fashion
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Shana Davis-Ross Knows What Happens After the Post
Before a creator’s name appears on a product, someone has to help the idea survive the calendar. Shana Davis-Ross built Ponte Firm around that part of the job.
Jean-Marc Zarka changed careers. The address came first.
After a career at fashion brand Vertigo, Jean-Marc Zarka turned a longtime attachment to the Hamptons into a real estate business. His listings tell a story of taste, changing spaces and two American coastlines.
Jens Grede and the business of being in the know
Before SKIMS, there were magazines, an advertising agency and a pair of jeans. Jens Grede’s career follows a persistent question: what makes people care enough to buy?
Michael Mente and the business of a good time
Before REVOLVE became a fixture of the influencer economy, Michael Mente was studying what people typed into search boxes. His next discovery was that people could be as revealing as the data.
Adee Drexler and the art of being invited in
She helped Sofia Richie Grainge open the door to millions of viewers. At Infinity Creative Agency, Adee Drexler has built a career around knowing when a relationship is ready for its close-up.
Julia Kisla Taylor Knows Who Should Be in the Room
From Poltava to The Lions, Julia Kisla Taylor has built a career connecting creative people to opportunity. Her work with models, Ukrainian designers and Indigenous women artisans asks who gets seen - and who gets a say.
Gwyneth Paltrow and the business of having taste
An Oscar made Gwyneth Paltrow famous. A newsletter gave her a different kind of authorship. Eighteen years into goop, she is still testing how much of a life can become a business.
Edmond Harary and the business that began at 62
His father entered the hosiery business at 62. Edmond Harary joined him, and four decades later leads a company whose work stretches from socks to footwear, handbags and home.
Dedy Shwartzenberg and the strange return of the fitting room
He left finance for fashion, built Adika, and started again with Edikted. His next bet puts a generation raised on the scroll in front of an actual mirror.
Ryan Glick and the Business Hidden in a Coffee Break
A photograph of coffee and an outfit became a hashtag, then a café, then CNC Agency. Ryan Glick’s next job is learning how to let a company grow beyond the person who started it.
Playboi Carti Learned to Make Silence Loud
For a decade, the Atlanta rapper has made absence feel like promotion and his voice feel like a new instrument. Then Music arrived with 30 tracks and a chart record that made the quiet years look carefully scored.
David Epstein
David Epstein is President and CMO of the Sportswear Division at Q4 Designs LLC, a New York apparel firm that designs, sources, and builds sportswear and outerwear for brands like DKNY, Reebok, Jessica Simpson, and Steve Madden. He climbed from a retail store manager on the sales floor to running a division inside one of the garment district's busiest design-and-sourcing houses, spending more than two decades learning apparel from the ground up.
David J. Katz
David J. Katz is Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer and self-styled 'Alchemist in Residence' at Randa Apparel & Accessories, one of the world's largest apparel and accessories companies, home to brands like Levi's, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Haggar and Dickies. He blends data, neuroscience, behavioral economics and storytelling to understand and influence consumer behavior across roughly 1,200 employees and more than 20,000 retail touchpoints worldwide. A LinkedIn Top Voice, co-author of the best-selling 'Design for Response,' and a frequent speaker at Shoptalk and NRF, he is a widely cited voice on retail, marketing and the arrival of AI in the store.
Jack Reynolds
Jack Reynolds is the Chief Marketing Officer of Free People and its activewear offshoot FP Movement, both part of Philadelphia-based Urban Outfitters, Inc. (URBN). He was promoted to the CMO role in April 2021 after several years running e-commerce and digital marketing for the brand, and before that spent roughly 13 years at Bertelsmann Media Group managing online and direct programs. He studied English and Philosophy at Dickinson College and originally wanted to work in music as an A&R representative, drifting into marketing while figuring out how to promote artists. Under his marketing leadership, FP Movement has grown from a single 2020 store into a fast-expanding activewear label, backed by campaigns like the 2024 Anomaly-created "Stand Out, Never Still" (starring a pink sheep named Tilly and five Olympic hopefuls) and the 2025 signing of snowboarder Bea Kim as the brand's first winter-sports ambassador ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Jill Beraud
Jill Beraud is an American consumer brand executive who has spent more than three decades building and running some of the best-known names in retail, beauty, luxury and beverages. She began in brand management at Procter & Gamble, ran her own New York advertising agency, then spent 13 years at Limited Brands, where as Chief Marketing Officer of Victoria's Secret she helped grow the label into a multi-billion-dollar business and also led marketing across Bath & Body Works, Express, Henri Bendel, C.O. Bigelow and Limited Stores. In December 2008 PepsiCo created the role of worldwide Chief Marketing Officer for her, reporting to Indra Nooyi; there she pushed the company away from Super Bowl spending and into the $20 million Pepsi Refresh Project, and later ran the Starbucks and Lipton joint ventures. She went on to serve as CEO of Living Proof, EVP of Global Retail Operations at Tiffany & Co., and CEO of the luxury jewelry house IPPOLITA, before co-founding the plant-based functional beverage company Sh'nnong. Fast Company named her one of its 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2013. She has sat on the board of Levi Strauss & Co. since 2013, was re-elected in April 2026, chairs the Fashion for Good board, and has served on the World of Children Board of Governors since 2009.
Mark Shami
Mark Shami is a New York entrepreneur and designer who turned a childhood spent behind the counter of his father's Diamond District jewelry shop into The M Jewelers, one of North America's largest online personalized-jewelry brands. A former touring pop musician who started out selling graphic tees, he launched The M Jewelers in 2014, built it into a multi-million-dollar direct-to-consumer label with collaborations spanning Nike and Live Nation, and earned a spot on the Forbes 2019 30 Under 30 list for Art & Style. He now also serves as Chief Marketing Officer of GUIZIO, the women's fashion label founded by designer Danielle Guizio.
Vivian Alhorn
Vivian Alhorn is Chief Marketing Officer at Torrid, the plus-size apparel retailer serving women in sizes 10 to 30. She joined Torrid in 2021 as VP of Digital Experience, was promoted to Chief Digital Officer in 2022, and stepped into the CMO seat in March 2023. Her career has moved through some of the country's most recognizable specialty retailers, including Gap Inc., Banana Republic, Pottery Barn, Sephora and Gymboree, giving her a rare mix of merchandising, ecommerce and brand fluency.
Vanessa Wallace
Vanessa Wallace is the Chief Marketing Officer of GLD, the Miami-based lifestyle jewelry brand known for its ties to sport, music and street culture. A former CMO of Savage X Fenty and a 19-year Nike veteran who led Jordan Brand marketing in North America, Wallace built a career on storytelling, cultural relevance and championing overlooked communities. She joined GLD's board in August 2025 and stepped into the CMO seat in early 2026.
Aaron Heiser
Aaron Heiser is the first-ever Chief Executive Officer of Malbon Golf, the Santa Monica streetwear-meets-golf brand founded by Stephen and Erica Malbon. Appointed in October 2024, he runs day-to-day operations while the founders steer creative as co-Chief Creative Officers. Heiser arrived after roughly 18 years at Nike, where he ran retail across Western Europe and Greater China before serving as Global VP of Apparel, Accessories and Licensing. A Cornell graduate and former varsity wrestler, he has built a career relocating across Amsterdam, Shanghai and Oregon, and now leads Malbon as it pushes toward roughly $100 million in revenue and deeper international expansion.
Maria Intscher-Owrang
Maria Intscher-Owrang is the co-founder and CEO of Simplifyber, a Raleigh-area materials startup that molds cellulose-based liquid directly into finished textile and composite parts, eliminating spinning, weaving, cutting and sewing. After more than two decades designing for Vera Wang, Calvin Klein, Dirk Bikkembergs and Alexander McQueen, she left luxury fashion to rebuild manufacturing from the fiber up, landing partnerships with GANNI and Kia and a $12M Series A led by Suzano Ventures.
Felipe Cortina
Felipe Cortina is the co-founder and co-CEO of Jimmy Lion, the colorful sock brand he launched in New York in 2014 with fellow ex-banker Alvaro Gomis. A Madrid native who traded an investment-banking career for an NYU Stern MBA and then for a single product nobody else seemed to take seriously, Cortina turned the most forgettable item in a wardrobe into a design object sold in more than 30 countries and on the shelves of El Corte Ingles, Galeries Lafayette and El Palacio de Hierro. He also chairs his family's Vallegarcia winery in Toledo.
Nell Diamond
Nell Diamond is the founder and CEO of Hill House Home, the New York lifestyle brand she launched in 2016 from her dorm at Yale School of Management. She built it on luxury bedding and turned it into a cultural phenomenon with the Nap Dress, a smocked, sleep-soft dress that went viral during the pandemic and once sold $1 million of inventory in 12 minutes. A Princeton English major and daughter of former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond, she traded a finance career for a brand built on community, drops, and her own waist-length-haired, ruffle-forward aesthetic. Hill House raised $20 million in 2022 at a reported $150 million valuation.
Bobby Farahi
Bobby Farahi is the co-founder and CEO of Dolls Kill, the San Francisco alternative-fashion brand he built with his wife and co-founder Shaudi 'Shoddy' Lynn after the two met at a Los Angeles rave. A serial operator who earlier founded and sold the broadcast-monitoring company Multivision, Farahi turned a stack of foxtail keychains in an apartment into a Sequoia- and Maveron-backed e-commerce label for self-described 'misfits and miss legits.' He also invests as an angel in e-commerce and lifestyle companies.
Shauna Drumright
Shauna Drumright runs Savage X Fenty, the inclusive lingerie brand Rihanna built. A subscription-commerce operator who cut her teeth at Procter & Gamble before spending years scaling TechStyle's JustFab and FabKids, she stepped into the CEO seat to turn a celebrity launch into a durable, data-driven retail machine. Her brief: keep the body-positive swagger that made the brand famous while making the math work across membership, stores, and a sprawling product range.
Ciaran Long
Ciaran Long is the CEO of a.k.a. Brands Holding Corp. (NYSE: AKA), a portfolio of next-generation fashion brands targeting Gen Z and millennial consumers. A qualified Irish Chartered Accountant with 25-plus years of financial and strategic leadership, Long joined a.k.a. Brands as CFO in 2021, stepped into an interim CEO role in 2023, and was named permanent CEO in January 2025. Under his leadership the company returned to net sales growth with three consecutive quarters of double-digit U.S. sales expansion, repositioning the portfolio around a demand-driven 'test-and-learn' merchandising model and a major bet on physical retail expansion. He previously served as CFO of Samsclub.com and held senior roles across Walmart's e-commerce division, and earlier in his career he co-founded CleanGrow, a water quality sensor technology startup.
Michelle Gass
Michelle Gass is the president and CEO of Levi Strauss & Co., the first woman to lead the 172-year-old denim company. A chemical engineer by training, she built Starbucks' Frappuccino into a $2 billion brand, ran Kohl's for five years, and is now reshaping Levi's into a direct-to-consumer denim lifestyle retailer.
Karla Gallardo
Karla Gallardo is the Co-Founder and CEO of Cuyana, a San Francisco-based sustainable fashion brand built on the philosophy of 'fewer, better things.' Born in Ecuador and educated at Brown University and Stanford GSB, she co-founded Cuyana in 2011 with Shilpa Shah to create timeless, high-quality women's essentials through ethical, transparent supply chains. Under her leadership, Cuyana has grown to 160+ employees, raised $44.8M in funding (including a $30M Series C), and built a loyal customer base that includes Meghan Markle and Jessica Alba. The company achieves a remarkable 90% full-price sell-through rate — rare in fashion — and has been recognized for pioneering sustainable luxury retail in the U.S.
Emma Chamberlain
Emma Frances Chamberlain is an American YouTuber, podcaster, and entrepreneur who reshaped vlogging at 16 with jump cuts, sarcasm, and bad lighting, then turned a one-girl bedroom show into a coffee company with a Century City flagship, a Spotify-exclusive podcast (Anything Goes), and a recurring perch on the Met Gala carpet for Vogue. She is a brand ambassador for Louis Vuitton, Cartier, and Lancôme.
Kenneth Chan
Kenneth Chan is a serial internet entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO of Tobi, a women's fast-fashion e-commerce brand based in South San Francisco. Chan built Tobi from the ground up as a vertically integrated fashion-tech company capable of taking a garment from sketch to delivery in under eight weeks. With roots in the dot-com era — having co-founded Everyone.net (a top-50 website with 25M+ users) and scaled Connexus/Netblue to a $100M internet marketing firm — Chan brought Silicon Valley engineering discipline to the traditionally analog fashion industry. Tobi serves customers across 100+ countries with trendy women's apparel, leveraging proprietary e-commerce infrastructure and data-driven trend forecasting. Chan was named an Apparel Magazine 2019 Top Innovator for his work reimagining mobile commerce at Tobi.
Lori Coulter
Lori Coulter is the co-founder, CEO, and President of Summersalt, the St. Louis-based direct-to-consumer swimwear and apparel brand built on data from 1.5 million body measurements. She turned a pre-teen concession stand hustle into a generation-defining brand that has sold over 4 million garments, raised $30M+, and landed in Vogue, Elle, and Forbes. She now serves as an Operator Advisor at Redbud VC and adjunct faculty at Washington University's Olin Business School, championing equitable venture funding for female founders.