Michael Gould is chairman and CEO of Bloomingdale’s, the only property in a national U.S. retail chain to keep its nameplate following the Macy’s rebranding.

Before Federated Department Stores (now Macy’s) renamed all Macy’s stores in 2006, Gould already had big changes in play for Bloomingdale’s. He launched a makeover to take the middle-market department store to higher levels with exclusive and designer merchandise, better service and larger aisles and fitting rooms — all to narrow the price gap with Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. He more than doubled Bloomingdale’s store base, from 16 to 40 units (in 2008).

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Gould graduated from Columbia University and earned his MBA in 1968. He entered the executive training program at now-defunct Abraham & Straus, which was owned by Federated. In 10 years’ time, he defected to J.W. Robinson’s department store, and in 1981 he was named chairman and CEO of that company. He went on to become president of Giorgio Beverly Hills and later, Avon. When Gould took his current post at Bloomingdale’s, in 1991, its parent company Federated was just emerging from bankruptcy.

Gould serves on the Board of Trustees of Hebrew College in Boston, the Board of Trustees of Lenox Hill Hospital and the Board of Overseers of Columbia University Graduate School of Business.