Tom Miller

[KHTS] – As of December, Westfield Valencia Town Center is under new management.

Tom Miller replaced Raj Chandani as general manager. Chandani left in November to take a position in Carlsbad, said Stacie House, spokeswoman for Westfield Valencia.

As a Hart High School graduate, Miller has his roots in the Santa Clarita Valley, but he worked across the United States and internationally before settling back in his hometown to take the position at Westfield.

Miller, who met his wife Pam Miller while working at Six Flags Magic Mountain, began his career with Circuit City.

“I spend almost 20 years with Circuit City and worked my way up through the ranks,” he said.

Leaving the company about six months before it filed for bankruptcy in 2009, Miller then took a job as senior vice president of operations for Acme Markets, based in Pennsylvania.

In 2011, he left Acme to become a chief executive with a startup consumer electronics store in Mumbai, India.

“In my travels, I went to a couple different Westfield facilities in Europe,” Miller said.

He joined the company in October 2012, training at the Westfield mall in Topanga.

Miller then spend almost a year working as a general manager in the new international terminal at LAX airport in Los Angeles, developing vendors and tenants in the terminal.

“I had thought I was going to be down at LAX for a couple years,” he said, “but things move fast at Westfield.”

He said that he is glad to be back in the Santa Clarita Valley and is looking forward to continue developing the Valencia mall into a unique customer experience.

“As somebody who grew up in this area when it was all onion fields, it’s remarkable to see how this area has developed,” Miller said.

He said that he has enjoyed working with the team at Westfield Valencia and appreciates the work already being done with the Patios shopping center to make the mall a dining destination.

“We’re always striving to look for (businesses) that make it interesting and create a little bit of buzz,” he said. “…(We want to) give people a reason not to drive over the hill.”

Miller has only been with Westfield Valencia for about a month, but he said that he sees the mall has central to the SCV, and he wants to continue to strive for excellence.

“We want this to be the fabric of the community,” he said.