Steve Morris

Steve’s career began at Hudson (Dayton Hudson Corporation) in finance where he managed expense, inventory and capital controls and budgeting, quickly rising to Director of Planning and Analysis and subsequently promoted to Director of Corporate Strategic Planning in Minneapolis.

Following a two year stint as Controller at the B Dalton division Steve was recruited to Tonka Toys as VP Finance. Among other responsibilities Steve negotiated a Joint Venture with SEGA and concurrently became General Manger of the Tonka SEGA JV, with a successful product launch achieving $150 million in sales in the first 18 months.

His skills in quickly assessing problems and effecting cost effective business process and organizational changes led to a series of short term “turnaround” assignments. These included SVP Treasurer at Norwest Bank (now Wells Fargo), where he rationalized the forty plus, multi-state banking subsidiaries capital structure, and re-established a core investor relations program. This was followed by managing the restructuring process at Ames Department stores, then in bankruptcy, as well as managing the creditor committee relationships. He subsequently re-joined his boss from Tonka to become Managing Director of Microprose Europe, a money losing computer game software development company which he quickly turned profitable, and a short stint as CEO of EXOS a troubled high tech Boston company which he sold to Microsoft.

Steve was recruited to a new role at Limited Brands, as CFO of Real Estate to create new business processes to improve their real estate decision making and effectiveness. He was soon promoted to CFO and CAO of both Real Estate and Store Development and, in three years reduced occupancy costs by $150 million dollars.

The best practices he and his team developed at Limited Brands became the foundation for the creation of Asset Strategies Group in 2002. ASG has developed a number of services and consulting areas of expertise focused entirely on the specialty store real estate supply chain. These include Market Research and Analytics, Tenant Representation, Store Design and Construction, Lease Administration services and Consulting on best practices, technology selection and implementation and due diligence assessments

Since 2002, ASG has worked with over 70 specialty retailers, many on multiple year contracts and on multiple business services.