Hali Borenstein began working at Los Angeles-based sustainable-clothing model Reformation in 2014 as director of merchandising. Since then, she’s climbed the ranks, finally taking up the corporate’s high job in 2020. Now, the Miami native is concentrated on increasing Reformation’s bricks-and-mortar retail footprint internationally, together with a brand new Canadian flagship in Toronto’s tony Yorkville neighbourhood.
I’ve all the time been fascinated by how individuals use attire to outline themselves. I grew up in Miami, and once I was a younger teen I used to take the bus to the mall the place I’d stroll up and down the aisles to have a look at the storefronts. Abercrombie & Fitch and Tommy Hilfiger had been actually huge at the moment. I discovered it so fascinating how placing on a shirt from one among these manufacturers was about a lot extra than simply sporting a shirt: It mentioned one thing about who you might be and who you wished to be. I had pals who saved up their whole allowance to purchase a single product from one among these manufacturers.
I obtained a conventional liberal arts schooling at Duke, graduated in 2007, after which spent 4 years at Bain & Company as a advisor. It was an excellent expertise, since I discovered lots of the onerous abilities of business, like accounting and navigating revenue and loss statements. But I didn’t wish to be a advisor long-term. I wished to be a doer on this planet of business—not somebody who handed off suggestions to others.
In 2011, I went to Stanford Business School, the place I spent a variety of time considering onerous about management. There was a category known as Interpersonal Dynamics, usually recognized round campus as “Touchy Feely,” the place you’ll sit in a room and experiment with what sort of communication fashion you wanted to develop with a purpose to encourage and persuade individuals. I knew then that I wished to be a people-focused chief—somebody who sees group members as people slightly than a collective, and tailors their administration fashion to go well with specific people.
Coming out of business faculty, I struggled a bit to seek out my place. I knew I wished to work in retail, however when attire corporations noticed my background, they had been like, “Great, we’ll put you in our strategy group”—precisely what I didn’t wish to do. But I had connections on the children’ clothes retailer Gymboree, they usually took an opportunity on me as a senior merchandiser. I used to be there for less than a yr—not simply because the business was in decline, however as a result of the extreme give attention to price reducing wasn’t in step with my values. I had this second the place I assumed, “Should a T-shirt cost only $2 to manufacture? How do we value the labour behind this product?”
Yael Aflalo, the founding father of Reformation discovered me on LinkedIn. We began speaking, and in 2014, I made a decision to take the leap and turn out to be their director of merchandising. I liked their give attention to sustainability. From there, I transitioned to VP of merchandising, after which to president—and in 2020, I grew to become CEO after Yael stepped down [in response to accusations of racism].
It was a troublesome time to step into that position, however it pressured me to outline my very own method as a frontrunner immediately. Unlike my roles earlier than, I didn’t have anybody senior to me to run my choices by. One of the primary issues I did was conduct a company-wide inquiry about our values. Over a few months, we requested everybody from the company group to people working at our shops: What values at Reformation must be up to date? Diversity and inclusion clearly wanted to be on the forefront, alongside our current give attention to sustainability. There’s no separating environmental and local weather justice from racial justice. We ran expert-lead inclusivity workshops for all workers, joined the Black in Fashion Council to assist promote and advance the careers of Black people within the vogue business, and developed our advertising and marketing and imagery to ensure we higher represented everybody within the Reformation group. We’ve been working onerous on constructing our individuals group, and it’s essentially the most sturdy it’s ever been—within the final 9 months alone, we’ve doubled it in dimension. We nonetheless have a variety of work to do, however I’m very pleased with the strides we’ve made within the two years since I’ve turn out to be CEO.
International growth has been an enormous focus for me as effectively. At one level this yr, over 1 / 4 of our business got here from exterior the U.S., which is the results of our deliberate give attention to Europe and Canada. We’re not taking our foot off the gasoline there—and that’s a part of the explanation why we opened a Toronto flagship in Yorkville in December.
We wish to give individuals a motive to buy in-store, slightly than simply on-line, so we’re constructing out the infrastructure of our shops to help a high-tech retail expertise. For instance, prospects can select which items they wish to strive on utilizing iPads discovered across the retailer and in dressing rooms.
I’m extremely motivated by our mission to deliver sustainable vogue to everybody. I grew to become a mother whereas at Reformation, which made me really feel an excellent better sense of accountability for the setting and our affect on it. It’s a false option to say which you could both do the fitting factor or make cash. Businesses basically have to thrive and produce capital, however that doesn’t should battle with our mission. Showing you are able to do each is what actually conjures up me.
Source: www.canadianbusiness.com