Martin K. Sneider, adjunct professor of marketing at Olin Business School
Toast: How a Leading Retailer Went from Toast of the Town to Just Plain Toast
Four Penny Press (2009)
“Retailing is the ultimate Darwinian business,” says Martin K. Sneider, adjunct professor of marketing at Olin Business School.
Sneider is author of a new memoir recounting his career in retail. The self-published “Toast: How a Leading Retailer Went from Toast of the Town to Just Plain Toast,” chronicles the rise and fall of Edison Brothers Stores, along with Sneider’s long affiliation with the company.
Sneider’s childhood memories of helping in his grandfather’s grocery in Omaha, Neb., to his days as a Washington University undergraduate (A.B. ’64) also are recounted in the book. His story from unsuccessful shoe salesman to co-CEO of Edison Brothers is interwoven with the evolution of retail in the last half of 20th-century America.
Sneider’s tenure at the helm of Edison Brothers began in the late 1980s after a successful expansion into the apparel market that peaked with 3,000 stores and sales topping $1.5 billion. He left the company months before it filed for bankruptcy in 1995.
“A major theme of the book is the challenge of operating a mature business as malls began to lose market share to category killers and discount stores,” Sneider says.
“In the case of Edison Brothers, we had a fabulous run when shopping centers were being built by the dozens and our store brands were fresh and vibrant, but when growth slowed and our concepts became dated, the ability to build shareholder value became ever more difficult,” he says.
Sneider majored in history at WUSTL and earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard University.
He has taught at Olin for the past 16 years and has won numerous teaching awards. Sneider has chaired the Alumni Board of Governors and served on the Arts & Sciences National Council. He received a distinguished alumni award this year.
— Melody Walker