Penney Lane
Catherine West, named as one of Fortune magazine’s most powerful women in 2006, was terminated from her position as executive vice president and chief operating officer of J.C. Penney Inc. on Dec. 28. West had worked as president of Capital One Financial Corp.’s U.S. card business before joining J.C. Penney in July. West’s duties at the department store included property development, logistics and store operations. Her duties will be assumed by the Penney executives who handled them for the 18 months before she joined the company. Those executives are Mike Taxter, executive vice president of stores; Michael Dastague, senior vice president of property development; and Jim La Bounty, senior vice president of supplychain logistics. They will report to Chief Executive Myron Ullman III. Executives at the retail chain declined to give a reason for West’s termination.
