Mr. Thomas Souza MBA
Chief Executive Officer , Personalized Experts
Member of the Retail Council
Council Member Biography
Thomas Souza is the President and Chief Executive Officer at Personalized Experts, a rapidly growing marketing and promotions company. Personalized Experts offers almost one million promotional items including shirts, silk screening, embroidery, direct to garment, signs, banners, engraving, pens, mugs window graphics and so much more. Mr. Souza also serves as Chairman of the Board for 5 Star Promotions, a realty company that buys and sells real estate. Prior, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Rag Shops, an arts and crafts retailer. Rag Shops carries art supplies, hobby goods, fabrics etc. Prior, he was the President & CEO of Mirage store, a home decor and accessories retailer, and President and COO of Claire's, a 3300 unit retailer with sales of 1 billion dollars. He has also been a senior executive with Sports Authority, Retail Apparel Group, Bass Shoe and Zayre. He has expertise in merchandising, replenishment, operations, logistics and finance. (This is me - Update Profile)
Employment History
- 2005 - Unspecified
- Chief Executive Officer , Personalized Experts
- 2003 - 2005
- CEO, RAG SHOPS, INC
- 2000 - 2004
- President & CEO, Mirage Stores
- 1998 - 2000
- President & CEO, CLAIRES STORES, INC.
- 1994 - 1998
- SVP Logistics, Planning & Allocation, THE SPORTS AUTHORITY INC
- 1992 - 1994
- VP Planning and Allocation, The Retail Apparel Group
- 1988 - 1992
- VP Planning & Allocation, Bass Shoe
- 1978 - 1988
- Director of Merchandising, Zayre Dept Store
GLG NewsSM Analyses by Thomas Souza(?)
Opinions and analyses expressed in GLG News are solely those of the author. See the Terms of Use for details.
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Retail Sales headed deeper South in Q1
January 12, 2009
U.S. Retail Sales Fell 0.8% in Week After Christmas | www.bloomberg.com
Retail sales will continue to struggle as consumer confidence continues strong decline. Q1 may show weekest sales yet before slightly turning around in 2nd half of the year. All signs head to lower confidence, but as soon as Obama takes office the landscape might change slightly. I believe just his enthusiam will bring back a bit of confidence which may help perception in the market. The BIGGEST issue will be are we too little to late for some retailers to survive. GREED! and LARGE overhead will cause some retailers to fall off the hill sooner than expected. Cutbacks have not worked and baloon payments are coming do... who will survive? Many retailers especially descretionary income retailers will have to tighten the belt even further and make dramatic changes in order to survive this downturn. Retail is here to stay we all know that, these adjustments will help you decide where to put your money in the future.
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PRIVATE EQUITY FEELING THE PINCH
April 15, 2008
Home Retailer Expected to File For Bankruptcy | online.wsj.com
Private Equity Firms; the squeeze is just beginning. Overpaying, loading companies with debt with little financial risk investment from private equity has been the norm for almost 10 years. TIMES R CHANGING. Banks have begun to reel back financing and companies cannot afford the heavy debt load. Senior Executives (Baby Boomers) are retiring and CEO's are hard to find.
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Circuit City one foot into the grave yard - Can they survive????
April 10, 2008
Circuit City Critic Stirs It Up | online.wsj.com
That fact that this is Circuit City is the article headline only leads way to retail 2008. Can we take another round of mergers and acquisitions. Does the independant survive? How does Circuit City stabalize and survive during an economic crisis. Is it over for Circuit City? Soft numbers for the rest of 2008 and into spring of 2009.
Leading institutions connect with Thomas Souza through GLG
GLG Study Groups with Thomas Souza(?)
| Study Group Name | No. Members |
|---|---|
| Direct Selling Experts | 156 |
| Dollar Store Industry Experts | 135 |
| Experts in the Retail Council | 115 |
| Toy Retailers Experts | 67 |
| Anvil Knitwear Experts: Retailers | 11 |
GLG Live Meetings with Thomas Souza(?)
Thomas Souza has not participated in any GLG Live Meetings.