The famed department store chain Kohl’s was once a struggling small-time company that floundered in the 1980s. But a team of savvy managers helped set it up to become a massive success story that is now ringing up sales of billion per year.

Former Kohl’s president Jay H. Baker was part of the central management team that set the chain on its historic trajectory. In the first of a two-part interview, Baker, who along with wife Patty established Wharton’s Baker Retailing Center , talked with Knowledge at Wharton about his beginnings in retail and how he came to be a partner in Kohl’s. He also discusses the changes the new leadership team put in place to make Kohl’s stand out from the retailing pack.

Read the second part of the interview .

An edited transcript of the conversation appears below.

Knowledge at Wharton: You became president of Kohl’s in 1986 after completing a leveraged buyout of the company.…