The exacting product selection, pricing and customer service for which Syngal is striving will be tough to achieve over a sprawling network. With more than 3,000 stores in 40-plus countries even after pruning its store “fleet,” Gap’s store count and geographic footprint are daunting. In the meantime, the reinvention of Gap is still a work in progress. In forecasting buoyant revenues ahead, Syngal describes a “peacocking effect” among shoppers eager to shake off pandemic isolation with bold and colourful clothing.īut that’s a rising tide that will lift all boats. She joined Gap in 2004 as vice-president of product sourcing strategy.
she acquired the manufacturing, logistics and supply-chain skills she brought to Gap. and then-Silicon Valley giant Sun Microsystems Inc. In Montreal, Syngal learned to sew and was making prom dresses for friends.īut Syngal chose engineering for her university studies. Syngal was born in India and raised in Montreal before her family relocated to the U.S. Athleta announced this week it is launching its brand in Canada, its first international business. Gap is also one of Canada’s biggest retailers, with 2020 revenues of about $900 million. Gap shares have gained 31 per this year and are up 52 per cent over the past 12 months.Įarly in her career, Syngal, now in her early 50s, was not an obvious candidate to be running America’s biggest specialty apparel retailer, with 2020 revenues of $13.8 billion. Gap’s “business (is) not only strong, it’s accelerating.” 27, when Gap’s latest results were released. “Concerns were overblown,” said an excited Wells Fargo & Co. Gap just posted its biggest second-quarter revenues in more than a decade, amounting to $4.2 billion.Īnd in the first half of fiscal 2021, Gap’s profit was $424 million compared with a $994-million loss in the year-earlier period.īecause Gap sources all its products abroad, especially from Vietnam and China, Wall Street analysts expected the firm to suffer from this year’s global supply-chain disruptions.īut Syngal has been able to keep stores well-stocked despite that and the sharp rise in demand with the lifting of lockdown restrictions. With more appealing products and less drag from underperforming stores, Syngal’s strategy is beginning to work. wears a size 16 to 18,” Syngal notes, “so with very few competitors in the plus-size space,” Gap stands to take a bigger share of the $120 billion (U.S.) women’s apparel market.
True, but all of Gap’s four major chains are now emphasizing plus-size clothing, a major and mostly untapped market. Syngal hasn’t given up on Gap or Banana Republic, though Wall Street long ago assessed a negative value to each chain.īy slashing Gap’s product offerings by one-fifth and focusing on quality, the once-iconic chain has arrested a decade-long sales decline.Īnd at Banana Republic, whose sales have stagnated for a decade, Syngal has shifted the product mix to casual sweatshirts and cardigans from the chain’s longtime mainstay of career clothes, which stopped selling in the pandemic.įrom Syngal’s description of value chain Old Navy, which accounts for more than half of the parent company’s revenues, it will be her main testing ground for women’s plus-size apparel. “Customers often preordered items online, then came into the store to try them on,” said Syngal, who started each day at Old Navy reading about 400 customer comments. last March, Syngal got a head start on many retailers in more closely partnering online stores with their bricks-and-mortar siblings. That’s about 8 per cent of Gap Inc.’s total store count.Īt the same time, Syngal is adding scores of new outlets at Gap’s successful Old Navy chain, a value retailer and at Athleta, a women’s athletic and fitness gear merchant that is Gap’s fastest-growing chain.Īnd Gap now generates more than 40 per cent of its sales from e-commerce.Īt Old Navy, which Syngal headed for four years before being tapped to run parent Gap Inc. In her ambitious plan to revive Gap, CEO Sonia Syngal, Gap’s fourth chief executive in 18 years, is closing more than 300 stores at the firm’s underperforming namesake Gap and Banana Republic chains. That’s a big “if” for a Gap that has failed at several turnaround attempts since losing its market dominance in casual wear in the late 1990s. And Gap has the potential to do better still if it can make inroads against rivals in the notoriously fad-driven and fiercely competitive apparel industry. The long-struggling retailer’s turnaround efforts are beginning to pay off.