Marcy Syms became one of the youngest female presidents of a New York Stock Exchange-traded company when her family’s business, Syms Corp., went public in 1983.
Sy Syms founded his retail clothing store chain in 1958, and his daughter Marcy joined the company in 1978 as director of marketing and real estate, becoming president in 1983, COO in 1984, and CEO in 1998. She led the company through decades of growth and change until its liquidation in 2011. In 1997 she also became president of the Syms Foundation, which her father had created in 1985 to support education. She expanded the Syms Foundation’s mandate by supporting PBS and NPR, ensuring the continuation of independent public broadcasting. Syms also continued her father’s work by becoming a founding member of the board of directors of the Syms School of Business at Yeshiva University. As of 2014 she continues to lead the Syms Foundation as well as the TPD Group LLC, a multi-generational succession planning company.
