In the premiere episode of Yahoo Finance's new series "Lead This Way," Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi sat down with Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Fran Horowitz to discuss her leadership style and how she turned the once-struggling retailer's fortunes around.

Storch Advisors Gerald "Jerry" Storch, the former CEO of both Toys R Us and Hudson's Bay, credits Horowitz for her focus on the customer. "The most important thing is that passionate focus on the customer. At the end of the day, that's what every business is about, big or small, any business is about the customer," Storch says.

BMO Capital Markets Managing Director Simeon Siegel agrees, saying if a company has the other fundamentals in place and its leader is willing to "forgo what the identity was in the past" they can recreate their brand's image.

When it comes to who is winning and losing in retail right now, Storch cautions that a lot of data surrounding Cyber Week sales only takes into account online sales and it's likely that success came at the expense of brick-and-mortar retailers. When it comes to winners, Storch thinks Walmart (WMT), Costco (COST), TJX Companies (TJX), and Amazon (AMZN) are all in a position to have a successful holiday shopping season.

Siegel thinks that the holiday shopping season has gotten off to a "good start," though he points out that the bigger question is what happens in the lull between Black Friday and last-minute Christmas shopping. Siegel says that when he looks at the retail space right now, he sees "pairings." "I'm seeing companies like Athleta see revenues down and we'll see LULU up. You're seeing companies like Coach up and Michael Kors down. They sell the same thing," Siegel explains.

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To see the full Lead This Way episode: Abercrombie & Fitch CEO’s turnaround playbook: Lead This Way premiere, click here.

You can read Brian Sozzi’s article: Abercrombie & Fitch CEO: a leadership masterclass on saving a retail icon, here.

To learn more about how Abercrombie & Fitch CEO finds balance, click here.

Video Transcript

DIANE KING HALL: To dive into what it takes to turn around a retail company in this day and age and the state of the retail space, we want to turn now to Storch Advisor CEO, Jerry Storch, along with Simeon Siegel, BMO Capital Markets managing director and senior analyst.

Jerry, I want to start with you with this. Fran Horowitz of Abercrombie Fitch is taking the credit for turning around the retailer. What is your take, Jerry?

JERRY STORCH: Well, you know, she just heard it from-- you just heard it from her. She explained what she did. The most important thing is that passionate focus on the customer, at the end of the day, that's what every business is about. Big or small, any business is about the customer. So she saw that the merchandise wasn't right for the customer. It had been horribly stale. And she fixed it.

She saw that the two brands that they had were basically offering the same thing, and she differentiated it. I mean, it's still very young. I don't know. I heard some people there didn't age out. I aged out a long time ago from either of them. But some are for teens and some are for older teens or young adults. But it's very clear who the customer is. And she's passionate about making sure that's what she's offering them.

So, and the final thing she did, she brought the brands back into the mainstream. They had gotten so weird, kind of almost edgy, that the market was tiny for what they were selling. And now it's something that everyone in those target segments can be excited about. So she's a consummate merchant, which is all about details, all about passion. She did a very good job. And I'm sure, as long as she's there, they're going to keep doing it.

JOSH LIPTON: And Simeon, I want to bring you in here as well. Listen, you cover the industry. You cover the names. I mean, nobody knows retail better. How common or how rare is it, Simeon, for a retailer to be able to turn around-- to turn itself around the way Horowitz turned around this particular brand?

SIMEON SIEGEL: Can you see that I'm blushing from-- I don't know how the lighting works. Good to see you, guys.

Listen, it's not common, but it's not-- I mean, it's not doable. I think there's a thought here. It's very hard to kill a retailer. I think that there's a notion that if you can know your customer-- Jerry put it perfectly-- if you know who it is that you're trying to sell to, then at the end of the day, if you're willing to forego what the identity was in the past, you have the distribution. You have brand awareness. I think you build, you start with a great foundation that, even if you have to change and remodel a little bit of the store, you can do that.

So is it very common to watch a business go like this? Well, it happens to retail all the time. I think what's really interesting about it right now is it's working through that teen space, which tends to be so fickle.

JOSH LIPTON: And Jerry, switching gears here a bit, you know, Fran may be the CEO of a multi-billion dollar retail company, Jerry. But you know, what lessons can small business take from her turnaround story? And your insights as well as a former retail executive yourself.

JERRY STORCH: Well, you know, honestly, it's the same. It doesn't really matter how big the company is, the challenge is similar. And it's not easier just because it's smaller either. At the end of the day, it's still starting with the customer. What do they want, and how do I give it to them?

And we all talk about how great store environments can be or not be. And that's important. But really, what does a retailer do except it's a place you go to buy something? Once you've left, you've left. So what did you get? Is it what you were looking for? Is it something that was worth more than what you paid? That's what retailers do.

And so a good retailer can do that. If you stay focused on-- again, I'm saying it the third time-- stay focused on the customer, then you can succeed. It is a million details, though. It is an enormous amount of energy. And you can see that in Fran, right, in running one of these retailers.

And it's-- what that also means, though, it's unusual maybe in business, but one or two great leaders really can do what it takes in terms of lifting it up and building the team that it takes in order to drive the business. You can make a huge amount of difference just by kind of taking-- I used to use the metaphor of taking a big syringe full of adrenaline and shoving it into the tail end of an elephant. You really can't move it. It's a business in a very short cycle time compared to like pharmaceutical industry or something like that where you can make a difference if you have high energy and are focused.

DIANE KING HALL: So Jerry, this is a crucial time of year for retailers. And we just got data in that we've looked at with regard to Cyber Monday and then before that, Black Friday. We saw $9.8 billion in sales on Black Friday, more than $12 billion for Cyber Monday. But what retailers are best positioned as we look ahead during the rest of this holiday season?

JERRY STORCH: The first thing I want to say is be careful with those numbers. You can't take the Adobe numbers out of context and project what's going on in retail. Those are only e-commerce numbers. And most of the numbers that I've quoted are just totally consistent with the year-over-year growth that e-commerce has had all along, because e-commerce is taking share.

We're not so sure what's happening in bricks-and-mortar retailing. But from what I've heard, a lot of what we saw in the growth on the internet was at the expense of bricks and mortar. So be careful. It may not be that astounding a holiday season as people are streaming record numbers on Black Friday. All of that, not so clear.

Given that environment, I'm still-- I still think the winners are those that provide tremendous value. Walmart has done great. I think they're performing as well as I've ever seen them perform. Their position in the area, the consumer is focused on, which is closer in necessities, groceries, things like that. They're going to continue to do fantastic.

Costco continues to perform a very high level. TJX, very high level, excellent company, numbers that are fantastic. And then, of course, Amazon because that internet is growing and they are clearly the best on the internet. Meanwhile, retailer after retailer or the other guys, they're reporting big negative numbers. Sometimes the stock has seen a surge, like, you know, we've seen that recently with some companies that showed higher earnings than expected.

But look at the sales, Best Buy, negative 7. Lowe's negative 7. Nordstrom's negative 7, same-store sales, Macy's negative 7. Kohl's down 6. Target down 5. Home Depot down 4. There is a lot of carnage out there on the top line for sure in retailers right now, because consumer is not open up their wallet and buying like crazy.

DIANE KING HALL: And Simeon, when you look at-- your coverage universe get you in here, too. Who are some of the winners and losers in retail looking ahead, Simeon? Break it down for us. Discounters, luxury, athletic gear, what do you see?

SIMEON SIEGEL: Josh, love you bring me back in. I'm keeping notes on the things that I wanted to catch up on. One, I wanted to point out that retail is all about storytelling. So back to the turnaround story, let's keep in mind the marketing.

So listen, I think that Victoria's Secret reported today, they told us that November feels up like. They told us that Black Friday the weekend was good. And that obviously is a big store business. So I think that what we do, everything I've been seeing-- so I generally agree with Jerry that a lot of these numbers we have to take with grains of salt or context. But the people that I'm talking to, what we are seeing, what we're hearing, I think so far the Black Friday weekend, the holiday, has gotten off to a good start.

I think the biggest question is going to be less did it perform now and more what's going to happen in the lull. We've got a long time between now and Christmas. So I think that's going to be this interesting dynamic of did the strength that starts, does it carry through? And when we think about what Victoria's Secret said, they did guide January and December to see a material step down. So that'll be one thing worth watching.

But I'm going to-- I'm going to be a little bit more, I think, optimistic and flag that most of consumer just reported and from what I'm looking at, a little over 50% reported revenue growth and the all saw fantastic gross margin. So I think it is a little bit more of a case-by-case and kind of Jerry went through the winners. And so I think when I look through this, I'm seeing a dichotomy. But it's not as much group agnostic.

I'm seeing a lot of pairings. I'm seeing companies like Athleta revenues down. And we'll see Lulu up, right? You're seeing companies like Coach up and Michael Kors down. They sell the same thing. And so and that works with the big box as well. And so that works in off price as well. You're watching Nordstrom Rack and Old Navy, who have revenues down, and TJ and Ross's will be up.

So I think right now, we're finally in this environment where winners people who predict their demand well are going to continue to win. And those that don't are going to lose. That's an interesting retail opportunity. And so that actually makes me a little bit more optimistic.

DIANE KING HALL: So neither of you named who you really see as potentially losing in this space. I heard some names of winners. We did-- I saw the Victoria's Secret results today. We know that Walmart's been a winner. I haven't heard Target be mentioned as well. Simeon, I want to ask who do you see as not doing as well in the current retail landscape?

SIMEON SIEGEL: So it's interesting because Jerry framed stock versus company. And I think that matters, because I think a lot of the businesses, if we look at the stocks that went up, are not necessarily the ones that the revenues went up. So simply even saying what are the winners and who's losing question becomes what does it mean to lose.

I told you Lulu's going to presumably put up a nice revenue number is. The stock going to be up, we'll see. The stock is at $430, $435. So I think right now, we can see whose revenues are down. And so if that's the simple mitigator, then we can just run through those and see that Nordstrom Rack did see a decline in revenues despite the fact that they're in the off-price category.

But I think it is more complicated than that. I think when we think about what's overvalued, where are the expectations, some people would say that Victoria's Secret is showing a sign of inflection, but a lot of which is because it was perceived to be negative walking into it. So I guess I would throw the question back at you and you're asking me who's losing. Is it just the question of whose revenues are down? Or are we thinking about, OK, where have this-- where's the stock mismatched?

DIANE KING HALL: Well, we are actually going to have to leave it there, because we've run out of time. And I'm not just saying that, OK? So we're going to have to bookmark on that. I promise you, I promise, I'm not just saying that. We're going to bookmark our conversation for time. But it's great to have both of you with us. Jerry Storch, Storch Advisor CEO, and Simeon Siegel, BMO Capital Markets managing director, thank you both.