• Chicago Tribune, Friday, August 22, 2008 10:45 AM

Maureen McGuire, Sears Holdings Corp.'s chief marketing officer, is leaving the company at the end of the month. Sears, which declined to make McGuire available for an interview, says she is departing for personal reasons. Richard Gerstein, head of marketing at the Sears division, will take her place as head of marketing for the combined company.

In addition, Sears home services chief Mark Good announced his departure in a memo sent to employees Tuesday. Both executives played a big role in hedge fund manager Edward Lampert's efforts to turn the combination of Kmart and Sears into a thriving retailer. That effort has to date met with little success.

McGuire, who is in her mid-50s, joined Sears in October 2005 after a 30-year career at IBM, where she was a strategy and marketing executive. She worked closely with Lampert at offices in Greenwich, Conn., where he also operates his hedge fund.

Read the whole story at Chicago Tribune »