REFERENCE CHECK  Candidate:  Barbara Armour                                  Client:   National Electronics RetailerReference Name:   Ian GomarCurrent Company:  Sears Holding Company             Title:  Chief Marketing Officer   Relationship to Candidate:   See belowChecked By:  Joanne Abernathy                              Date:     September 22, 2010  

 Open End Comments:  Barb is my lead support person for all my on-line programs.  My experience with her has been terrific.  She is by far the best person in this area.  She has a lot of experience and can get things done.  I have found that most people don’t deliver on promises.  Barb does. When Barb first joined us, I wanted to do an on-line marketing program that involved sweepstakes, uploading videos, email targeting, etc.  The program grew in complexity.  She came on board, got it done and did a great job.  I don’t know anyone in the company that could have gotten it done like she did.  She immediately commanded respect from me and the president of the business unit.  She had to deal with agencies, internal teams, new technologies and a very complex program.  She did it and did it well.   What I really respect about her are her leadership skills.  A good example is the program I just talked about.  She jumped in and took a leadership role.  She was terrific in that regard.  I usually take the lead, but she took over and I was very glad she did.  She has continued to do a great job on all her programs, including development of the programs, analysis, presentations, weekly tracking, flagging key issues and post mortem analysis.   I wish I could hire her into my marketing group, but we don’t have any on-line marketing director roles.  She is one of best in the building.  She would be great in any management position or director role. I really hate to see her leave and would not want to lose her as a resource.  I understand she wants to move on and I support her for that.  Sears is not an easy place to work.  We have a lot of hierarchy, it’s a big matrix organization, and

has a lot of road blocks.  She can handle that part.  But they are asking her to do way too much.  After she was hired, they implemented an “on call” program.  She is on call 180 hours per month.  That means she literally has to sleep with her blackberry and is called upon at any hour of the day or night.  That is asking too much for any person.  One has to have some sort of work/life balance. Barb is well respected here and is a tremendous asset to the company.  She is very, very good and I think highly of her.  She is a true professional. I would definitely hire her in my group.  I know the president of our business unit would say the same thing.  When you deal with so many people in a company our size, you see who is good and who is not.  She is great!