Ciaran
Long

Ciaran Long's career reads like it was reverse-engineered from the CEO chair. KPMG in the late 1990s, where the grammar of a balance sheet becomes second nature. Then CNET Networks, riding the digital media wave as VP of Finance. A brief stint at CBS Interactive. Then something unusual: a five-year detour co-founding CleanGrow, a startup building sensor technology to measure water quality parameters. The kind of move a finance executive makes when curiosity outweighs comfort.

By 2014 he was inside Walmart, the largest retailer on the planet, working his way through e-commerce finance roles before landing as CFO of Samsclub.com, a multi-billion-dollar omnichannel operation. Seven years in Bentonville's orbit teaches you what scale looks like from the inside out - how inventory moves, how membership economics work, how supply chains bend under demand. It's the kind of education you can't simulate with a spreadsheet.

In April 2021, Long joined a.k.a. Brands as CFO. The company, a portfolio of direct-to-consumer fashion labels, had gone public on the NYSE. Then, in March 2023, CEO Jill Ramsey departed. Long absorbed her role without dropping his own. For nearly two years he ran a public company as both Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officer simultaneously - one of the more demanding double acts in corporate life.

On January 13, 2025, the board made it official. Ciaran Long was appointed permanent CEO of a.k.a. Brands Holding Corp. Chairman Christopher Dean's endorsement came with specifics: return to net sales growth, three consecutive quarters of double-digit U.S. sales expansion, a meaningful jump in adjusted EBITDA year-over-year. These are not vague compliments. They are the ledger of a turnaround.

What Long inherited was a company built on the logic of digital-native DTC retail - brands that found their audiences through Instagram aesthetics and influencer reach rather than department store shelves. What he's building is something more durable: a demand-driven model that tests small, scales winners, and now places its largest capital bet on physical stores. The digital-native era gave a.k.a. Brands its audience. Long's era is teaching it how to grow.

The clue to Long's operating philosophy is in a single number: 100. Every new style entering the a.k.a. Brands system starts with roughly 100 units. Not 10,000. Not a factory run. One hundred. The team watches what sells. The winners get chased. Supply catches up to verified demand rather than chasing speculative trends. Roughly 150 new styles enter the system every week across the portfolio - a cadence that keeps the brands culturally current without the waste economics of traditional fast fashion.

Long is pointed about the distinction. "We're certainly not fast fashion," he told Retail Dive. "Quality is really important to our brands." About 70% of inventory is repeat product - core styles with longer lead times, proven demand, reliable margins. The remaining 30% is the experimental edge, the test batch of 100 units, the cultural antenna. It's a hybrid model that's harder to execute than either pure fast-fashion or pure basics, but it protects margin while preserving trend relevance.