Reformation CEO Hali Borenstein on How She Made It

Hali Borenstein began working at Los Angeles-based sustainable-clothing model Reformation in 2014 as director of merchandising. Since then, she’s climbed the ranks, finally taking up the corporate’s high job in 2020. Now, the Miami native is concentrated on increasing Reformation’s bricks-and-mortar retail footprint internationally, together with a brand new Canadian flagship in Toronto’s tony Yorkville neighbourhood.

I’ve all the time been fascinated by how individuals use attire to outline themselves. I grew up in Miami, and after I was a younger teen I used to take the bus to the mall the place I might stroll up and down the aisles to take a look at the storefronts. Abercrombie & Fitch and Tommy Hilfiger had been actually massive at the moment. I discovered it so fascinating how placing on a shirt from one among these manufacturers was about a lot extra than simply carrying a shirt: It mentioned one thing about who you might be and who you wished to be. I had associates who saved up their total allowance to purchase a single product from one among these manufacturers. 

I obtained a standard liberal arts training at Duke, graduated in 2007, after which spent 4 years at Bain & Company as a marketing consultant. It was a terrific expertise, since I realized lots of the laborious abilities of business, like accounting and navigating revenue and loss statements. But I didn’t wish to be a marketing consultant long-term. I wished to be a doer on the planet of business—not somebody who handed off suggestions to others. 

In 2011, I went to Stanford Business School, the place I spent a whole lot of time considering laborious about management. There was a category known as Interpersonal Dynamics, typically recognized round campus as “Touchy Feely,” the place you’ll sit in a room and experiment with what sort of communication model you wanted to develop in an effort to encourage and persuade individuals. I knew then that I wished to be a people-focused chief—somebody who sees crew members as people somewhat than a collective, and tailors their administration model to swimsuit specific people. 

Coming out of business faculty, I struggled a bit to seek out my place. I knew I wished to work in retail, however when attire corporations noticed my background, they had been like, “Great, we’ll put you in our strategy group”—precisely what I didn’t wish to do. But I had connections on the children’ clothes retailer Gymboree, and so they took an opportunity on me as a senior merchandiser. I used to be there for less than a 12 months—not simply because the business was in decline, however as a result of the extraordinary deal with price slicing wasn’t consistent with my values. I had this second the place I believed, “Should a T-shirt cost only $2 to manufacture? How do we value the labour behind this product?” 

Yael Aflalo, the founding father of Reformation discovered me on LinkedIn. We began speaking, and in 2014, I made a decision to take the leap and turn out to be their director of merchandising. I cherished their deal with sustainability. From there, I transitioned to VP of merchandising, after which to president—and in 2020, I turned CEO after Yael stepped down [in response to accusations of racism]. 

It was a troublesome time to step into that function, however it pressured me to outline my very own strategy as a pacesetter straight away. Unlike my roles earlier than, I didn’t have anybody senior to me to run my choices by. One of the primary issues I did was conduct a company-wide inquiry about our values. Over a few months, we requested everybody from the company crew to people working at our shops: What values at Reformation have to be up to date? Diversity and inclusion clearly wanted to be on the forefront, alongside our current deal with sustainability. There’s no separating environmental and local weather justice from racial justice. We ran expert-lead inclusivity workshops for all staff, joined the Black in Fashion Council to assist promote and advance the careers of Black people within the style business, and advanced our advertising and marketing and imagery to ensure we higher represented everybody within the Reformation group. We’ve been working laborious on constructing our individuals crew, and it’s probably the most strong it’s ever been—within the final 9 months alone, we’ve doubled it in measurement. We nonetheless have a whole lot of work to do, however I’m very pleased with the strides we’ve made within the two years since I’ve turn out to be CEO.

International growth has been an enormous focus for me as properly. At one level this 12 months, over 1 / 4 of our business got here from outdoors the U.S., which is the results of our deliberate deal with Europe and Canada. We’re not taking our foot off the fuel there—and that’s a part of the rationale why we opened a Toronto flagship in Yorkville in December. 

We wish to give individuals a motive to buy in-store, somewhat than simply on-line, so we’re constructing out the infrastructure of our shops to assist a high-tech retail expertise. For instance, prospects can select which items they want to strive on utilizing iPads discovered across the retailer and in dressing rooms. 

I’m extremely motivated by our mission to convey sustainable style to everybody. I turned a mother whereas at Reformation, which made me really feel a fair larger sense of accountability for the atmosphere and our impression on it. It’s a false option to say that you would be able to both do the suitable factor or earn money. Businesses essentially must thrive and produce capital, however that doesn’t must battle with our mission. Showing you are able to do each is what actually conjures up me.