A self- proclaimed "recovering retailer " and native New Yorker, Joe attended New York University and Pratt Institute. His first step onto the retail ladder was at Bloomingdale’s Executive Training Program from which he continued on to hold several positions in the New York store’s visual merchandising department. Joe held various positions at Bloomingdales until 1984 when he left to join Duty Free Shoppers Group Ltd. as Global director of marketing and visual merchandising.
In 1986, CEO, Marvin Traub requested him to return to Bloomies as Vice President of Visual Presentation, being responsible for the creative concepts that gave the store the reputation of being “like no other in the world.” All this was the center of his world until 1990, when he received a call from Terry Lundgren that would bring him to another retail icon. Neiman Marcus, the Dallas colossus of innovative, upscale merchandising, in its “quest for the best”, Terry asked Joe to be Senior Vice President of Marketing and Creative Services. Here, Joe had a “once in a lifetime” opportunity to interact with the retail legend Stanley Marcus.
In 1997 Joe returned to Federated Stores as the Senior Vice President for Marketing for Federated Merchandising Group. This time his challenge was to build the private brand business for Federated and in addition managing marketing, visual presentation, public relations, advertising, and point-of sale selling concepts. Joe quickly made his mark upon his return to Federated by creating several new in house brands including Tasso Elba for men and Greendog for children as well as re-imagining existing private brands like INC International Concepts, Alfani and CharterClub. Joe was also instrumental in launching exclusive celebrity partnerships with Martha Stewart, Jessica Simpson and Ryan Seacrest and many more. Under his leadership the private brand business produced over $2 billion in retail sales.
Recently, Joe has turned his attention to branded entertainment producing shows like the Emmy award winning shows "Yes Virginia", Fashion Front Row for the “E” entertainment network and Macy's Million Dollar Makeover for TLC. In 2011 he partnered with Electus and NBC on Fashion Star.
As of January 2017, Joe left Macy's where he held the position of Senior Vice President of Integrated Marketing, Video Services and Special Event Productions for Macy’s the U.S. Based Department Store chain with over 800 Stores in 45 states with sales of over $25 Billion including Macys.com. His daily responsibilities included overseeing Macy’s brand standards nationally, developing new and innovative retail concepts and all media integration across all media including mobile, digital, print advertising, package, graphic design and special event productions.
In addition, he currently sits on the editorial advisory board of DDI Magazine and is an ambassador for GDR, a London based retail innovation consulting firm. In the past, he held an advisory board member position of the luxury on-line retailer VIVRE. He is a frequent Lecturer at Parson School of Design and Fashion Institute of Technology and NYU. In 2013 the visual merchandising industry recognized Joe again with the prestigious Markopoulos award.
Today Joe is the founder of TheNetwork.Services LLC, a team of highly successful innovative people that come together on a project basis to help clients solve some of their toughest problems.
At every new beginning, Joe Feczko has proven that innovation and creativity can coexist with good business practice and solid growth. After all is said about Joe, perhaps the one outstanding attribute of this man is his ability to succeed and to create new, innovative ideas and execute them flawlessly.