Tommy Hilfiger, Anastasia Soare and Beauty CEO Summit Speakers on Their Biggest Pivots

“Success in reaching the corner office is often accompanied by both triumphs and trials. Throughout my career, I have encountered my fair share of challenges, both personal and professional. In navigating these difficult times, I’ve learned one key lesson: resilience. The ability to bounce back, adapt and persevere in the face of adversity has been instrumental in overcoming hurdles and achieving growth. Each setback has provided an opportunity for introspection, learning and, ultimately, personal and professional development. Embracing challenges as stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks has allowed me to not only weather difficult times but also emerge stronger and more resilient than before.”

“One thing I’ve learned is there are things you can control in life, and there are things that you can’t. And sometimes it feels like the older you get, the more privy you become to what you can’t control. The biggest lesson I’ve learned in facing challenges, both personal and professional, is to control the controllable. Things will happen every day so don’t exert energy on what is out of your control, and instead think about what you can actually impact. And then clear obstacles and empower your team to come on that journey with you. To me, that’s the sign of leadership.”

“Reaching the corner office means that you have to stay out of it! For me, it’s about being on the streets, in stores, seeing what is happening in culture, and understanding team members at a personal level and what motivates and inspires them. Team culture and winning spirits are the path to financial and business success. There will always be challenging times, so assembling a team that can work together, support each other and remain agile and hyped is critical. I have learned throughout my career that resilience has a backstage, it is not as much courage in the moment as sustaining balance. Being connected to both your team and culture allows for you to calibrate, and allows you to meet the moment…against all odds.”

“I’ve recently hired Beauty Pie’s first CEO. I’m an ideas person. I can see exactly where I want to go really clearly but I find explaining things several times to get organizational buy-in, and, repeating myself, and ‘influencing’ teams quite draining on top of staying inspired, creative and ‘tapped-in’ to the zeitgeist. Being able to split the work — and not do the ‘all team’ rollouts and the repetition — allows me to really focus on continuing to bring our customers what’s valuable and amazing and cool. And it has been a huge energy boost for me.”

“During the pandemic, I made a lifestyle pivot by prioritizing work-life balance and giving myself more structure around my working hours. I realized that the way I was working wasn’t sustainable in the long run, so starting in 2020, while I had the time working from home, I incorporated practices like meditation, daily walks and setting boundaries around my working hours. This shift not only improved my overall well-being but also enhanced my productivity and effectiveness as a leader.”

“The Bubble community has been essential to our brand even since before we launched. I spoke to hundreds of teens prior to launching to really understand what they were looking for in their skin care. It was there that I learned that 80 percent of our customers shop in-store for their skin care needs at affordable retailers. That meant that while we were so excited to launch and be able to provide our products directly to consumers, we needed to pivot our entire brand strategy and get into the retail doors where our community preferred to shop.

By truly listening to our community, we gained the information we needed to drive our most important strategic decision as a company. Pivoting from direct-to-consumer only to predominantly brick-and-mortar destinations was a huge change for us, but a crucial one that was directly informed by the needs of our community on where and how they like to shop.

The strategic shift allowed us to become the first DTC brand to launch exclusively in Walmart for one year and one of the first beauty brands to launch in a mass retailer before expanding into specialty retail. Armed with a deeper understanding of our customers and where to best reach them in the market, we initially launched in 3,900 Walmart stores in June 2021. Since then, our total physical footprint has tripled to over 12,000 CVS, Ultas and Walmarts across North America. We’ve also recently begun expanding into the U.K. and EU through partnerships with Boots — all in just over three years since launch.

Bubble’s success is absolutely linked to the input and feedback of our incredible community, whose suggestions and feedback continue to shape every aspect of our brand, from product and formulas to packaging, marketing and community building.”

“The greatest pivot to date I’ve made was choosing to not allow the work or job title I had/have/or will have define who I am, but deciding to allow who I am define and guide the work I do and how I do it. This ‘aha’ came for me very early in my career after experiencing burnout from a very intense, high-profile job that forced me to examine my own values and purpose. Purpose, not passion, is the greatest driver for and toward ‘success’ and achievement, but even more so for peace.”

“Taking on partners at various stages of my career remains one of my greatest decisions. I was fortunate enough to collaborate with visionaries like Mohan Murjani, whose early belief in me paved the way for transformative partnerships with Silas Chou, Lawrence Stroll and Joel Horowitz. Their invaluable wisdom, support and collaboration played a pivotal role in catapulting the business, surpassing any expectations I could have envisioned on my own. They are a reason I feel passionate about mentorship to this day.”

“The biggest pivot in my career was transitioning from being a journalist, to in front of the camera, to being the CEO of a brand. 

I tried this once before, in ’97 and ’98, during the dot-com bubble, and from that, I learned what not to do. 

This time, I did things differently: I built slower, listened to my intuitions, did not lean into instinct of fear, leaned into my ideas, believed my ideas, and hired people who were passionate and would not take my ideas and transform it into something different than what I had imagined it to be. 

The concept behind Trinny London is to bring beauty to everyone in a direct-to-consumer way through fantastic personalization and an emotionally driven experience. I believe we brought women online who would not have traditionally bought makeup online. We did this by having clever personalization and starting with a team that was entry-level but had a great knowledge of the brand that gave them the ability to grow with the brand as a whole. 

Only when I reached a certain point did I realize that I needed to bring in experienced professionals to grow the brand into different divisions, such as concession, wholesale and internationalization. I then had to pivot from my head in the weeds to letting my experienced team further establish the brand. 

I did this by hiring a CEO coach to take me to the next level and to look strategically ahead while allowing the right people to look after the day-to-day. Now more than ever, I am thinking more analytically and strategically to grow the brand. I believe the growth I have had within myself through this process is reflected in the business’ growth.”