When Ashley Buchanan accepted a lucrative offer to be Kohl's CEO in January, the company's chairman lauded him as "the ideal candidate." Less than four months later, Buchanan was unceremoniously fired by the Kohl's board of directors.

Chandra Holt, once considered one of the most promising executives in American retail, is now at the center of a corporate scandal involving her former Walmart colleague, and reported former romantic partner,

Kohl's filing revealed that the vendor in question had secured a multimillion-dollar consulting contract with unusually favorable terms.