Francis Stanton Blake (born July 30, 1949) is an American businessman and lawyer, who was the chairman and CEO of The Home Depot from January 2007 to May 2014.
He served as a law clerk to Judge Wilfred Feinberg and then to Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.
Blake then served as Deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), a role similar to that of chief operating officer in the private sector.
[4] Nardelli had pushed hard to make the company more efficient, instituting many metrics and centralizing operations, while cutting jobs to meet quarterly earnings targets.
Nardelli, who regarded home improvement store-by-store sales as less important due to market saturation from competition such as Lowe's, aimed to dominate the wholesale housing-supply business through building up HD Supply, a unit that Blake sold for $8.5 billion in August 2007 since it was not part of Home Depot's integrated business.
[5] Blake was given credit for returning to the "Orange Apron Cult — the nearly religious zeal for knowledgeable employees and high levels of customer service that was the secret of the company’s original success", as he believed that customer service was the key to Home Depot to differentiate itself from competitors on aspects other than price.
[6] Under Nardelli's tenure, Home Depot's stock performance lagged behind rival Lowe's, however this situation has been reversed under Blake.