Global Retail Development from Concept to Market: A Conversation with Liza Amlani

Ever wondered how a global retail strategist balances the fine line between human touch and cutting-edge technology? Join us as we sit down with Liza, the dynamic co-founder of Retail Strategy Group, to uncover secrets from her illustrious career spanning iconic brands like Harrods, Ralph Lauren, and Nike. From her early dreams in fashion design to her pivotal roles in buying and marketing, Liza's journey is a masterclass in perseverance and adaptability. Discover her unique approach to retail that prioritizes meaningful change over mere noise, and learn how her extensive travels and global experiences have shaped her visionary outlook.

In this episode, we dive into the nitty-gritty of Liza's career milestones, from navigating failures like a sleepwear line at Club Monaco to mastering the art of customer service and brand localization. Gain valuable insights into building and testing retail trends, and understand the crucial balance between listening to customer feedback and maintaining fundamental business practices. Whether you're a seasoned professional or an aspiring entrepreneur, Liza's candid reflections offer a treasure trove of lessons and strategies for success in the ever-evolving retail landscape.

But there's more—Liza opens up about the unique challenges faced by women of color in the retail industry and the importance of diversity and inclusion. Hear her inspiring stories of overcoming discouraging advice and transforming negative feedback into powerful motivation. With organizations like the Women of Color Retail Alliance playing a pivotal role, Liza emphasizes how diverse recruitment practices can drive business performance and innovation. Don't miss this empowering conversation that not only highlights Liza's professional achievements but also her passion for promoting a more inclusive and dynamic retail industry.

Liza's Bio:

Liza Amlani is the Principal and Co-Founder of Retail Strategy Group. The firm works with retailers and brands, helping them improve profitability and organizational effectiveness.

Clients span apparel, footwear, luxury, retail tech, and more. Liza is a respected voice and is cited in Forbes, Bloomberg, Chain Store Age, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Sourcing Journal, and Footwear News.

Liza has been recognized by Rethink Retail as a “Top Retail Expert of 2024.” This honor is given to a select group of experts chosen from a group of 400 nominees.

Before founding Retail Strategy Group, Liza was the merchandising expert in Accenture’s retail strategy practice. Before that, she spent 20+ in retail with companies including Ralph Lauren, Club Monaco, Sporting Life and more.

She brings a wealth of global insight to her clients given the number of countries in which she has resided – Liza has moved 29 times in her life from Canada to the UK to Africa. Today, New York City is home as she teaches at the renowned Fashion Institute of Technology.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizaamlani/

Chapters

• 0:36 Global Woman Entrepreneur in Retail
• 4:16 Retail Career Reflections and Lessons
• 18:42 Balancing Tech and Customer Experience
• 29:22 Overcoming Obstacles for Women in Retail
• 40:16 The Impact of Diversity and Leadership
• 45:07 Networking and Consumer Focus in Retail

Transcript

Paula: 0:36

So I'm honored to have Liza on the show today because she is a woman that has started her own business. Diverse woman traveled many countries, lived in many places. I believe that she will be an inspiration to a lot of the younger listeners because she really embodies that perseverance and give back and practice what you preach. But, rich Gotham, I want to know what you guys think.

Rich: 1:01

So I've had the opportunity to chat with her. I think I met her maybe a year or two ago through Rethink Retail and we were on a brand innovators panel together or a discussion group, and so I've had the chance never to really work with her, but to have conversations about retail and the panels that she's been on, and then, obviously, in following her LinkedIn and reading, I would say, actually the word I'm searching for is impactful. You know, she she dives into an issue, not with the intent of just creating noise or creating content, but really trying to create impact with what she's trying to say and what she's thinking. So I'm looking forward to digging in and getting to know her a little bit deeper.

Gautham: 1:40

So I have known Lisa for a few years. Rich, I am on this crusade to bring executives into the classroom to make retail more accessible, and Lisa was one of the people who had spoken to my students a while back and I still remember the students walked away very impressed because they got to understand things such as concept of market, how long it takes and how you can think globally but act locally, locally, and these are concepts that, for me, we're teaching movements that are used subsequently, and I'm hoping she will also touch upon the balance between human interactions and technology, and I think this is going to be my theme for this whole podcast. What's the balance? We'll see if she brings up those points of view, but I'm excited to hear her speak and pick her brains on retail.

Paula: 2:39

To Retail Relates. Lisa is the principal and co-founder of Retail Strategy Group, where she partners with retailers and brands to drive profitability and enhance organizational effectiveness. Her impressive client roster includes big names like Columbia and Mountain Hardware, under Armour and Land's End. Lisa's insights are highly sought after and her expertise has been featured in top publications such as Forbes, bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Before founding the Retail Strategy Group, lisa served as the merchandising SME in Accenture's retail strategy practice and has over 20 years of experience in retail merchandising and product creation with iconic companies like Ralph Lauren, club Monaco and Holt Renfrew.

Paula: 3:21

With a global perspective, lisa brings a unique richness to her work. She has lived in numerous countries around the world, including Canada, the UK and Africa, which we will have to talk about. That Moving a remarkable 30 times in her life Wow, talk about always being the new kid. Most recently, she called New York City home while teaching fashion, marketing and digital technology at FIT. Lisa, welcome to the show. We are honored to have someone so global and another woman here on the show, so thank you for making the time. Oh, thanks for having me.

Liza: 3:55

It's my pleasure.

Paula: 3:56

I'm so excited to do this with you guys, so we're excited to dive in. I'm just going to ask the first question. Your bio is going to be in the show notes, Something we like to do instead of just having you run through. You know, tell me about yourself. We like to ask what were the three most pivotal moments in your career that led you to where you are today? No pressure.

Liza: 4:16

I would say that my first one is working at Harrods. Harrods was somewhere where we would go as a family. You know, when I was growing up, I was born in the UK so I am British but also Canadian and then in the 80s we lived in Africa. We were in it's called Zaire at the time it's DRC now and so every summer we would go back to London and see my family and my grandma, but Harrods was somewhere we always went and so I would say working at Harrods was a very proud moment for my family because we grew up with that store.

Liza: 4:53

So I would say first was working at Harrods. I really learned the importance of customer service within the customer journey. The second point I would say is working with Ralph Lauren. Now, I worked with Ralph Lauren a lot. In fact, I started my career at Ralph Lauren at Harrods, which is we can talk about that later and I started on the shop floor, and what I learned from working on the shop floor and then continuing my career with the brand was that I really really understood the value of having a brand point of view throughout every part of every ethos of a brand. So what I learned at Ralph Lauren was truly localizing assortments while playing homage to the brand point of view. And then the last one I would say was working with Nike. I learned about consulting, but I also learned about what is my value proposition as a former retailer within the world. The wild world of consulting with a big firm and working with Nike was just awesome to work with such a large, matrixed organization and seeing so much opportunity. So I would say those are the three.

Rich: 6:03

So I'm going to jump in and ask this question because you said shop floor and we have had a long debate over how widely used that term is. Gautam started using it. I used it because I was in manufacturing at one point. The question is is this what you always envision doing with your career? And I don't want to just assume that it is because you started on the shop floor quickly.

Liza: 6:27

But I will sidestep here because I am pretty sure that I worked illegally when I was 13 on in retail. I was one of those people I was like I begged to work in the store. I loved I love the excitement of being around product and really making customers happy and solving their problems. So I started with this the dream of being around product at a very young age. But I initially thought I was going to be a fashion designer. I went to school for fashion design and I switched over to fashion buying and marketing after my first year, realizing that I was really good at the business stuff. Yeah, I guess I thought I was going to be a designer but then started this amazing career in buying.

Paula: 7:20

So that's funny that you should say that you started in fashion design, because that's been a topic of conversation as well between the three of us as to like, what do people major in and how do they get into retail. And you know why aren't there more like retail, focused like careers in college that are literally retail? So I'm glad that you called that out because that is a really it's a traditional career path, from what I understand. I'm not a retail, so I'm coming at this as a layman, but it seems like some people that go into fashion design end up going into the retail route on the business side. So we you're a successful woman and I admire you a lot, not just for your successes but to be able to hold all of that together. But is there a failure that has taught you a lesson that you'd like to share?

Liza: 8:06

really anchored in listening to customer feedback and using insights to develop the right product assortment at the right time. So when I worked with Club Monaco a number of years ago in Canada, we had a store called Caban and we had eight stores across Canada. It was part of Club Monaco, owned by Ralph Lauren. There was a trend back in that day of sleepwear and loungewear. In every assortment it was just, it was wild. So I'm like, okay, we need to do this right. So we developed a line of sleepwear. It bombed. It did not sell. I sold it all on Markdown. It was awful, it was awful.

Liza: 8:55

But what I learned was that in many cases, we chase trend, but trend is not always what our customer wants. So what I learned from this experience was about closing the feedback loop to build better assortments, which in turn, builds better process for many of the brands I work with today. Are we really listening to our customer? Are we really giving them what they want, what they expect to see from us? I don't think we should always follow a trend. I think that we should drive trend also. So I think that there's a lot of lessons learned just from that assortment that totally bombed.

Rich: 9:31

Okay, I'm going to hit a follow-up on that, because you actually hit kind of two trends in one, pun intended the idea of driving a trend and the idea of not always following trend, but the fundamentals. We've seen retailers that have gone out of business by chasing trends and their business becomes very cyclical and you have a list of them, I'm sure and they don't have a foundational business to base that on. I actually want to ask a question before I turn it over to Gautam for the lesson how do retailers build a trend today? How have you seen that be successful?

Liza: 10:09

So I talk about insights and closing the feedback loop a lot, and I think that has everything to do with listening to the customer. What are they looking for? What problem are they trying to solve, Whether it's an apparel problem, an outfit problem, a footwear problem or a CPG problem. What are we trying to help them solve for? And, taking all that into consideration, thinking about your fundamentals, which is your assortment plan, how are you building that assortment? Are you testing before you dive right in?

Liza: 10:41

There are many ways to tap into a trend without setting yourself up for failure, and I think that does come down to how are you building your assortment today? Do you have a very clear idea of your brand point of view and what you stand for? What does the assortment architecture look like when we're talking about season lists versus core and basic against fashion, and how much are you spending on innovation within your assortment? So I think that it depends on what product you have. What your customer is looking for Depends on what product you have, what your customer is looking for and how you're closing that feedback loop and feeding it into your assortment and your CTM calendar concept to market calendar. Go to market calendar and are you really looking at real time insights.

Gautham: 11:31

Lisa, let's pick up where you just stopped right. You talked about the CTM concept to market calendar and the go to market calendar. When it comes to merchandising, oftentimes the cycle time is very long. Right it takes. I will let you tell how long it takes, um, because it's it's rapidly evolving. What, in your opinion, is a way to keep reduce these times? How do you deploy digital technology and I know you work with some companies maybe that might have deployed these things so that you can actually test these products faster, bring it to market faster and reduce the time, therefore reducing the chance for failure?

Liza: 12:08

I would say there's three things. The first thing is having a simplified product creation calendar. Whether it's your concept to market calendar, your product creation calendar, your calendar that's going to get you to market, simplify that calendar. Have very clear milestones with accountabilities, responsibilities across functional teams and break down those silos so that those teams are actually talking about the same customer, are actually talking about the same customer. And then the second thing I would say is being okay with having various start and stop dates of product creation, and what I mean by that is I call it AI acceptable inequality, where we have to accept that not all products are equal, so they just should not be created in the same way.

Liza: 12:56

A basic black t-shirt compared to an innovative windbreaker that folds up and packs, I don't know, those products today are created in the same way using the same product creation calendar. They do not need to be. You can start and stop the moments in different points on the calendar. The third thing I would say is implement a multi-track calendar where you have different calendars leading up to the same timeline but having multiple tracks for multiple types of product. Whether you have this basic t-shirt, that basic t-shirt does not need to go from concept to market, with physical sampling and fit and all the things that we would do with this complicated windbreaker that I mentioned earlier. In fact, you could digitally create that entire block because you already have the tech pack. You already know the fit. You most likely have a set of digitized colors. That particular item can go from Concept to market digitally. So I think that there are many ways to talk about a multi-track-shirt, right. What about more on-trend?

Gautham: 14:19

kind of things. Are the companies trying to do this utilizing the digital ecosystem and the technology available today?

Liza: 14:26

They are and I think when we think about speed to market, we think about fast fashion and ultra fast fashion. We know that they're doing this. They're doing this in different ways, with a maybe a more vertical supply chain, investing in raw materials a lot earlier, but there's a lot of companies that are doing this today and, from a testing perspective, I know that PVH absolutely tests this model. They did it with Calvin Klein.

Liza: 14:55

Carhartt is a great example that has incorporated digital product creation and has also this is another thing I talk about. A lot is evolving your vendors, factories, innovation partners, from service providers to actual partners, and Carhartt actually does a great job with this. We were just talking to Mark. He's the head of tech design there. They do a great job. They talk about it at PI Apparel as well. It's a very known thing that they're great at doing this and I love to talk about them because I think that there is so much value in creating product digitally with the right partners and getting your vendors on the same page as you, on the same journey to reduce overdevelopment of materials, reduce physical sampling, excessive and unnecessarily protose. So there is a lot of companies doing this. I think Inditex does this very well.

Gautham: 15:50

I love that right. It touches on the sustainability angle as well as reducing failure in an industry where margins are razor thin. Let me just quickly ask one more question, if you will, and you spoke previously about a person you might be the only person I know who worked in retail at the age of 13, because you love your product and you talked about the excitement of retail and being your own product. I want to switch from a go-to-market strategy to a consumer kind of perspective, which is how you've been. You were born and brought up in London, I guess in England, and then you've been to Africa, you've been into the US, you've been in Canada, so 30 countries, right. What do you see? That is, global companies doing differently from the US-based companies and commonalities, so differences in commonalities.

Liza: 16:39

I would say that, no matter the region, the vertical or the product that we're selling, no matter where in the world we are, the customer still wants the same thing. And the customer wants great product. They want right product, right time, right place. They want great customer service. They want product that's going to last, not product that's going to fail. And this is a common thread across any vertical, any product, whether you're luxury or you're off price or you're fast fashion, customers don't expect that they're going to buy a product, invest their dollars into a product and it's going to fail them.

Liza: 17:17

I would almost flip it and say that's the similarity. The difference is that can range when you talk about the type of product. So I'll give you an example when my last industry role was Ralph Lauren and I was head of buying for the Lauren brand for Northern Europe, and I'll tell you that what I would curate from Ralph Lauren for the UK was very different to what I would curate for one of my Scandinavian countries. If you did another deep dive within the UK, for example, what I would curate for central London would be very different than what I would curate for my Dublin customer. The customer they want this thing, which is they want great product at a great price and all of that fun stuff. But I think that when you go into their regions and you start to really think about, okay, how are customers dressing, what are they dressing for? What kind of jobs do?

Rich: 18:11

they have.

Liza: 18:12

What is their level of outdoor activity? There's so many things that you can talk about to find what are the differences across regions across the globe, but I think it's more important to talk about similarities. What are we really going for as retailers? To drive success and profit, it is to connect with your customer, to connect with community. These are the things that are important today.

Gautham: 18:37

You have talked about this and I love the way you framed it, right Like find the similarities and find scale. You also said at the beginning and I wrote this down, your second period point, working at Ralph Lauren, localizing while being global and you said it nonchalantly but it's very hard to do having that global perspective while being local. What is the strategy from a corporate perspective? How do companies achieve this, having a global footprint yourself?

Liza: 19:08

I would take it down in a sense and talk about the op model and how are we building these teams? Ralph Lauren, like other design-led brands, like Nike, like Tommy, with a global team. They have a decentralized model, which means you have a global merchandising team based in your corporate office, in this case the US, and then you have regional teams that are sitting in those regions to develop relationships with the buyers, with the sales teams and then, of course, with the customers. So you learn about what are those differences with those customers how do they like to dress, function, more fashion, how is fit different, if they like florals or if they like stripes? These are things that you learn when you're in the region.

Liza: 19:55

I will really give props and flowers to Ralph Lauren for teaching me that. How important it was for me to be in the region, in the stores, talking to my customers, styling them, spending time with them, cashing them out. I was out of buying. It didn't matter who I was. If I didn't know who my customer was in every single region, then I couldn't make a good decision on my ice. So, even though with Ralph Lauren we have that global merch team, because we wanted to make sure that Ralph Lauren aesthetic and that seasonal strategy was very clear.

Rich: 20:33

So let's talk about the consumer for a minute.

Liza: 20:36

Over the course of your career, what do you think has been the biggest shift that you've seen in consumer behavior? More tools. We have apps. We have apps that tell us how transparent a product is. We have so many more and I say we, because we're all consumers too right we expect so much more from our brands. We expect so much more from the retailers that we choose to shop, because we have global choices, thousands and thousands of retailers and brands out there. This means that brands need to change the way they show up, which is showing up with more authenticity, more transparency. They need to really earn that loyalty from the customer because customers expect more.

Liza: 21:32

And I bring up customer service a lot because I think this is how brands can really make a difference with their customer, even if they didn't serve up the right product at the right time, if they had great customer service that aligned with how the customer expected them to build a relationship with them and build out that trust. I think that's where retailers and brands can really win is if they invest in their salespeople and their brand ambassadors in training and customer service and product knowledge. Being customer obsessed is a differentiator today. To me. It should be standard process, like that's table stakes, but it's not.

Rich: 22:11

It is not that today and it all lands in the spectrum because it's the notion of a customer willing to forgive you for not hitting a trend or for possibly making a mistake if they are endearing to your brand. I'll only speak for myself. I don't know what what Gotham's timeline is, and I don't know whether Paul is going to get into teaching, but I would imagine that in five or 10 years I'm going to be pulling out this podcast episode and using it with students. So I want you to go on record with make your boldest, most radical prediction for how consumer behavior will change a decade from now.

Liza: 22:50

Customers will expect to be part of the design and assortment building process. That was my prediction.

Rich: 22:58

I like that prediction.

Paula: 23:00

And I do want to add one thing. We're already seeing that Shoes I mean, they've been doing that design your own shoes Even from the kid level. At my son's daycare there's so many kids that went in and designed their own shoes at like four years old. So like why a four-year-old needs to design their own shoes. I don't know, but it's adorable and I love it and, like everyone's happy.

Liza: 23:19

And you're right, it is happening now. I mean, I did it with my Nikes, right. But I do think that we're seeing a level of, I guess, excellence in things like made to measure or personalization, customization, and that only leads to the statement that customers want to be part of the design process. They want to have a stake in the game, and why shouldn't they? It gives them ownership, right, and it gives them pride and joy. I mean there's a store in New York called Proper Cloth I don't know if you've been.

Liza: 23:49

I went in with my husband. This is when, I think we first, when we moved to New York last year. It was a phenomenal experience and I was like wow, because it was made to measure. The customer was given that choice of fabric, how much they want to spend. They were in the driver's seat of that journey. When I saw how busy it was, I was so impressed. I mean, look at other retailers like Proper Cloth, Indochino right, they're growing. I mean they could use some. Like Proper Cloth, Indochino right, they're growing. I mean they could use some help, but they're growing. And the premise and the concept is there. So I think that as we see more brands and retailers enter the world of customization, of personalization of product, because we're already seeing that from a marketing perspective, we're going to see a lot more customers be part of that design process.

Gautham: 24:41

Lisa, you and I have chatted before and you know I always say retail is a people business and I love the fact that you talked about humans and the customer service, the way retail is heading these days. We're seeing technology coming in to help and, in certain instances, replace human interaction. Now, in the vein of what Rich was asking, forward looking, how do you see this? Human technology interactions? Especially here I'm asking about robotics. You see self-service restaurants. You see robots coming and bringing you food which draws a lot of attention, but after a couple of times they're like, ah no, I don't want that, I like the human interaction. Where do you see five years from now? How is that level of technology that's going to act as an interface with the customer and customer?

Liza: 25:33

So I actually get interviewed about this a lot, which is funny. It starts with what do you think of self-checkout and Costco memberships using the scanner? So I think there's an interesting thing at play today, where brands and retailers are going all in on technology to solve their problem, whatever problem they're having, or either it's like to automate or to reduce resources or to, you know, save money somewhere. The challenge is that there isn't a balance of tech and touch. We have to have a balance of tech and touch. I've we've written about this. I've talked about it in a few presentations that I've done. When brands use technology to solve their problems but they haven't actually asked the customer how do they want to check out with them, how do they want to shop with them, how do they want to engage with them, that's when you start to see friction and unhappy customer.

Liza: 26:34

Now, that's obviously a B2C example. I'm seeing that we still need that balance of tech and touch on the corporate side, where we have the example I talked about earlier with digital product creation, that not all product is created equal, and what I termed AI as acceptable inequality. That's where I also see that balance of tech and touch, where some product should be created with technology, and it should be done. Some product needs a balance of tech and touch where, let's say, you've onboarded a new material, you still need to fit it, even though you can digitally create it after you fit the product.

Liza: 27:14

I think that is where we need to see more brands and retailers go is the balance of tech and touch Taking into consideration. If you're B2C, how does your customer want to shop with you? How do they want to interact with you? When we think about technology solving problems or automating or getting faster to market whatever we're trying to solve for the outcomes that retailers are going for we still need to take that balance into consideration, because at some point, you still need a human to come into the process. What we don't want is manual intervention. What we don't want is cultures not shifting and processes not being innovated, but technology being thrown at the workforce.

Rich: 28:02

Yeah, and I'll do a quick footnote to that because I love the connection between this and your personalization prediction for 10 years, because I agree with you. I think that's what a lot of retailers make the mistake of is moving from one point all the way over to the other side of the equation, thinking the tech's going to solve, and forgetting that for some customers they really want self-checkout, some want to pick up at the curb, some want to shop at midnight and some want to be held. And allowing the customer to personalize the journey and their product and their experience is what a lot of retailers I think aren't figuring out the balance of right now. So I love the connection between those two answers you have.

Paula: 28:48

So I'm going to pivot and I'm going to go to the advice section. Are you ready for that? Yeah, I'm going to impact many lives here, yeah, so I have to ask because you know you don't see a lot of women reach the higher levels and especially as also as a minority woman, which I also am we see culture play a part in women dropping out of the workforce. We see motherhood play a part of women dropping out of the workforce for good reason. Right, there is no good or bad, it's just those are decisions that are made. What advice do you have for women, especially this new generation, or people early in their career, women early in their career, when they come across these obstacles? How did you do it to overcome that?

Liza: 29:36

Well, I sit on this board called Women of Color Retail Alliance. The reason I joined this organization was because some of the things that I experienced, alongside some of the stats that I was seeing, where 60% of women make up the retail workforce, yet less than 6% of women of color are in the C-suite and these stats really hit home when we look at the leadership and you don't see anyone that looks like you. Now I know one of the questions that you had ready for me, but I'm going to maybe answer it now, because this kind of ties in was what was some advice that I had received early on in my career? This was the worst advice I received and it was at the start of my buying career and I was told that I retail was not for me and that I should not be a buyer and I was 25. This was my first like I was buying assistant fresh out of I think I'd moved from the UK back to Canada for this job and I was told that I should find a new career. When I look back on that now and I didn't listen, but when I look back on that that day sticks out to me because when I look at the team and the senior buyer that told me this. She was a white woman. The entire team was all white women. I was the only one that looked different.

Liza: 31:02

I quit, but I found I got another job, but I did quit and I went to my VP and I told her that, look, I'm going to go, I need to quit. She's like I brought you from London for a reason. She's like we love you here. She didn't know that this buyer said this to me. Now, this is something that really stuck to me and one of the reasons why I joined this board Women of Color Retail Alliance because I wanted to give women of color a voice and I wanted to tell them that they're not alone. And I think that's really tough because in many cases, it's just we're the first or we're the only one, but what we're not told is we are not alone. There are many of us, and that is what is, I would say, the piece of advice that I would give to women, women of color, even men of color that we're not alone.

Paula: 31:50

You know, we may be singled out, we may be told that we don't belong and it's great advice for even neurodivergent people, because we all operate in different ways and it's just important to know that. Yeah, you're right, I mean, we're not alone and I do want to follow that up. So that story resonated with me and thank you for being vulnerable and sharing that. I had someone tell me something very similar, so his comment inspired me because it pissed me off so bad. I was like I will show you. But not everyone has that reaction. So what was your reaction and how did you overcome those comments? Because that can be debilitating for some.

Liza: 32:26

Oh, yeah, I mean, I don't think you can really overcome comments like that, but it can definitely propel you to grow and to prove people wrong, right, and I think that my story resonates with people and that's why I tell it, because I want people to think that, like I said, that they're not alone, that they have a voice.

Liza: 32:47

Right, and I think today's generation I mean teaching Gen Z has been eye opening, because I find that they're so much braver than I was at that age, so much braver, and I love to see that and I'm like, keep it up. So you know, I just think that it's important for me to share, to use my voice. I know that there's a lot happening in diversity and the funding of diversity and inclusion programs. All the more reason for me to talk about this, to be involved in helping women of color achieve their rightful place in retail and retail leadership, and the fact is, it's the business case that I'm making. Diversity works, having a diverse point of view, looking like your customer. That matters, right? I mean we could definitely win. Let me know when you want to talk about brands that are selling to women and looking to increase women's apparel but they keep hiring men to do it. I think that's a problem.

Rich: 33:55

Well, I want to have you extend that a little bit, because if you look at what's going on with DEI and if you take DEI programs out of the equation, out of the conversation, diversity is just a smart business decision, and the advice that you were given so many years ago is counter to the advice that we should be giving today. So I want to give you the opportunity to expand upon the smart business decision that companies would make to embrace greater diversity in every magnitude of the word.

Liza: 34:34

So when I talk about diversity and inclusion and equity, the way that I talk about it is by giving an example. So when I was at Accenture and I've seen this with every big firm is that they go to the same schools to recruit. Right, they go to the same schools to recruit. They're recruiting the same type of people. They're sending those new recruits to go get more recruits so that that pool of talent is the same. They've learned the same things. They look at worldviews in the same way. They come from the same MBA class. That tells me that their recruiting practices are not diverse, as in, they're not looking outside of their normal recruiting pool. And the same thing goes for retail Retailers look to the same place to find talent, but they're not looking hard enough, they're not expanding their search to find more diverse point of views. And I'm not saying that we have to all have this. Like you know, token brown person, token black people, token everything. That's not what I'm saying. I think that we have to have diverse opinions.

Liza: 35:49

Point of views and cultures and all of the things that connect us better to our customer, and I think that's where the investment needs to be made. Who is the customer? How can we find more leaders that can relate to our customer so that we can sell more products, so that we can make a better product? That's why I think it's a great business decision.

Rich: 36:12

There's a marketer that I have tremendous respect for, drew Neiser. He has the CMO huddle. If you've ever seen him on LinkedIn, if not, follow him More B2B, but very much worth following. And during the pandemic he had had a one or two day seminar. He's one of the first ones to kind of pull together that kind of full day seminar, and the fee that he charged went to Black Girls Code and after one of the sessions he and I stayed behind and we talked about diversity and I gave him the typical executive answer of you know, I believe in diversity and I'm trying to hire diversity, but diversity doesn't exist within retail. Nobody's in it.

Rich: 36:50

And he let me get away with the answer for about five or six minutes and then he said hey, I have a question for you. If you had a new idea for a product and your current manufacturing base wasn't capable of making it, what would you do? And I said, oh, I'd go to the ends of the earth. There has to be a manufacturer out there somewhere that can make this. And he paused and he said so why aren't you doing the same with talent? And that is a big reason why this podcast is important and I will have the recorded goal that in 10 years you're going to be right about personalization of the experience and product. And in 10 years, when I retire from retail, I want a leadership team that looks a lot different than the leadership team I inherit. We can compare notes in 10 years.

Liza: 37:32

Oh, we will.

Gautham: 37:33

You said that the younger generation are brave. They are brave because the people before them right. It's their way to overcome and every generation makes it more. I hope makes it more stable and balanced for future generations. But I love the story. I want to ask one question. I've taught many years with the Mason and Nord UCF and people come from diverse backgrounds. Right, many of them are first-generation students, people who come from backgrounds which are a little bit more atypical from the schools that you just spoke about. How do they like? How do they build their confidence? Like? The biggest challenge for me has been to inspire them to say like hey, guys, you can do this Right, like so. And now I know you're teaching too. So what do you do to inspire them to have confidence, to tackle the Goliaths, if you will?

Liza: 38:29

Yeah. So one of the things that I did when, when I first taught the class. So I taught fashion, marketing and digital technology at FIT what I decided to do is every work and my classes were early they're like eight and nine o'clock and I had three and what I did was I said you have to come to this class prepared to talk about retail news every morning before we start. You have to eat. You can come up in a group, I don't care Alone, whatever. You have to take a news story and talk about it and let's talk about your opinion, get a discussion going. At first they were so nervous they would come up in these like giant groups by the end of the term I would have.

Liza: 39:12

We spent so much time doing this and we I had students that were so shy that would come up to me after and they're like you know, professor, you like gave me this confidence and this voice that I that it was okay, that I had an opinion, that people wanted to hear what I had to say, and that helped their confidence in a huge way. I still get messages about this and then just teaching them how to navigate networking that has been the value in that. I think, was more than me teaching their class. I think I gave them this the tools that they didn't know they needed around networking and building relationships, and to me, that is the most underrated and undervalued skill that a person can have. Is that the ability to build relationships and network?

Gautham: 40:04

I was hoping you would say that. I was hoping somehow you would bring that up. So thank you, I don't have to. When I say, people don't believe it. When other people, more esteemed people, say it, people might believe it.

Paula: 40:17

We're not taught this stuff. I don't know how you were raised as a child, but I know my co-hosts and a lot of us were not taught this. So for you to take the time and to teach them really impacts their life. Because you're not taught to network. Uh, it really. It changes people's lives. All right, are you ready for the rapid fire? So all right, okay, first thing that comes to your mind. Don't overthink it. Do you have a specific walk-on song?

Liza: 40:47

Stevie Wonder, Sir Duke or Superstition, Very good.

Paula: 40:52

Love it.

Gautham: 40:53

I'm going to go off script. You said 30 countries you lived in. Which is your favorite?

Liza: 40:58

That's hard, I know. Home is UK right, it's always London. It's always UK Favorite city. We did a short stint in Algarve. I know it's an area, but it is a little town in the Algarve. That was my favorite.

Gautham: 41:14

The reason I asked that was because I'm building a list of places to go to, so I'm trying to ask more people.

Liza: 41:21

Send me a note anytime. I was in Iceland last week.

Rich: 41:25

Yeah, we were comparing notes. I was following the shopping journey and the hiking journey. I will ask a 2.5 and say what's the next country on your bucket list.

Liza: 41:37

I would like to go to Sardinia because I'm obsessed with anything that is around Italy. I have not been to Sardinia because I'm obsessed with anything that is around Italy. I have not been to Sardinia. I would like to go to Sardinia and Morocco.

Rich: 41:49

I want to go to Morocco we talked about that and when you go, I have a guide for you.

Paula: 41:53

Yes, okay, I have to ask. We only asked three, but I hope that you will allow me this fourth one. You've traveled all these worlds, all of these worlds, all these countries, which are different worlds Favorite food or favorite meal? Favorite meal is wine and fries. You're so relatable. I love it. Okay, thank you so much, lisa. This has been remarkable. Just again, thank you for your time and for the investment that you make for women of color, for people, for neurodivergent, for anyone that may be different to enter into the industry and to see someone like them at the top of the executive level, to be inspired by that. Thanks for having me. This was fun, wow. So we knew that Lisa was going to be fantastic, just given her background, but I loved the topics that she touched on about women, about diversity, about technology, about the consumer, about the data Guys. I could go on and on. But really, to my podcast BFFs, tell me what are you guys thinking?

Gautham: 42:54

I will go first in the sense that I want to bring up one point which is sure, the content was amazing. I expected that, but what stood out to me was articulating, the eloquence in which she spoke on extremely difficult topics and the lack the ability to speak the point of view right, and that's something that I hope the future generations actually all generations take note of and execute on. So, yes, we will talk about the content, but I want to start off with that, the intangible aspect first.

Rich: 43:29

I was genuinely pissed off when she was recounting the story of being told at a young age that she didn't belong in retail age. That she didn't belong in retail and thankfully she didn't follow that person's very bad advice. For retail to succeed, it's just good business sense to build diverse teams from every imaginable definition of diversity. I found myself angry at that point with whoever said that, thankful that she made her way through it and hopeful that we are improving and that in five, 10 years when I step away, that we will have made some significant progress.

Gautham: 44:14

Many of us have been said we can't do things, or things that have put us down, and I think like to continue with your point right. It's what she said about how it lights a fire in you. That, I think, is perhaps the most important takeaway in that conversation. Like you can let it make it a stumbling block and push you down, but can it light a fire and set you on a path for success? And I think I enjoyed the lessons learned from a content perspective a lot. Right, the go-to-market strategy how do you actually keep focus on the end consumer? I thought were really important aspects. I also love the question you asked Rich about forward-looking. How does personalization come into play? I thought she covered a gamut of things in a short period of time. I'm curious what was your highlights for both of you? What stood out from a content perspective?

Paula: 45:12

yeah, I. For me it was. It's all about the consumer, so we've said that over and over again. Me, it's bedtime over here and my son loves to be heard.

Rich: 45:25

And I want to keep that on the podcast so your friend can keep talking. I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Paula: 45:34

So for me it was we've talked about it before and it's about the consumer. So it's all about the end client. Whether you're in retail, whether you're in technology, whatever industry you're in, we've got to think about our end client in mind, because that's going to drive value and it's going to drive quality, and we cannot sacrifice quality.

Rich: 45:54

Yeah, and I'm going to profess that I had a nerd moment. It's been a while since I've done product development. I love product development and so hearing her talk about it kind of made me a little bit weepy eyed. For that, paul, I will edit this out if you want me to, but when you sent the note to me and said what is digital product, my nerdiness and your curiosity combined, because you had somebody talking about it from a point of expertise. I loved her answer on being able to track core products and fashion innovative products differently.

Paula: 46:26

Very proud of my ignorance and very proud of the things I do know.

Gautham: 46:30

And part of the podcast is to expose people to these opportunities. Right, it's not just digital products Now you can 3D print them and you can actually have a prototype in you with reducing the cycle time dramatically so that you can actually shorten the whole window to a few months if needed. So I was excited I mean it was a really good conversation across very, very diverse picks. I want to touch upon one last thing that stood out to me, which was the networking aspect.

Gautham: 46:59

I've been in the business of education for about what 12 or 13 years now, and I think what separates the winners from people who take a little bit longer time to get to be winners is that the ability to network off the gates, right, using the college time to actually network and build those connections. And it's amazing that people like Lisa take the time to teach students and I've been really, really lucky to have people to help me build that in my students to actually get out, get network. It's a skill and it takes time to develop. It's not overnight, you know, and it's wonderful to all the people from the industry who do come and spend time with the future generations to help build their networks, because that, to me, really does shorten your period or time to success.

Rich: 47:45

And I have to make sure that I capture this on the podcast After I stopped recording. She answered the question of who she would invite to dinner and Stevie Wonder, prince and Alexander McQueen would be one heck of a dinner to go to and I just want to give her credit in the postscript for that. I want to be at that dinner, even if it's just serving the wine and the French fries.