Brendan L. Hoffman

This holiday season, Bon-Ton has come out of the woodwork to try and wrest away customers from competitor J.C. Penney. Since 2011, when the company hired Brendan L. Hoffman as its new CEO, Bon-Ton has been doing its best to draw in younger customers, cut down on excess inventory and improve its e-commerce business — quite often using strategies perfected by Macy's. So far, the company seems pretty optimistic that it's going to succeed following an improved third quarter.