Profiles of Remarkable Businesses (Collection)

Undoing Home Depot’s Demolition

The Editors of New Word City

At Home Depot, Inc., the days of caviar and roses are past. The CEO with the huge salary and outsized ego is gone. The world’s largest home-improvement retail chain has slowed its once-relentless pace of expansion almost to a halt. It has sold its 34 Expo Design Centers, 14 specialty stores, and other grandiose, empire-building acquisitions. What remains is a company with roughly 350,000 employees, 2,238 stores around the world, and sales of more than $71 billion annually.

After two years on the job, Home Depot’s unlikely savior is still almost anonymous enough to pose as a shopper when ...