Gregg W. Steinhafel

Steinhafel rose from a family furniture dock to the top of Target Corporation, serving as president of Target Stores and then as CEO and chairman from May 2008 until the board forced him out on May 5, 2014. The Star Tribune’s hometown line when he got the big job was simply Mequon, Wisconsin.

Born in Milwaukee in 1954, he grew up one of six children in Mequon. His grandfather founded Steinhafels furniture in Milwaukee in 1934; grade-school odd jobs in the store and dinner-table stories from his father pointed him toward retail. He earned a business degree at Carroll College (class of 1977), an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School, and joined Target in 1979 as a merchandising trainee. He became president of Target Stores in 1999 and CEO and chairman in May 2008, shaping the upscale-discounter niche, private labels, and the grocery build-out.

The end was public: a 2013 data breach that hit between seventy and 110 million people, and Target Canada’s roughly $2 billion loss in two years. Fortune tallied his walk-away package—severance, deferred compensation, pension, and options—at about $61 million, a compensation figure rather than a published personal net worth. Steinhafels remains a Milwaukee-area name; the childhood that shaped him was Mequon.