leaders are either in the process of cutting costs, have already completed cost reductions, or plan to do so in the second half of the year.

Going deeper

Here are four Fortune weekend reads:

Kinder Morgan kicks off oil and gas earnings season with a bullish outlook, in part thanks to thirsty data centers” by Jordan Blum

The economy enters its budget shopping era, with consumers doubling down on value even as they ramp up spending” by Irina Ivanova

Coinbase’s new super app Base is a game changer—and could become a serious money maker” by Jeff John Roberts

The 4 foods science says can help you live to 100” by Alexa Mikhail

Overheard

“I always have a suitcase on the end of my arm because I’m living hybrid.”

—Kirsty Glenne, managing director of the luxury luggage brand Antler, told Fortune in an interview. Glenne splits her time between London, Sydney, New York, and a beachside home on Britain’s coast.  Glenne discussed how she powers through long-haul flights, stays connected to her school-age children across continents and balances the demands of a global career.



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The ‘Great Housing Reset’ is coming: Income growth will outpace home-price growth in 2026

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Homebuyers may experience a reprieve in 2026 as price normalization and an increase in home sales over the next year will take some pressure off the market—but don’t expect homebuying to be affordable in the short run for Gen Z and young families.

The “Great Housing Reset” will start next year, with income growth outpacing home-price growth for a prolonged period for the first time since the Great Recession era, according to a Redfin report released this week. 

The residential real estate brokerage sees mortgage rates in the low-6% range, down from down from the 2025 average of 6.6%; a median home sales price increase of just 1%, down from 2% this year; and monthly housing payments growth that will lag behind wage growth, which will remain steady at 4%.

These trends toward increased affordability will likely bring back some house hunters to the market, but many Gen Zers and young families will opt for nontraditional living situations, according to the report. 

More adult children will be living with their parents, as households continue to shift further away from a nuclear family structure, Redfin predicted.

“Picture a garage that’s converted into a second primary suite for adult children moving back in with their parents,” the report’s authors wrote. “Redfin agents in places like Los Angeles and Nashville say more homeowners are planning to tailor their homes to share with extended family.”

Gen Z and millennial homeownership rates plateaued last year, with no improvement expected. Just over one-quarter of Gen Zers owned their home in 2024, while the rate for millennial owners was 54.9% in the same year.

Meanwhile, about 6% of Americans who struggled to afford housing as of mid-2025 moved back in with their parents, while another 6% moved in with roommates. Both trends are expected to increase in 2026, according to the report.

Obstacles to home affordability 

Despite factors that could increase affordability for prospective homebuyers, C. Scott Schwefel, a real estate attorney at Shipman, Shaiken & Schwefel, LLC, told Fortune that income growth and home-price growth are just a few keys to sustainable homeownership. 

An improved income-to-price ratio is welcome, but unless tax bills stabilize, many households may not experience a net relief, Schwefel said.

“Prospective buyers need to recognize that affordability is not just price versus income…it’s price, mortgage rate and the annual bill for living in a place—and that bill includes property taxes,” he added.

In November, voters—especially young ones—showed lowering housing costs is their priority, the report said. But they also face high sale prices and mortgage rates, inflated insurance premiums, and potential utility costs hikes due to a data center construction boom that’s driving up energy bills. The report’s authors expect there to be a bipartisan push to help remedy the housing affordability crisis.

Still, an affordable housing market for first-time home buyers and young families still may be far away.

“The U.S. housing market should be considered moving from frozen to thawing,” Sergio Altomare, CEO of Hearthfire Holdings, a real estate private equity and development company, told Fortune

“Prices aren’t surging, but they’re no longer falling,” he added. “We are beginning to unlock some activity that’s been trapped for a couple of years.”



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Nvidia’s CEO says AI adoption will be gradual, but we still may all end up making robot clothing

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang doesn’t foresee a sudden spike of AI-related layoffs, but that doesn’t mean the technology won’t drastically change the job market—or even create new roles like robot tailors.

The jobs that will be the most resistant to AI’s creeping effect will be those that consist of more than just routine tasks, Huang said during an interview with podcast host Joe Rogan this week. 

“If your job is just to chop vegetables, Cuisinart’s gonna replace you,” Huang said.

On the other hand, some jobs, such as radiologists, may be safe because their role isn’t just about taking scans, but rather interpreting those images to diagnose people.

“The image studying is simply a task in service of diagnosing the disease,” he said.

Huang allowed that some jobs will indeed go away, although he stopped short of using the drastic language from others like Geoffrey Hinton a.k.a. “the Godfather of AI” and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, both of whom have previously predicted massive unemployment thanks to the improvement of AI tools.

Yet, the potential, AI-dominated job market Huang imagines may also add some new jobs, he theorized. This includes the possibility that there will be a newfound demand for technicians to help build and maintain future AI assistants, Huang said, but also other industries that are harder to imagine.

“You’re gonna have robot apparel, so a whole industry of—isn’t that right? Because I want my robot to look different than your robot,” Huang said. “So you’re gonna have a whole apparel industry for robots.”

The idea of AI-powered robots dominating jobs once held by humans may sound like science fiction, and yet some of the world’s most important tech companies are already trying to make it a reality. 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made the company’s Optimus robot a central tenet of its future business strategy. Just last month, Musk predicted money will no longer exist in the future and work will be optional within the next 10 to 20 years thanks to a fully fledged robotic workforce. 

AI is also advancing so rapidly that it already has the potential to replace millions of jobs. AI can adequately complete work equating to about 12% of U.S. jobs, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) report from last month. This represents about 151 million workers representing more than $1 trillion in pay, which is on the hook thanks to potential AI disruption, according to the study.

Even Huang’s potentially new job of AI robot clothesmaker may not last. When asked by Rogan whether robots could eventually make apparel for other robots, Huang replied: “Eventually. And then there’ll be something else.”



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The ‘Mister Rogers’ of Corporate America shows Gen Z how to handle toxic bosses

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After two decades of climbing the corporate ladder at companies ranging from ABC, ESPN, and Charter Communications (commonly known as Spectrum), Timm Chiusano quit it all to become a content creator. 

He wasn’t just walking away from high titles, but a high salary, too. In his peak years, Chiusano made $600,000 to $800,000 annually. But in June of 2024, after giving a 12-week notice, he “responsibility fired himself” from his corporate job as VP of production and creative services at Charter.

He did it all to help others navigate the challenges of a workplace, and appreciate the most mundane parts of life on TikTok.

@timmchiusano

most people are posting their 2024 recaps; these are a few of my favorite moments from the year that was, but i need to start reintroducing myself too i dont have a college degree, no one in my life knew that until i was 35 when i eventually got my foot in the door in my early 20’s after a few years of substitute teaching and part time jobs, i thought for sure i had found the career path of my dreams in live sports production i didn’t think i had a chance of surviving that first college football season but i busted my ass, stuck around and got promoted 5 times in 5 years then i met a girl in Las Vegas, got married in 7 months, and freaked out about my career that had me travelling 36 weeks a year i had to find a more stable “desk job”, i was scared shitless that i was pigeonholed and the travel would eventually destroy my marriage i crafted a narative for espn arguing they needed me on their marketing team because of my unique perspective coming from the production side i got rejected, but kept trying and a year i got that job the 7 years with espn were incredible, but also exhausting and raised all kinds of questions about corporate america, toxic situations, and capitalism in general why was i borderline heart attack stressed so often when i could see that my ideas were literally generating 2,000 times the money that i was getting paid? in 2012 i had a kid and in 2013 i got the biggest job of my career to reinvent how to produce 20,000 commercials a year for small business it took 12 rounds of interviews, a drug test i somehow passed, and a background check that finally made me tell my wife of 8 years that i didnt have a college degree they brought me in the thursday before my first day and told me what i told grace in that clip the next decade was an insane blur; i saw everything one would ever see in their career from the perspective of an executive at a fortune 100 i started making tiktoks, kinda blacked out at some point in 2019 and responsibly fired myself in 2024 to see what i might be capable of on my own with all the skills i picked up along my career journey now the mission is pay what i know forward, and see if i can become the mr rogers of corporate america cc: @grace beverley @Ryan Holiday @Subway Oracle

♬ original sound – timm chiusano

What started as short-video vlogs on just about anything in 2020 (reviews on protein bars, sushi, and sneakers) later transitioned to videos on growing up, and dealing with life’s challenges, like coming to terms when you have a toxic boss. Today, his platform on TikTok has over 1 million followers

With the help of going viral from his “loop” format where videos end and seamlessly circle back to the beginning, he began making more videos as a side-hustle on top of his day-to-day tasks in the office.

“How can I get people to be smarter and more comfortable about their careers in ways that are gonna help on a day-to-day basis?” Chiusano told Fortune.

Today, he could go by many titles: former vice president at a Fortune 100 company, motivational speaker, dad, content creator, or as he labels himself, the Mister Rogers of Corporate America. 

Just as the late public television icon helped kids navigate the complexities of childhood, Chiusano wants to help young adults think about how to approach their careers and their potential to make an impact. 

“Mister Rogers is the greatest of all time in his space. I will never get to that level of impact. But it’s an easy way to describe what I’m trying to do, and it consistently gives me a goal to strive for,” he said. “There are some parallels here with the quirkiness.”

Firing himself after 25 years in the corporate world

Even with years in corporate, Chiusano doesn’t resemble the look of a typical buttoned-up executive. Today, he has more of a relaxed Brooklyn dad attire, with a sleeve of tattoos and a confidence to blend in with any trendy middle aged man in Soho. During our interview, he showed off one of the first tattoos he got: two businessmen shaking hands, a reference to Radiohead’s OK Computer album.

“This is a dope ass Monday in your 40s,” began one of his videos.

It consisted of Chiusano doing everyday things such as eating leftovers, going to the gym, training for the NYC marathon, taking out the trash, dropping his daughter off at school, a rehearsal for a Ted Talk, eating lunch with his wife, and brand deal meetings. Though the content sounds pretty normal, that’s the point. 

“The reason why I fired myself in the first place was to be here,” he says in the video while picking his daughter up from school.

Today, Chiusano spends his days making content on navigating workplace culture, public speaking, brand deals, brand partnerships, executive coaching, writing a book, and the most important job: being a dad to his 13-year-old daughter Evelyn.

“I’m basically flat [in salary] to where I was, and this is everything I could ever want in the world,” he said. “The ability to send my kid to the school she’s been going to, eat sushi takeout almost as much as I’d like, and do nice things for my wife.”

In fact, when sitting inside one of his favorite New York City spots, Lure Fishbar, he keeps getting stopped by regulars who know him by name. He points out that one of his favorite interviews he filmed here was with legendary filmmaker Ken Burns.

Advice to Gen Z

In a time where Gen Z has been steering to more unconventional paths, like content creation or skill trades rather than just a 9-to-5 office job, Chiusano opens up a lens to what life looks like when deciding to be present rather than always looking for what’s next—a mistake he said he made in his 20s. 

Instead, he wants to teach the younger generation to build skills for as long as you can, but “if you are unhappy, that’s a very different conversation.”

“I think some people will make themselves more unhappy because they feel like that’s what’s expected of a situation,” he said.

“I would love to be able to empower your generation more, to be like somebody’s gonna have to be the head of HR at that super random company to put cool standards and practices in place for better work-life balance for the employees.” 





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