Lizanne Kindler and the art of coming back

Lizanne Kindler’s route back to Talbots began with a decision to leave it. In 2010, she walked away from a brand she loved because she disagreed with where it was going. The customers, the colleagues and the history mattered to her. The direction of the business had become harder to accept. She believed it was moving away from its core customer, and she could not bring about the change she wanted.

Two years later, she returned as president. Between those two moments sat a job at Kohl’s, an education in product development and a useful complication for anyone who likes a career to resemble a staircase. Sometimes the next step takes you out of the building.

Today, as Executive Chair and CEO of KnitWell Group, Kindler leads eight apparel brands. The job has grown considerably. The question underneath it remains recognizable: how do you help an established business move forward while keeping faith with the people who gave it a reason to exist?

The education of an eleven-year-old

The first American store in Kindler’s story belonged to someone else. At eleven, she traveled from Denmark to Washington, D.C., to visit her aunt, Hanne Merriman, who was president of Garfinckel’s. Her aunt took her to work. There were offices, buyers, designers and customers responding to clothes. Kindler saw the business from several sides before she had a job title for what interested her.

It was an unusually comprehensive introduction to shopping. Most children encounter a department store as a place where adults take too long. Kindler encountered one as a possible future. When she went home, she announced that she wanted to move to America.

Her training eventually included an economics degree at Copenhagen Business School and work in American apparel retail. Ann Taylor became a long chapter in that education. She worked on the early development of its ecommerce business and the launch of LOFT, gaining experience in a company that could speak to customers through more than one brand.

There is a practical connection between that early work and her current assignment. A new channel changes how a customer reaches a company. A second brand changes what the company is promising her. Both require a merchant to think beyond the individual garment.

Leaving the customer behind

Kindler joined Talbots in 2008 as senior vice president of merchandising. By 2010, her disagreement with its direction had become consequential enough to leave. Her next role, executive vice president of product development at Kohl’s, brought her closer to design, manufacturing and the mechanics behind the merchandise.

She has described the move as a period of learning. That detail gives the departure its weight. She carried a view about the customer out of Talbots, then acquired experience that would be useful if she ever had the authority to act on it.

The opportunity arrived after Sycamore Partners bought Talbots in 2012. Kindler returned as president that August and became CEO nine months later. The distinction matters: the comeback involved taking responsibility before acquiring the top title. A familiar business was now a different proposition.

Her account of the work is unromantic. The executive team was restructured. Priorities were set. Difficult decisions followed. She credits the turnaround to the people around her and to a renewed focus on the customer. A return makes a satisfying plot; getting the merchandise and organization right supplies the less theatrical daily work.

“You can’t possibly know everything... and that’s okay.”

Lizanne Kindler

That is one of her favorite lessons. It also explains something about the kind of authority she describes. A leader who can acknowledge a gap has a reason to hire people who fill it. The admission makes collaboration practical, especially when a company needs several kinds of expertise at once.

Eight brands, without a uniform

In August 2023, Sycamore announced KnitWell Group, bringing Ann Taylor, LOFT and Talbots together under Kindler. The company would also continue providing oversight and shared services to Lane Bryant. The arrangement gave a name and structure to an operating idea: brands could draw on a larger organization while retaining their particular relationships with customers.

Then the collection expanded. In January 2024, Chico’s, White House Black Market and Soma joined following Sycamore’s acquisition of Chico’s FAS. The addition brought more than 14,000 associates into the group. The expanded portfolio generated approximately $6 billion in annual sales.

Those numbers describe a larger collection of businesses. They also describe a larger set of decisions. Sharing a capability can make a company more effective. Sharing a personality is a trickier proposition. A customer does not visit a store to admire its parent company’s organizational chart.

KnitWell’s current portfolio includes Ann Taylor, Chico’s, Haven Well Within, Lane Bryant, LOFT, Soma, Talbots and White House Black Market. Their differences are part of the operating assignment. The group has to decide where shared resources make the experience better and where a brand’s own judgment should prevail.

Kindler’s experience gives that distinction a personal history. She once left an employer because she believed its connection with the core customer was being weakened. Now she leads an organization designed to support several such connections. Scale makes the principle more demanding to carry out.

At KnitWell’s third annual Holiday House in November 2025, those brands appeared together in a rather more sociable arrangement. More than 235 guests gathered at STORIED.NYC, formerly Annie Leibovitz’s studio, for winter collections, monogrammed white shirts and a life-sized advent wall. Kindler was photographed embracing Niki Taylor. Even the party offered a choice of brands. A corporate family can share a room without dressing alike.

The red door still opens

The scale of KnitWell can obscure the smaller geography of Kindler’s life. She is based in Hingham, Massachusetts, where Talbots began. She has spoken about walks with her husband, Tomas, and their two Vizslas, Bindi and Halie, on local trails. Her restaurant recommendations have included Tosca. Running a retail group does not eliminate the appeal of someone else making dinner. She named boar Bolognese as a favorite dish there in 2020, a recommendation considerably more specific than the usual executive enthusiasm for community.

Hingham also supplied the setting for Talbots’ seventy-fifth anniversary in 2022. Its original shop remained part of the town, complete with the familiar red door. The celebrations included a tree lighting, cookies and hot chocolate. Heritage acquired a pleasantly edible form.

Kindler’s reflections on the anniversary centered on people, including associates who had stayed with Talbots for decades. She also spoke about the brand continuing to evolve. That combination is the interesting part: longevity gives a retailer accumulated knowledge, but it still has to make something a customer wants now.

Her professional relationships extend beyond the stores. She serves as an executive trustee of the American-Scandinavian Foundation and previously worked with Babson College’s Women Innovating Now Lab and Syracuse University’s Whitman School advisory board. These roles place her alongside people building careers and businesses at different stages.

When she addressed fashion students at LIM College in 2023, she encouraged them to find mentors, take risks and steer their own careers. “Pursue your passion,” she told them. The rest of her advice made room for a crooked route. Given her own departure and return, she had a useful example close at hand.

Her curiosity also turns up in less formal company. After a lunch with Ina Garten, Kindler wrote about admiring the grit behind Garten’s career and her willingness to keep learning. Garten had described attending a cooking school in France with friends. Kindler enjoyed the idea that someone so accomplished would still put herself in the position of a student.

It is an appealing detail in a career usually expressed through company names and sales totals. The lunch supplied a reminder that experience and curiosity can coexist. Having an answer for yesterday’s problem gives a person somewhere to begin tomorrow.

A bigger table, the same question

The recognition has widened with the role. The American Apparel & Footwear Association selected Kindler as Person of the Year for its 2024 American Image Awards. In 2026, Berns & Co. and Women in Retail Leadership Circle included her among their 25 Most Inspirational Women Leaders.

January 2026 brought another responsibility: chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s board. The appointment puts a retail executive in a body designed to represent a range of business and community perspectives. It is a different table from a merchandising meeting, with a broader public remit.

At KnitWell, the next chapter is visible in new appointments. TIME chief executive Jessica Sibley joined the board in June 2026. Kindler welcomed her experience helping an established brand evolve while preserving the qualities its audience valued.

In September, Angelica Munson became chief digital and customer data officer. Her remit includes customer insights, personalization, digital marketing and AI-enabled marketing tools. The appointment gives the group another means of understanding the people its brands serve. The practical test will be how those capabilities improve each customer’s experience.

Kindler’s story keeps returning to that level. An eleven-year-old saw customers responding to clothes. A merchant left when she thought a brand was losing its way. A returning president took on the work of bringing it back. Now eight brands sit within her brief, each with customers entitled to expect that someone remembers why they came.