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Eric Becker
Mindy Grossman is a retail legend. Mindy started Polo Jeans from scratch.
Mindy Grossman
I have three words that have been my mantra throughout. Passion. Purpose. Impact.
Eric Becker
She’s spent her career building, scaling, and transforming some of the world’s most iconic brands from Nike to Ralph Lauren to pioneering an entirely new retail ecosystem at HSN.
Mindy Grossman
You really have to have obsessive curiosity and learning every day.
Eric Becker
What is the secret for developing that powerful brand loyalty that can stand the test of time?
Mindy Grossman
Maniacal consumer obsession and providing an experience, not just a product. You have to know what to say no to. Risk taking and boldness are the essence of transformation. And often, not taking a risk is riskier than taking the risk.
INTRO
Eric Becker
Across every chapter of her career, Mindy Grossman has turned disruption into opportunity by driving bold innovation and unlocking new growth. She’s a game-changing leader, a relationship driven mentor and a true architect of modern retail. I’m honored to have her here today for “The Long Game.” Welcome, Mindy Grossman.
Mindy Grossman
Thank you so much, and thank you for that introduction. Excited to be here with you.
Eric Becker
Absolutely. It’s wonderful. It’s wonderful to have you here. I was so excited. I loved reading about your background. What an incredible life you have led in leadership and what a wonderful life story. I know that you’re passionate about storytelling and every good story starts at the beginning. And so let’s talk a little bit about, you know, where you’re from and how you got your start in life.
Mindy Grossman
So Eric, my start in life, I like to say that my CEO journey started when I was three days old. My mother’s father died when she was three, and then when she was a senior in high school, her mother had a stroke, and she had to leave high school to become a caregiver to her mom. My father finished high school, went into the Air Force, and started working and worked his whole career in nights for a produce company. And all they wanted when they got married, my mother was 18, my father was 22, was a child. And they tried and tried and 12 years went by. And as they watched other families grow, they couldn’t.
Unfortunately, they weren’t able to afford adoption in any way. So, one night, my father went into work at midnight and the gentleman who owned his company was there and at first, he was nervous. Why is Charlie there? And with that, Charlie came over to him and said, Donald, you’ve been such a great employee, and I can’t see you devastated anymore. And he handed him an envelope with a check, and it was the money to be able to adopt a child.
And they were given a gift, and I was given a gift because I’m that child. So, I was adopted when I was three days old and from the moment I can remember, the moment they told me that you’ve been given a gift, we’ve been given a gift, and the most important thing you need to do is to use that gift and have impact on others. And that has really defined my career and my life. And then the other thing that they told me was that I could be anything, I could do anything, and if I believed in myself, that I could accomplish anything I put my mind to. And the combination of those things really is what the foundation was of what enabled me to take risks, what enabled me to have self-belief, but more importantly, what really drove me to use that gift to have impact on other people.
Eric Becker
Amazing, and it’s a beautiful story, an inspiring story. It’s the beginning of the American dream that I think so many people dream about, and incredible in terms of the hopes and dreams. I understand that you did make a little bit of a shift in terms of what you thought your career would be to then what it ultimately became, and that seemed like a moment of truth. Tell us what that was about.
Mindy Grossman
So, given everything that I was led to do and believed I needed to do, I was very serious growing up. And I finished high school as a junior. I took all AP classes. I was planning to be a lawyer and started college at 16 and got engaged when I was 19 to be married. And fast forward, I was about to go into my last semester of my senior year in college, and you certainly can appreciate this. I really had the epiphany; this is not what I want to do. I am a different person today than I might have been two years ago or three years ago. I’ve learned so much. I’ve been out there. If I don’t change the trajectory now, I don’t know what my life is going to be like, but I knew I had to. So, with shaking hands, I called my stereotypical serious Jewish parents and said, I have something to tell you. I’m breaking my engagement. I’m not getting married. I’m not going to law school in the fall. And I’m moving to New York now. I’m going to figure it out. I want to be in business, but I also know I want to be in a business of creativity.
And with that and about $1,000 that I had saved over the course of working summers, I moved to New York in the middle of 1977, and that’s how I ended up starting, and I had two potential interests. One was in the publishing business when magazines were really in their heyday and the other was in fashion. And my first job ended up working for the president of the international division of a large menswear portfolio company and that was the start. And I say to people today, risk taking and boldness are the essence of transformation and often not taking a risk is riskier than taking the risk, and pivoting if you have to, but you have to go with that belief.
Eric Becker
Well, and it’s also amazing that you had that in you at such a young age, because I think when we’re younger, we probably, it’s easier to be more fearful and to take a more traditional, less risky in someone’s mind, you know, path. So, it’s amazing that there is this thread in your life of being bold and taking thoughtful risks. But that started really like right at the beginning.
Mindy Grossman
Yeah, there’s another, there’s a word that was my mother’s most used word when I was growing up and the word is beshert, which in Yiddish means “it’s meant to be.” So if a boy broke up with me, it was beshert, he wasn’t good. If something good happened, it was beshert. And because of that, that idea that everything is meant to be, I don’t regret. There are things that I wish outcomes would have been better, but that’s okay. You move forward, you don’t look backwards. And that has given me the strength to make some really difficult moves and changes and things where people said, what is she doing? But when you have that belief and you see what things could be, it empowers you to be able to have the strength to take that risk.
Eric Becker
And so, the idea, so it’s interesting when you said that your mom used the word but share it. That was meant to be for you. That was a reassuring thing that, even if you like, in the case of making this really massive change at such a young age, in your mind, it was like, this must be meant to be that I’m going to change my direction as opposed to someone else that would say going the traditional path. That’s what’s meant to be. But in this case, you could change, which is incredible, incredible, and a great lesson for young people. We always love to say, what’s our advice to a young person who’s graduating? And there’s the very first nugget right there, right from the beginning, which is beautiful. So, how did the first job then lead to, you know, these incredible founders that you worked for in your career, like Tommy Hilfiger, how did the first job then lead to leadership?
Mindy Grossman
Well, it’s very interesting because, you know, I was at the company for a year. The gentleman I worked for was terrific, but I knew that I wanted to get into sales to start. And there was no way a woman was getting hired on the sales team. So, I knew I had to leave. And someone I knew said, “I know of a junior sales position that’s open at another menswear company, shirt company, you should interview for it.” So, I did interview for it, and I did get the job, and part of my job was filling in for the receptionist when she went to lunch. One day, a young black gentleman came in named Jeffrey Banks, who was a designer who had a line, a license line with this company. And he was there to meet with the CEO, but he was waiting in the reception area, and he saw me on the phone talking to senior salespeople, being creative, figuring out problems. And without my knowing it, he went into the CEO and he said, “I want that woman to work for me.”
And so at 21, I went to become a sales associate for Jeffrey Banks, who is still one of my closest friends today. And that was really the start. And then I went to work for Tommy Hilfiger, who was the rising star at the time. And at that point, I was head of all sales and merchandising for his business. And, you know, there’s stories for each one, but then I had the opportunity to work for Ralph Lauren for 10 years. And then Phil Knight at Nike and then Barry Diller at IAC and then, you know, after that, and then work with Oprah and, you know, I’ve always been obsessed with visionary founders. And as I like to say, I started Polo Jeans company from scratch. So I know what it’s like to start a business, but I, I could do it with someone else’s money at the time. But I learned so much from each of them in different ways, but that founders mentality, you know, I’ve been on the board, for example, of fanatics for nine years with Michael Rubin, and you see the capacity and capability for reinvention is a big part of what, you know, successful founders are able to do.
Eric Becker
Great company. Yes, great founder. Absolutely. Those are my people. I love CEO founders. That’s how I’ve spent my life, and ultimately now creating Cresset. It’s a platform for CEO founders and their families. What I’d love to do, since you beautifully articulated this trajectory, is actually maybe mentioned, let’s go through each of them, starting with Jeffrey of like one thing that you learned from each of them. So, when I heard the story about Jeffrey Banks, I think of the incredible power that he had to identify talent. You’re sitting behind a desk in a different role, but by observing you, he was able to determine this is a really talented person. So he must’ve been very special.
Mindy Grossman
I would say the other thing about Jeffrey, which is similar with some of the other founders. So Jeffrey’s book, he’s been on a book tour, is called Storyteller. It’s really the power of storytelling and to be able to engage and have people enamored with stories and bring them to life. So at a very early beginning, that really resonated with me, and it became part and parcel of everything that I tried to do when I was articulating. Again, I grew up in sales and what I like to say is the reason I was successful in sales, I never sold anything to anyone. I built a relationship. I tried to understand and articulate what was going to have meaning to them. And then I focused on making them successful. So, those learnings early on were very important.
Eric Becker
And then Tommy Hilfiger, I mean, the time that you went there was the beginning of his incredible trajectory. And so, what’s one thing that you learned working with him?
Mindy Grossman
Yeah, I love Tommy. We’re still very good friends to this day, our families. You know, Tommy understood what he had to do to break out. And he knew how to be provocative without being polarizing, which was really what his brand was for, to be accessible but aspirational to everyone. And it really resonated with an incredible broad audience, and it still does to this day. I mean, he’s still doing incredibly well and his brand and like the brands you talk about that have longevity, and you know are able to be generational, I think his definitely will be one of them.
Eric Becker
What a great legacy. And then of course, Ralph Lauren and what’s so interesting in that story is that you started a business from scratch at Chaps. You started the jeans business really as kind of a startup and built it into a really substantial company in a short period of time. But what were the big takeaways from Ralph Lauren?
Mindy Grossman
Yeah. Well, my journey with Ralph had a lot of turns. So, you know, I’d been working for Tommy, doing very well, and I kept getting approached about working for Ralph and taking over and turning around Chaps Ralph Lauren, which was a licensee of a company called Warnico. And I wouldn’t, I’m like, this company is doing so well, why am I doing this? And finally they said, “Would you just meet with Ralph and his partner, Peter Strom?” who was his partner at the time. And I said, “Okay, I’d love to meet Ralph.” And I met with Ralph and I listened to his perspective and vision. And then I thought about it and I said, “There is not a single woman running a menswear company in the industry. And I feel I’m ready for this. I know what to do. I believe I know what to do to turn the business around. And I’m not going to be the CEO of this company tomorrow. And I don’t know how many opportunities there are going to be.” So, I made the decision to join as president of Chaps Ralph Lauren, built the team, created a new category of menswear called main floor collections. And we took the company from $20 million losing money to $200 million doing extremely well from a EBITDA perspective. And over those three years, I was also given responsibility for the entire menswear portfolio at the company. And all was well. And then I went home one night, my contract was up and was considering renewing. I said to my husband, “I’m resigning tomorrow. I don’t have another job, but I know I’m doing the right thing because the culture of this organization is toxic.”
Eric Becker
The parent company, the parent company. Yes. Yes.
Mindy Grossman
Correct, correct. So, I might be treated well because of what I’ve done, but this is not an environment that I want to be part of because if I stay, I feel I’m complicit. So, I went in the next day, and I asked to speak with the CEO. She met with me. And after about five minutes of conversation, she said to me, “Are you resigning?” I said yes. She said, “You either have another job, you’re independently wealthy, or you’re stupid.” I said, “Or D, none of the above.” And I was escorted out by security at the end of the day.
Eric Becker
I hope that our young listeners really focus on this because one of my favorite things is to ask people, “what’s the best question you’ve ever asked or been asked?” And my favorite question is to ask yourself every day, “what am I tolerating, but shouldn’t be?” And this story is such a perfect example that here you were building something, and you were succeeding, but you were within a broader organization. The values you could not, you couldn’t endorse them. You couldn’t live with them. And so you…
Mindy Grossman
It’s amazing because your favorite question is my favorite question. “What would you be willing to walk away from?” So, there I am standing on Park Avenue between 37th and 38th and I went home, had a young child, and I just remember saying to my husband, “I know I did the right thing.” Well, the next day Ralph called me and Peter, and said, “We’re devastated you left, look what you did for the business, but if you’re going to go anywhere, you’re going to work for us. We’re not even sure what, but we will make you the head of new business development for the company, and we want you to think of new businesses and categories of business that we can develop.”
And so, during that year, I developed the business plan for Polo Jeans Company, found the licensee partner. And when we did the deal, they said, would you go and start it as the CEO? And that’s how I started Polo Jeans Company. And it was such a dynamic time. I mean, the team that I built there, I’m still connected. Most of my teams I’m still connected with. And to your point, we went from startup to almost $500 million. And a year later, I got a call from a man named Phil Knight, and he had just come back into Nike because when he had left, they kind of went somewhat off kilter and he went back in to build a whole new executive team and reinvigorate the company. And it was for me to be the global head of all apparel for the company. I was the first person from the apparel industry to run the apparel company, was usually footwear people. And I actually, with practically tears in my eyes, turned the job down because for a lot of reasons I couldn’t move to Portland at the time. And Phil ended up calling me back and said, “Mindy, we really want you and we’re willing to do whatever it takes to make it work for you.”
Eric Becker
So, as we transition from Ralph Lauren to Phil Knight, as we’re leaving Ralph Lauren, what’s something that you took away from the Ralph Lauren experience or from him as an amazing founder that really made all the difference?
Mindy Grossman
I will tell you the greatest, greatest learning from Ralph, and he is still maniacal about this, to this day, as a brand and to stay on brand, you have to know what to say no to, which is more important than what you say yes to for your brand. And you need to understand the DNA of that brand. And just have a focus on that in everything that you do. And I’ll never forget, it was the first season, we were launching the brand, and we had this incredible setup in the showroom of what a shop would look like in a store. And it was the day that he was doing the walkthrough for the first time to see everything out there. And I’m standing in the shop, and he’s walking around and there was a fixture with, you know, product hanging on it. He said, “Mindy, tell me why that fixture is Ralph Lauren before the name is on it.” And I said, “Ralph, this was inspired by a 1920s rivet from an antique pair of denim.” And you could see from the round bottom with texture. This is what you learn. Everything had to have a purpose. And if you experience anything with Ralph, whether if you go to the Polo bar, if you go to the coffee shop, or if you go to the children’s store, you see that in everything he does, which is why the business is doing extremely well right now. Look, businesses have their moments over time, but that is ingrained in everyone that works in that organization.
Eric Becker
I love that. And as we’re going to transition to Nike, one thing I have to ask you, I’m imagining, you know, a young person having to tell Tommy Hilfiger, you know, you’re terrific and this has been amazing, but I’m moving over to this company. And then I think of the iconic Ralph Lauren and going to Ralph and saying, you know, love you. This is amazing, but I’m going to be going to Portland. What is it like to tell founders “no” and to tell them sometimes things that they might not want to hear?
Mindy Grossman
I think the most important thing is truth and articulating the “why.” And that’s why I’m still friendly with Tommy today. He understood. Ralph understood why, you know, it was time, the company had been acquired. And I had a similar situation. with Phil because after six years, my daughter was going into her later years of high school. I’d been doing a commute between New York and Portland, and I was out of the country at least 30% of the time. And my parents weren’t doing well. I needed to get back. And when I went to tell him that I was leaving and I was going to join Barry, it’s not that I wasn’t nervous. Trust me. And Phil was amazing. He said, “Mindy, I’m really sorry that you’re leaving. I know you’re going to be successful, but if for any reason, you always have a family and a home. But I want to tell you one thing. And I said, “What?” He said, “If you told me that you were leaving for something predictable, I would have been really disappointed in you.” Because when it got announced that I was leaving Nike to go take over this home shopping network portfolio, people thought I was insane because you’re the number two at Nike. You go to a cocktail party and you’re like, ooh, you know, and…
Eric Becker
Right, Home Shopping Network. How exciting is that? Well, I’m imagining though, that there’s a similarity that, you know, when you look at the thread from, you know, Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren, and we think of those brands, when you moved into Nike, you’re working with athletes and there’s a performance element. Like these were clothes that were designed that also had a purpose beyond just the function or the, you know, there was something about them that led to an aspect of performance in addition to design for design’s sake. And I’m curious what it was like, what you had to learn to work with athletes and where there was this performance element that now entered into the brand and the clothing.
Mindy Grossman
They had just launched their new mission to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete. “If you have a body, you’re an athlete” for everyone. So, there was a big focus on performance, but there was also a focus on being relevant in culture. And so I had to really define the different segmentations of business that were going to live up to that mission, which was very exciting.
You know, we didn’t have a significant women’s business because it hadn’t been a real focus. It was like men’s made smaller. So, I really wanted to truly men’s, women’s, kids of all ages. And really be out there with a focus. And also to be able to do that, I had to attract a lot of different talent, including women. And Phil enabled me to start their first Women’s Leadership Council, really focus on being able to have the right diversity within the organization. So, the combination of all that was incredibly inspiring and you have to be a dedicated student. You have to, you know, one of the things I love, and you write about this too, you really have to have obsessive curiosity and learning every day. I always say, I want to leave time in every week to meet someone new, learn something new, do something new. You know, this past Monday, I spent three hours at the IBM Quantum Computing Center, right? I want to learn, I want to understand what is happening in the world. And a lot of that was, you know, part of the experience at Nike.
Eric Becker
Well, the other thing that I think is so exciting and interesting and you’ve had so much impact in your life and career is that the seeds that were planted then, we now look at the incredible growth in women’s professional sports that we’re seeing now. And, but it feels like at that time you were really breaking new ground, and planting the seeds for the future for women’s sports.
Mindy Grossman
Yeah, one of the things that was really important to me when I was there was bringing Serena Williams in because, you know, if I was going to, you know, really become, you know, known as an apparel company, think of it. Tennis is one of the only sports that’s not a uniform, right? You make a statement. You now have the best athlete in the world, or you know, beyond just a female athlete. She was into fashion. She was representative of courage and power. And I said we need Serena because her contract with Puma was up and we ended up bringing Serena on. And I’ll never forget the first U.S. Open, and we did this outfit for her, and it was performance denim, believe it or not, skirt and top and a black leather jacket that she came out with. And they’d made an exclusive sneaker for her, but they attached chaps to make it look like a boot. And when she walked out at the U.S. Open, it turned out that they made her take the boot part off, but they really noticed the outfit. We actually did a press event at the original Nike store with the glacier behind us. We had more PR for the apparel business in that one day than I think in the history of the company because we were breaking the rules a bit, but we were making a statement, and it felt authentic because of who that athlete was.
Eric Becker
Incredible. Actually, last week we had an event in our backyard here in Jupiter with Alexis Ohanian, her husband. And when he walked, he was great, a great founder talking about amazing founders. And he walks in the door and my wife, Jill goes, “Where’s Serena? Where’s Serena?” So, that’s an amazing, an amazing story. And she is an icon. Incredible. Really incredible. So.
Mindy Grossman
She’s a great mom too.
Eric Becker
Amazing lessons learned at Nike and leadership and breaking new ground in evolving from the fashion world into a whole new world. How did you end up meeting Barry Diller? How did the opportunity for Home Shopping Network come up? And every move seems so intentional. How did that become something that you would say yes to?
Mindy Grossman
Well, when I made the decision that I needed to make a change because of what my life was, and I also say to people, you have to kind of almost have your own manifest, you’re going to make different decisions at different stages of your life based on what your circumstances are. And I had actually been approached to run a very big luxury conglomerate. And I’m looking at it and I literally had a contract, and I go, I can’t do this, it’s not me. I may wanna wear luxury, but I love brands that can really touch a lot of people. So, I called the recruiter and said, “I have something to tell you, I’m not doing it.” Luckily it was a friend of mine. And she said, “Mindy, what do you want to do?” I said, “Look, I’m going up to my house in the country for the weekend. I am going to map this out.”
The following week I called her and I said, “Okay, this is what I want to do. I want to be a CEO. I don’t want to start up; I want a company of scale. I’m open to a transformation turnaround. I want a brand or a company that is really going to take advantage of what is going to be happening in mobility.” Because I had been spending all this time in Asia. My last year at Nike, I was in China every six weeks. And seeing what happened with mobile commerce and mobility before it was in the U.S. to the degree. I said, “Brands are becoming distribution captive because of all these consolidations, people are going to be consuming content in a very different way. And I want to move back to the East Coast.” And she said, “Is that it?” I said, “Yes. That is what I’m looking for.” About three weeks or a month later, she called me. She goes, “I have it. You need to have lunch with Barry Diller, and you need to take over and run IAC retail as the CEO.” I said, “Look, I’d love to have lunch with Barry, but what is IAC retail?” I didn’t even know what it was. And she said, “Well, it’s Home Shopping Network. It’s a portfolio of catalog brands like Frunke, Ballard Design, and Garnet Hill, et cetera. It’s a shopping channel in Germany and a falling auction channel in the UK.” I said, “I’ll tell you what, you got to give me two weeks because I really have to have a thesis on what this business needs,” because I knew it was going to be a transformation.
So, literally for two weeks, I was watching HSN and like people yelling at you to buy things. I was watching QVC and I’m like, what would I do? And I was watching Food Network, which before it was all contests when it was really food. And I clicked on HSN and Wolfgang Puck was on. And he was entertaining and he was educating and he was showing beautiful product and beautiful food, and he was mesmerizing the audience. And this light bulb in my head went off and said, I know what it has to be. We can create this idea of editorial program commerce across all platforms. So, imagine if HGTV, DIY, Style, Food Network came to life, but you could buy the product. I went and had lunch with Barry, and I pitched him like a VC, right, on what this could be. And in Barry fashion, he went, you know, go forth. Now, I was the eighth CEO in 10 years, and the business needed massive work. But what I also realized because of that, I couldn’t fix the business until I changed the culture. Because when you’re the ACO in 10 years, they’re just waiting for the next one to go.
Eric Becker
Right, this too shall pass. You shall pass. So, what did you do? How did you demonstrate? How did you change that culture or at least start to change it?
Mindy Grossman
Yeah. Well, I knew that day one was going to be important and my head of HR said, “What do you want to do on your first day? I said, “What does any other employee do on their first day? She goes, “Well they go to employee orientation.” I said, “I’m going to employee orientation.” So, my first day I showed up in a room with about 25 other people from backstage TV, merchandising, production, creative, call center, and everybody goes around and introduces themselves. They get to me and I said, “I’m Mindy Grossman, the new CEO.” And I spent the day in the call center, backstage TV, learning about the business, and it spread like wildfire. So, the next day when I had my first town hall, they already felt that I was different. So, when I got up there and told them why I joined, why I was so excited, what I saw in the business, and how proud they should be of what we can do, it resonated. But then at the end I said, “But I just want to be honest. I know that there are three sets of people in this room. There are the evangelists. You are so excited that I’m here and we’re going to do all these things. There’s the wait and see.” I said, “I can understand a little bit of that, but you’re only going to have a period of time. And then there are the blockers. This is not going to be the place for you because we all have to be in this together.” And that start made such a difference.
And then the second thing I did that really also made a difference. You know, they had a huge campus in St. Petersburg, Florida, but it was very downtrodden. And I walked through it, it just was not good. But I couldn’t afford to invest to renovate the whole campus. So, I noticed though that there were all of these unmarked chairs. I said, “I have an idea.” So, I called the CEO of Herman Miller and said, “I need 2,500 Aeron chairs, but I need them all delivered the same day. When can you do that?” So, they came back and they gave me a date. It was a Friday. So, I gave everybody the day off and we power washed all the buildings. We brought dump trucks in to clean up everything. And then everybody went home on Friday except the people in the live show. And when they came into work on Monday morning, they all had their brand new Aeron chair. I got 900 emails thanking me for caring about them. And I wanted them to have pride in who they were and who they worked for.
You know, I use this expression, the barbecue effect. So, your neighbor invites you over for a barbecue and has all these people, some of who you don’t know. And they go, well, who do you work for? Do you say, I work for HSN, it’s the most incredible company, or do you go, I work for, and you know, you want your employees, your employees are the original influencers, if you think about it, of your brand. And so that was so important. And then we relaunched the brand a year later and it just happened to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the founders starting the business. And we celebrated that.
Eric Becker
Incredible. So, two questions there. One is, what did you learn when it went to being a public company and you were now leading a public company? And then also, what did you learn from working with Barry during the time it was part of IAC?
Mindy Grossman
I learned a lot from Barry. He’s a tough one. He has high expectations and he doesn’t tolerate fools. You just have to be honest and direct and do your homework and really have thought through before you came and had the approach. You know on the public front you know we were on the road show the summer of 2008 and my CFO was also a woman and you know we were the only women we met with on the entire road show and he had a lot of guys going “Why are people going to shop like this? They could just shop on Amazon.” And I’m like, “No, these people want a relationship. They want content. They want storytelling. And they want product.” But we successfully went public in August, ‘08. But it was two weeks before the Lehman bankruptcy. So there I was, first time public company CEO, new board. And the world fell apart. We couldn’t even get coverage. And I had a moment, and the moment was, how do I somehow use this as an opportunity? And I went to the board, and I said, “Look, I believe that HSN can grow in 2008 and 2009. I could change the assortment profiles, but we could be a place that there’s never any bad news on HSN, because people are going to go through a tough time and we want to be where they can go, whether they can buy something or not.” Some of our catalog businesses, nobody’s buying $2,400 outdoor armchairs right now. So, we’ll make some difficult decisions there, but the one thing I have to protect is our innovation agenda on technology, on innovation, and on mobile.
And I made this very big presentation to the board, and they signed off on everything. And it certainly was a difficult year. By December of that year, our stock had gone down because nobody was buying anything. And I think our market cap was smaller than our receivable balance, but we actually grew HSN in 2008 and 2009. And so, when we came out of that, the stock went up and we ended up being the first retailer to do video commerce on an iPhone and on video because we protected that agenda. And if you look at the companies, whether it was 2008, 2009, whether it was COVID, or I promise you, given what’s happening right now with disruption, the companies who have leaned in and said, “how do I look at this as an opportunity, not a detriment?” are the companies who are going to come out stronger over the long term.
Eric Becker
So incredible. If we, as we’re going to transition into meeting Oprah and Weight Watchers, I’m curious at this point, when you think about brands and brand loyalty, what do you think is the secret, if there is a secret for developing that powerful brand loyalty that can stand the test of time? What is it?
Mindy Grossman
Maniacal consumer obsession and providing an experience, not just a product. And when I look at today, the brands who you see who are performing, they have created an ecosystem of physical, digital, virtual, social, experiential, emotional, but with a very core obsession on the consumer and what that consumer is going to want. That makes all the difference.
Eric Becker
Powerful, powerful, really powerful and a huge takeaway for our viewers. So, how did you get to meet Oprah and then get this next chapter of building Weight Watchers or rebuilding Weight Watchers?
Mindy Grossman
Yeah. So, towards, you know, the I was at HSNI for 11 years and I was going to be potentially become chairman and put in a CEO. But in my heart, I knew I wanted to do one more thing. And I had gotten very passionate about what was happening in the world of health and wellness. And you know, my mother had her first heart attack at 50 and never really took great care of herself. She was obese. And I’m a big believer that health span is more important than lifespan. How can you live your best life as long as you possibly can? But I wasn’t sure what that was going to mean. And one morning I was watching CNBC, and I saw the announcement that Oprah had joined the board and as an investor and to be involved in the business of Weight Watchers. And I was like, that is brilliant. And the CEO was out and they were looking for CEO, still not thinking about it. And then I got a call from someone asking me if I wanted to run a very big luxury jewelry business. And I said no. But wait a second, don’t you have the Weight Watchers search? And they said yes. I said, “Well, why haven’t you called me about that? And they said, “Well, you run a bigger company. It’s in a completely different category.” They go, “Are you interested?” I said, “I’m very curious. And yes, I’m interested. And I’d really love to understand what compelled Oprah, because she is very purposeful, very purposeful.” And with that, I was on a plane out to California and we spent a day together and I had written a manifesto in advance and it was called “It’s Not Weight, It’s Life” about what we could bring to people and we had such a belief, a shared belief that the idea of being able to join her as a partner in such an incredibly community-led business that had been changing people’s lives for 50 years at the time. And so, I made the decision to join again, once again, everyone’s like, what is she doing? But think about how purposeful that was.
Eric Becker
Yes.
Mindy Grossman
And that’s always, you know, to me, and actually I didn’t know the word at the time, but one of the things when we did the nine-city Oprah tour was such an incredible, incredible group of people. Some who are on this call right now, it was really for people to reimagine how they’re going to live their best, healthiest life. And one of the things that they had to do was to create their own personal purpose filter. And I now think every brand and every individual should have their own purpose filter. What are the questions you have to ask yourself at any given point before you make a life decision or a business decision or something that’s really going to have impact? I believe that when I talk to a lot of people, I’m like, “What’s your purpose filter?” And how are you going to make sure you’re not distracted by shiny pennies, right?
Eric Becker
So, share your purpose filter. What does your purpose filter look like? What do you ask yourself on these big decisions?
Mindy Grossman
Yeah. So, I have three words that have been my mantra throughout. Passion. Am I passionate about it? Is this something I want to wake up every morning and I want to be engaged and part of and part of me? Purpose. Is it purposeful? Does it align with something that I want to accomplish in my life? And then the third is impact. Will it have impact? Will it have impact for me? And will it have impact for others? And that’s been my mantra the whole time. And I say to a lot of people, particularly young people, please know that you can have impact at any point in your career, whether it’s your first job or whether you’re the CEO and you’ve built that platform and you’ve got more responsibility to have impact. But what is it that you can do that could impact others positively or impact your business or, you know, give you the ability to learn something new that’s going to accelerate what you’re looking to accomplish.
Eric Becker
Incredible. And as we move to what you’re doing now and also maybe touching on some of the frameworks and principles like the purpose filter, what is a big takeaway, the one thing from working with Oprah at Weight Watchers that you learned from her?
Mindy Grossman
It’s very similar. It’s more important what you decide not to do than what you decide to do.
Eric Becker
A little bit like Ralph saying, say no, say no, you’ve got to say no. Incredible. So, now you’re in this incredible position at Consello where you are advising and helping see the same community that you’ve both been part of and then have worked with these CEO founders or founders of businesses, visionaries. You’re advising them now, you know, with all the craziness that we’re seeing with AI.
Mindy Grossman
Yes. Yes.
Eric Becker
There’s such an amount of change happening right now at such a massive level. What are you loving about going from being the CEO to now advising? And then what are you telling your CEO clients about this massive change we’re going through?
Mindy Grossman
Yeah. No, it’s been an incredible experience over the past four years. What happened was when I made the decision that it was time to transition out of Weight Watchers, got the company through COVID, you know, settled. You know, I had told the company, and I agreed to stay for a period of time so they could be set up for moving forward. And it got announced in October 2021 and I started getting calls to run other companies, started to have a couple of conversations, and I said, stop. I need to take the lessons I’ve learned. I need to decide what I don’t want to do before I decide what I do want to do. This is really the first time in 45 years that I’m truly sitting back and not going into something right away. I need the time. So, I stopped having conversations and it took me a few months, and I made the decision that my next move wasn’t running another company, another public company, but I wanted to take all of my experience in growth and transformation and how could I work with CEOs and teams on growth and transformation in their companies and apply my knowledge across a much more diverse portfolio of businesses. I ended up, interestingly enough, joining Consello, which was started by the founder, Declan Kelly, who in his last role running another and having started another big company, he was my CEO advisor for eight and a half years. So, I knew the value and the difference of what we did than any of the competitive companies, that we’re deep, we’re long-term, we’re a partner to the CEO, we have a purview on what’s happening in the world. All our partners and senior executives have been operators, so we’ve been in that seat. And my role as Vice Chairman of the firm you know, I work very closely with the teams running client groups, do a lot of business development, identifying where we can really have impact, working with CEOs and brands and companies, or looking at potential portfolio companies for Consello Capital or private equity. But think of it. Think of the environment we’re in right now. AI, political disruption, geopolitical, what’s happening, you know, every day a CEO, particularly a public company CEO is waking up and going, okay, what just happened overnight? So, to have a trusted partner who does have a purview on the world, not just a single business or a single industry, and is really focused on what is going to help make you manage through this and be a support is just so valuable right now in the world we’re living in.
Eric Becker
What’s your advice to a young person that’s really anxious about that first opportunity they’re going to have to find?
Mindy Grossman
Yeah. Well, the first thing is “what are you truly passionate about?” And how does that fit into what’s happening in the ecosystem and where AI is going to have an impact or not? That’s the first thing. I think the second thing that I would do is I would be out there talking to as many people as possible. Even if a job is not available in a company, if it’s something that interests you, find a way in.
Eric Becker
I read that you have a Winnie the Pooh rule. And as I’m reading a little bit of Winnie the Pooh to my grandson, what is the Winnie the Pooh rule? I have to ask.
Mindy Grossman
I love that. If you look at Winnie the Pooh and you look at what A. Milne wrote and the quotes of everything are so memorable, right? About truth and about future and about friends and about relationships. I remember when I was having my going away party from both HSN and from WW. My speech was Winnie the Pooh. And a big part of it is these memories will never go away. They’ll be with me forever. And that is the foundation.
Eric Becker
I love that. So, a great, a great gift that we should give, whether it’s to someone nine or, or 90, just an amazing, a wonderful book with some really deep. Yeah, that’s fantastic. Well, speaking of fantastic, this has been a fantastic conversation. I’ve loved this so much. I looked, I was so looking forward to it, and it is so exceeded anything I could have imagined. I love the storytelling.
Mindy Grossman
Yeah, I do give it as a gift often. I could talk to you forever.
Eric Becker
Your career is incredible and, and such a reminder that, you know, being a powerful leader isn’t just about building a company, but it’s shaping culture and it’s making the people around you better, creating more leaders and also redefining what’s possible. You know, my favorite people have really high standards and are really high in performance, but they’re also warm and wonderful human beings. And that’s exactly who you are. So, thank you so much for taking the time to do this with me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. It’s been so much fun. Thank you, Mindy.
Mindy Grossman
Thank you for this. We’re so aligned philosophically.
Eric Becker
Before I let you go, if this episode resonated with you, please share it generously and please click the subscribe button below. Send this to someone in your world who is navigating a pivotal moment right now, someone who is staring down a decision and might need the reminder that recognizing the moment is half the battle. See you next time on “The Long Game.”
Voiceover
“The Long Game,” a podcast by Cresset, is intended for information only and is not investment advice. Any company discussed is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security. Investment involves risk, including loss of principal. Please consult your advisors before making investment decisions.
