From College Dropout to Running Polo, Nike, Weight Watchers, and HSN | Mindy Grossman

Harley Finkelstein (00:00:00):
You've probably heard that we become the sum of the five people we spend the most amount of time with. Well, what if the five people for you are Phil Knight, Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Barry Diller, and Oprah? These are the people that Mindy Grossman has worked with and worked for over her 45-year career. She's not someone you may have heard of before, but after you listen to this interview, you're going to see her fingerprints all over some of the most iconic companies on the planet.

David Segal (00:00:31):
Mindy Grossman knows how to affect change.

Harley Finkelstein (00:00:34):
Oh, yeah.

David Segal (00:00:35):
She understands culture. I learned so much about how to build a culture through your actions from Mindy and all these tips that I would never have thought of, but were incredible and had such impact on the people around her.

Harley Finkelstein (00:00:46):
She talks about these rules that she's created throughout her 45-year career. Things like the Winnie the Pooh Rule, which once you hear it and you're like, yeah, that makes, there's so much sense.

David Segal (00:00:54):
I love the Winnie.

Harley Finkelstein (00:00:54):
But she talks about how she's been able to navigate the intricacies of working with Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger, and then why she left Nike and why she decided to stop being the CEO of the Home Shopping Network working for Barry Diller, taking the company public to go to Weight Watchers and work with Oprah. And she talks about what each of these people taught her about running a big company with great culture. She is exemplary, she is ambitious, she is everything we love about great entrepreneurs.

David Segal (00:01:25):
Yeah, and then early in her life, I mean, everything's going according to plan and she makes this enormous change and the stakes were high. And she tells us all about that and I think that took an incredible amount of courage.

Harley Finkelstein (00:01:37):
It's unbelievable. She also talks about this one word that her mother taught her that she believes summarizes and really tells the story of her life, which is be-share it, it was meant to happen. But in many ways she didn't just let things happen on her own, she made stuff happen. She saw opportunities, she saw the landscape, and she took these very big bets and it paid off. And she has built and then rebuilt some of the companies that have shaped our current economy.

David Segal (00:02:04):
She is one of the most, well-spoken, best storytellers I've ever heard. Ladies and gentlemen, Mindy Grossman.

Song (00:02:11):
Started from bottom, now the whole team here. Started from the bottom, now we here. Started from the bottom, now my whole team in. Started from the bottom, now we here. Started from the bottom, now the whole team here. I done kept it real from the jump. Living at my mama house we're argue every month. [inaudible 00:02:29].

Harley Finkelstein (00:02:29):
So Mindy, I want to ask, I want to start here. Merona, Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Chaps, Ruff, Polo Jeans, Nike, Home Shopping Network, Weight Watchers, and now private equity. How does someone who started at one point as an admin assistant even have this incredible career? What do you attribute this incredible journey to?

Mindy Grossman (00:02:51):
So the way I always describe it is my CEO journey started when I was three days old. And the reason for that is my mom, her father died when she was three and mother remarried. But then when she was in high school, going into her senior year of high school, her mother had a stroke and she had to leave high school and take care of her. My father finished high school, went into the Air Force, they got married when she was 18, he was 22, and all they wanted was a child. That was their dream. My father worked nights my whole life growing up, but my father worked nights in the produce business and they couldn't afford to adopt a child. So 12 years went by and they still hadn't had a child.

(00:03:40):
My father went into work one night at midnight because he sent the trucks out, and his boss was there and he goes, he got a little nervous, and then his boss came over and said, "Donnie, we think so highly of you, and were devastated that you and Elaine have gone so long." And he handed my father an envelope and in the envelope was a check with the money to adopt a child, and I'm the child.

Harley Finkelstein (00:04:09):
Wow.

Mindy Grossman (00:04:09):
So I was adopted when I was three days old. My parents were very observant Jews, my grandparents lived with them. My grandfather came home from work every night in [inaudible 00:04:21] and that's how I grew up. But from the moment I can remember, my mother and my father said to me, "We've been given a gift, but you've been given a gift, and you need to use that gift."

David Segal (00:04:35):
Which is not necessarily common for adopted kids, right?

Mindy Grossman (00:04:38):
Correct, and they said, "You can do anything you want. There is nothing that can be in front of you that you can't achieve." And so I grew up just believing that. I was pretty serious growing up because I was going to deliver what my parents wanted, and went through school and finished high school as a junior. Went into college and got engaged when I was 19, and I was going to be a lawyer, and it was all set, and I didn't even know what a CEO was. Growing up, my parents expected me to be a professional. So it meant a doctor, a lawyer, or an accountant.

David Segal (00:05:30):
In that order, I bet.

Mindy Grossman (00:05:31):
Yeah. Definitely didn't want to be a doctor. Definitely didn't want to be an accountant, so it was going to be law. And then literally going into my senior year of college, I blew everything up. I had an epiphany that this might have been what I wanted three years ago, it's not what I want today, and if I don't make the change now, I don't know what it's going to mean. I have to, I have to.

David Segal (00:06:02):
What triggered that? I mean, was there a moment you remember, how did that epiphany come?

Mindy Grossman (00:06:06):
Well, I say that I woke up one morning, of course, I'd been thinking about it for some time. And I was exposed to so much once I got into school, beyond my parents and beyond our small community and seeing what business was and seeing what the world was, and having different experiences and said, "I want to be in business and I need to figure this out." So imagine calling your stereotypical Jewish parents and going, "I have something to tell you. I'm breaking my engagement, I'm not getting married. I'm not going to law school in the fall, and I'm leaving school right now and I'm moving to New York."

Harley Finkelstein (00:06:50):
You're not going to be a lawyer and you're not getting married. It's like married for a Jewish parent, I mean, it's-

Mindy Grossman (00:06:54):
I'm moving to New York, yeah.

Harley Finkelstein (00:06:54):
And moving to New York.

Mindy Grossman (00:06:56):
Before I finished my degree, and that's what I did.

David Segal (00:07:00):
Did they try to, what did they say?

Mindy Grossman (00:07:02):
Well, what happened was they were living in Florida at the time, and so I went down to Florida before I moved to New York to organize everything, and I remember my parents driving me to the airport when you could put the car very close to the plane, this is like in 1977. And my mother said, "You'll be back in six months." And she didn't mean it mean.

David Segal (00:07:26):
Sure.

Mindy Grossman (00:07:26):
She just was like, "You'll get over it." And needless to say-

David Segal (00:07:32):
You didn't.

Mindy Grossman (00:07:33):
47 years later I didn't, and I moved to New York.

Harley Finkelstein (00:07:37):
What was that first moment in New York like for you? Was it everything you thought it'd be? Was it exciting and exhilarating?

Mindy Grossman (00:07:43):
So think of New York in 1977, that was the year Studio 54 opened.

Harley Finkelstein (00:07:47):
That's right, yeah.

David Segal (00:07:47):
But it's also at the same time, stagflation, not good times, necessarily.

Mindy Grossman (00:07:52):
Oh, yeah, yeah, but I didn't know any better. I felt that I was, even when I grew up on Long Island and going to New York was like a present.

David Segal (00:08:02):
Sure.

Mindy Grossman (00:08:02):
You'd go to see a movie. So I had never... I had interned at a couple of businesses in the city over the summers, but I knew that I wanted to be in a business that had a significant element of creativity attached to it. And what I thought is, I may not necessarily be the creator, but I want to be in the business of making creativity successful. So I decided that there were two potential areas I wanted to look at. One was fashion and one was publishing and media, and at the time it was the magazine world.

Harley Finkelstein (00:08:41):
Hearst and companies like that.

Mindy Grossman (00:08:42):
Yeah, everything, but the only young women they were hiring in those jobs were the society girls of New York, which I definitely was not. I moved to New York with maybe $1,800.

Harley Finkelstein (00:08:56):
Yeah, you were Long Island, you were different. Yeah.

Mindy Grossman (00:08:57):
I had no legacy, no money, etc, and but I had to get a job because I had an apartment. And so I started interviewing in the fashion business and I went for an interview to be the executive assistant to the president of a menswear and accessory portfolio business called Manhattan Industries, and Fred Rothstein was the CEO of international. So I go through the whole interview and at the end of the interview he said, "Do you take shorthand?" I said, "But no, I take fast longhand," and I got the job.

Harley Finkelstein (00:09:41):
He must have loved that.

Mindy Grossman (00:09:41):
So this day-

Harley Finkelstein (00:09:42):
He probably liked that you were so quick on that. Yeah.

Mindy Grossman (00:09:44):
Exactly. No, but to this day, I say I've never been 100% qualified for any role I've ever taken.

Harley Finkelstein (00:09:49):
Including that one.

Mindy Grossman (00:09:51):
But you have to be creative around it.

Harley Finkelstein (00:09:52):
Of course.

Mindy Grossman (00:09:53):
So that was really-

Harley Finkelstein (00:09:54):
But you got your foot in the door and that I think was what you were intending to do.

Mindy Grossman (00:09:55):
Exactly, that was really the start of my career.

Harley Finkelstein (00:09:59):
At this point, your parents have now accepted that you're not going to be a lawyer, you're not getting married, you're moving to New York. Are they beginning to digest this in a way that makes them feel more comfortable or are they still like, oh my God?

Mindy Grossman (00:10:14):
It went in phases. Phase one is, when are you going back to finish school? And I said, "We'll figure that out." Then when I turned 26, I got a very big promotion, as I was VP of sales for Jeffrey Banks menswear, that was also pre, post the group that did Merona sport, etc. And I got this big promotion and I said to my parents, I said, "Look, I'm doing really well in the industry. I don't really feel that going back is what I necessarily need to do. I can potentially do it at some point at the same time, but I think it would interfere with the progression of my career." So they understood that.

Harley Finkelstein (00:10:58):
Did they appreciate that you're 26 and, like 26 years old, a woman in New York in the fashion industry. I mean, you're kind of killing it in life here. You're doing great. Did they appreciate how unique that was?

Mindy Grossman (00:11:09):
They really did. They were always very proud of me, but they went from harping on, when are you going to finish school, to, when are you going to go get married?

Harley Finkelstein (00:11:18):
To a nice Jewish boy.

Mindy Grossman (00:11:20):
That became a bigger priority.

David Segal (00:11:21):
Wow, interesting.

Harley Finkelstein (00:11:22):
But wait, let's back up a sec, because most people when they get hired as an executive assistant aren't thinking, wow, I've done it, I'm in. Right? I mean, I don't think everybody goes into that job necessarily sees it as an opportunity to really grow within a company. What triggered that for you?

Mindy Grossman (00:11:38):
So I have a different perspective on things. My whole life is I describe, I have this three-word mantra. Passion, purpose, and impact. Am I passionate about it? Is it purposeful for this time in my life? And will I have impact? And I believe you can have impact at any point in your career, in your life. You don't wait till you have a platform. Now, as your platform grows, you better use it-

Harley Finkelstein (00:12:11):
Wow.

Mindy Grossman (00:12:12):
And you better.

David Segal (00:12:12):
But even as an executive assistant, you can bring passion and impact.

Mindy Grossman (00:12:15):
I said, "I'm going to do more," and when I think of certain elements of my job and now I'm going to really age myself. So one of the things I had to do was send the ITT telexes out every night.

Harley Finkelstein (00:12:30):
Before fax machines.

Mindy Grossman (00:12:31):
And if it didn't go through, I stayed there, it didn't matter what time until that went through. I asked to do more. I asked to go to their sales meeting, and that's how I ended up transitioning into sales, but not at that company because unfortunately a woman was not going to get a role there, so.

David Segal (00:12:54):
On that note, did they dislike your ambition?

Mindy Grossman (00:12:57):
I don't think it was disliking ambition. I think it was just the culture-

Harley Finkelstein (00:13:02):
It wasn't the way it was done.

Mindy Grossman (00:13:03):
At the time, it was a rowdy boys club in sales. And so I ended up, one of the suppliers that I had met through my role said, "Well, there's another company and there's this young designer named Jeffrey Banks. He was with Ralph for a very long time, and he's with this Enro shirt company and maybe you can work for Enro." And he introduced me. I hadn't met Jeffrey yet, and Enro hired me as a junior sales associate. But during lunchtime, I also had to fill in for the receptionist. One day I'm sitting at the receptionist desk and Jeffrey Banks walks in and he's sitting there and he's watching me. And we are still close friends to this day.

Harley Finkelstein (00:13:51):
Nice.

Mindy Grossman (00:13:52):
And I'm at the reception desk but I'm also on the phone with the salesman in the field. I'm going through the inventories, I'm suggesting different things if something was sold out. And unbeknownst to me when he went in for his meeting, he said, "I want the woman at the front desk to work for me."

Harley Finkelstein (00:14:15):
Cool.

Mindy Grossman (00:14:15):
And the next day I find out that I've been made a sales executive.

David Segal (00:14:21):
For Jeffrey?

Mindy Grossman (00:14:23):
For Jeffrey.

David Segal (00:14:24):
Wow. All because you brought passion, impact to whatever role, and somebody noticed.

Harley Finkelstein (00:14:30):
What's interesting though is one of the things that we've read a lot about you and the term keeps coming up, the Yiddish term, is Besheret. And there's a little bit of this tension here because Besheret, which sort of means meant to be, doesn't necessarily line up with, get shit done, make it happen. In many ways, there are some people that believe things are kind of meant to be, and there are other types of people that kind of go and make things happen for themselves. You clearly go and make things happen for yourself, but yet you also believe in this idea of Besheret. How do you reconcile those two ideas?

Mindy Grossman (00:15:05):
Well, I don't think they're mutually exclusive.

Harley Finkelstein (00:15:07):
Okay.

Mindy Grossman (00:15:09):
Growing up, my mother, it was her word, which ultimately became my word.

Harley Finkelstein (00:15:14):
Your word.

Mindy Grossman (00:15:14):
so-

Harley Finkelstein (00:15:15):
How would she use it? How would she use [inaudible 00:15:16]?

Mindy Grossman (00:15:16):
So a boy would break up with me, it's Besheret he wasn't good enough for you. Right? Something great would happen. It's Besheret, you worked for it. And I think because of that, my whole life, I've never looked backwards, I only look forward. And look, I'm not a regret person. Do I believe that sometimes I would've liked a better outcome? Yes, but then you move forward. And I think that has been an attribute for me because the combination of that and believing that risk-taking is a critical part of certainly my life and my career, and that in many cases, not taking a risk is riskier than taking that risk and pivoting and figuring out what to do.

David Segal (00:16:07):
That's so interesting. Most people wouldn't think about the cost and the risk of not taking the risk. Can you talk to us a bit about that?

Mindy Grossman (00:16:16):
So I think that it's even more critical now than ever before, especially in a very uncertain environment. But the other thing I also say is you have to understand the difference between risk and suicide, right? What risks you're taking is going to be very relevant to where you are in your life, what type of risk it is, what you are willing for the outcomes to be. But if I look at my career and a lot of the risks I have taken, if I didn't take them, I wouldn't be where I am today.

(00:16:50):
And the one example I use often, I was working for Tommy Hilfiger, who is an amazing human, we're still friends to this day. I had been working for Willi Smith, who was an incredible designer, but unfortunately he died of AIDS in that period, and I went to work for Tommy.

Harley Finkelstein (00:17:12):
How'd you get there?

Mindy Grossman (00:17:13):
Right When Silas Chou and Lawrence Stroll bought the company, I'd been introduced and I went to be head of sales and merchandising, and the company was a rocket ship. Okay? And I had my daughter when I was working there, about the same time Tommy had his son. And I was probably in my third year or so and I kept getting a phone call, "Mindy, can you go run and turn around Chaps, Ralph Lauren? Go work for Ralph Lauren." And I said, "I'm with the hottest company that's out there, and it's doing extremely well. No." Finally, after about the fourth time, the recruiter said, "Would you just go meet with Ralph?" And I said, "Okay, no harm done. I'm going to go meet with Ralph." And I went and met with Ralph, and I kind of flipped a bit and got excited.

Harley Finkelstein (00:18:13):
I mean, Ralph Lauren, right?

Mindy Grossman (00:18:14):
As much as I loved Tommy, there were no, no, zero women running a menswear company in the industry. There weren't a lot of women running women's wear companies. And I said, "I can stay here, the company's scaling, but I'm not going to be the next CEO. I'm looking at this Chaps business. It's a complete turnaround, but I know exactly in my head what I think needs to happen." And it was a division of a company called Warnaco, run by a woman who was on the cover of Forbes or Fortune as toughest bosses in America.

David Segal (00:18:52):
Oh, God.

Mindy Grossman (00:18:53):
Okay?

David Segal (00:18:54):
So what did Ron say to you?

Mindy Grossman (00:18:57):
And I just believed that I could really do this and I still felt that Ralph was iconic, and this business could be his most aspirationally accessible business, and it was my opportunity to be a CEO. So when I made the decision to do it, everyone thought I was insane.

Harley Finkelstein (00:19:22):
Of course.

David Segal (00:19:23):
And was that directly after your meeting with Ralph? I mean, take us into the room there. What did Ralph say to you to really sway you?

Mindy Grossman (00:19:29):
He gave me his vision for what it could be, and we were aligned on that, and I felt that I could do it. And if somebody didn't go in there and turn that around, there wouldn't be a business, and he knew that. And he said, "I think you could do this." So it was that moment for me. So I went in and literally everyone's like, "What are you doing? You're with a hot company." And I go, "No." So we ended up taking the business from $20 million, losing money, to $200 million, making a lot of EBITDA in three years.

David Segal (00:20:11):
Wow.

Harley Finkelstein (00:20:11):
What was the key there? Was there something you did?

Mindy Grossman (00:20:11):
Well, within that timeframe, I also took over the rest of the entire menswear portfolio for the company. Hathaway shirts, Puritan accessories, all of that. But my thesis was that what Chaps, Ralph Lauren needed to be, it needed to create a new category of menswear called Main Floor Collections. So in the department store realm at the time, on the main floor in men's, you had classification. The shirts were with the shirts, the knits were with the knits, the pants were in pants. And then once you got to the higher end, you had the designer collections. And I said, "Well, for the stores that can't have the designer collections, the more moderate stores, we could be the Ralph. We could be the collection. For the stores that had the higher end. We will create a new category of business on the main floor called Main Floor Collections," which gave us a differentiation, gave us a shop format, and that's what completely turned around the business, including completely turning around the product.

David Segal (00:21:24):
Why do you think that worked?

Mindy Grossman (00:21:27):
Because it didn't exist, and what I always say to people is, you have to have the confidence, especially if you're doing things that people don't see yet. And whether it was my leaving Tommy to go to Chaps or when I left Nike to join Barry Diller and do Home Shopping Network. And if you're in the reinvention mode, you're seeing something that people don't see yet. And a lot of people are going to question it until they have the proof point of it's done, and that's okay. That's okay, but to me the excitement is to see what's not there yet and to create new boundaries and to do things that haven't been done. That's the exciting part, and that's what I did at Chaps.

(00:22:23):
Now, after three years my contract was up, everybody wants to renew the contract. I was doing incredible for my age, certainly.

Harley Finkelstein (00:22:33):
How old are you at this point?

Mindy Grossman (00:22:35):
I was probably 33.

David Segal (00:22:38):
Wow. With a young daughter?

Mindy Grossman (00:22:41):
With a young daughter, and interesting enough, I also talk about that. I made the decision once I had my daughter that I was never going to bifurcate my life. So many women at that time thought they had to be two different people, their work person and their family person. I said, I have a hard enough time being womanly, nevertheless, trying to be two. So I said I'm just going to try and set an example, so I'd bring my daughter to work, or I'd leave early because I had to do something. And I worked like crazy anyway.

(00:23:15):
But what happened was the environment was toxic. The CEO was very disrespectful. The environment was not where you wanted to be. And the company was getting a reputation for that. Not me, and not in my environment because I was treated differently because I was protected because of how I was doing at Ralph. But I said, "I can't work for someone and in an environment that doesn't value others, and if I stay here any longer, I feel that I will be complicit to be here."

David Segal (00:23:58):
Wow.

Mindy Grossman (00:23:59):
And I went home that night, and I said to my husband, "I'm resigning tomorrow. I don't have another job." I needed to work, but I know I'm doing the right thing because this is about my values.

Harley Finkelstein (00:24:14):
It's like your mom said, was Besheret.

Mindy Grossman (00:24:16):
Exactly.

David Segal (00:24:16):
What'd they say the next day when you went in?

Mindy Grossman (00:24:19):
Well, I went in and I asked to speak to the CEO, and after about 10 minutes, she goes, "Are you resigning?" I said, "Yes." She said, "You either have another job, you're independently wealthy, or you're stupid." I said, "Or D, none of the above." And I was escorted out by security that afternoon.

Harley Finkelstein (00:24:36):
Wow.

David Segal (00:24:36):
Wow.

Mindy Grossman (00:24:37):
And I'm standing on Park Avenue between like 37, 38th going, "I just did that."

David Segal (00:24:42):
Wow. Yeah, so what are those emotions? I mean, this is the second time in your life.

Mindy Grossman (00:24:46):
I know.

David Segal (00:24:47):
You've now put it all out on a limb.

Mindy Grossman (00:24:49):
I said, I know I did the right thing because who I am as a person and my values are more important. And the next day, Ralph called me and said, "Look, we're devastated you're leaving, but if you're going to go anywhere, you're going to work for us. And we don't even know exactly so we're going to make you head of new business development and you will work on identifying businesses or categories that we should go into." And I said, "Yes."

Harley Finkelstein (00:25:19):
It sounds quick, like go create your own job, almost.

Mindy Grossman (00:25:22):
So I did that for a year, and I looked at a number of different businesses, but I worked on the business plan, found the licensee to start Polo Jeans Company, which was a big opportunity.

Harley Finkelstein (00:25:36):
Can you explain that a little bit? So Polo Jeans, at this point, there's Polo Ralph Lauren, but there's not really a denim, right?

Mindy Grossman (00:25:43):
Correct. They had done Double RL, which was brilliant at the time, but did not sustain itself. Right? They may have been ahead of its time and it was more niche, and I said, there is an opportunity beyond the Calvins and beyond the Tommys, where we can really own that aspirational, accessible position where we're still Ralph Lauren, we're Polo, but we're going to own the denim category. We're going to create shops, we're going to create environment, we're going to do new things in that category. And then they came to me and said, "Well, we want you to be the CEO." And the licensee wanted me to be the CEO. So I left, and I now joke around that I now know what it's like to do a startup because I did a startup, but I had somebody else's money behind it.

David Segal (00:26:39):
But why was it-

Harley Finkelstein (00:26:41):
It's like venture capital.

Mindy Grossman (00:26:41):
I didn't have to spend the time fundraising.

David Segal (00:26:44):
But why wasn't it a startup? I mean, why wouldn't... Presumably this is just the jeans category within Ralph Lauren, why did they feel the need to?

Mindy Grossman (00:26:52):
Well, this was a separate licensee, separate licensed business, and it was very different from development, from a manufacturing, from a marketing, from consumer lifestyle. And it really needed to be built as a separate company in order for it to be successful. Different capabilities and just different strategies.

David Segal (00:27:21):
Did that excite you, versus had he have come to you and said, "Go run jeans for us?" Yeah.

Mindy Grossman (00:27:26):
Well, I love the idea of building something. I've always loved growth and transformation and building and those sort of things. I love building culture, especially because I had great experiences and I had not great experiences. And one of the quotes that's always attributed to me is, culture trumps strategy. It doesn't mean you don't have a strategy, but if you don't have an engaged, aligned, and passionate culture, you're not going to build for the long term.

Harley Finkelstein (00:27:57):
Although there is something interesting about on the cultural side, which is that I've heard you describe yourself in some cases as sort of intrapreneur, sort of an entrepreneur within a company. There's also this interesting connection, and you mentioned this a bit with Ralph Lauren, where Ralph says, "If you're going to leave, fine, but you're going to come, you're going to stay within the Ralph Lauren ecosystem."

(00:28:18):
One of the things that I find remarkable about your story, Mindy, is that as you go through it, you have this relationship to the founders of these things. I just wrote down a few names. I mean Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Oprah, Barry Diller.

David Segal (00:28:31):
Phil Knight.

Harley Finkelstein (00:28:32):
Phil Knight. I mean, these are some of the most incredible, iconic, legendary founders on the planet. Some of them, and I know some of them personally, they're not that easy to work with. But you have not only found a way to work with them, but really develop this amazing relationship with them. What is it about these visionary founders that made you want to work with them and also made your ability, what made you so successful in that sort of type of situation?

Mindy Grossman (00:29:00):
I would say that the experience I've had working for visionary founders has truly been one of the greatest gifts of my career. To really be with visionaries who see and who believe and who build cultures and who drive change, and that's why I say, I use the intrapreneur word because I've always worked with entrepreneurs from a very early age, and it's defined a lot of what I've learned throughout my career.

David Segal (00:29:41):
Talked earlier about you enjoy developing creative. What do you think are the differences, right? You have the creative, then you got to bring the creative to life. How do you fit into that equation?

Mindy Grossman (00:29:54):
So I love surrounding myself with creative talent, whether that's on the design side, whether that's on the marketing side, and whether it's on the sales side, right? People who are going to look through the lens of, what am I doing that is going to excite the consumer? What am I doing that's going to bring value? What am I doing that's going to be disruptive, in some cases, and it's going to define a new definition of things? And I always like to say the reason I've been successful is I have focused my career on making other people successful and surrounding myself with talent that I can support. Because if I do that, they will be more successful, the company will be more successful, and I will be more successful. And no one, no one, is phenomenal at everything. You figure out what your superpower may be, and then you make sure you surround yourself. And I'm fortunate, and because of who I've worked for my whole career, that I love this idea of visioning, and envisioning what it could be, and then putting the strategy together purposely to lead up to executing against that vision.

(00:31:23):
And even today, people ask me what boards I'm on, for example, and they think I'm going to be on these very big corporate boards. All my boards are visionary founders. I've been on the board of Fanatics with Michael Rubin for seven years, Ben McKean at Hungry Brew, startup, Herself Health. And you really see what motivates and help people can create things that didn't exist. You take Fanatics, to go have the vision to go from I'm a commerce business in sports with fans, to, I am going to build the largest sports platform in the history of global sports. That's a pretty big-

Harley Finkelstein (00:32:10):
Big one, big jump, for sure.

Mindy Grossman (00:32:12):
... statement.

Harley Finkelstein (00:32:12):
For sure.

Mindy Grossman (00:32:12):
Right? And that's what they're doing.

David Segal (00:32:14):
With vision, does it always start there? I mean, we were talking about my competitors, the two kids in a garage right now, Harley was saying, right? So how do you find... I mean, you've worked for so many of these visionaries. Does the vision always start with this grand vision?

Mindy Grossman (00:32:31):
Not always. Sometimes the vision starts with a spark of an idea. And when I, I loved being at Nike, it was one of the most incredible experiences. Phil came back in 1999, 2000. The company had really taken a shift after he left, they had a lot of issues, everything from labor practice to faulty marketing and a lot of things. And he came in and he put in a whole new executive team. And he... You get a call from Phil Knight, right?

Harley Finkelstein (00:33:10):
You got to take the call.

Mindy Grossman (00:33:11):
And I always said there's three companies at the time I always wanted to work for. Ralph Lauren, Nike, and Disney. So I worked for Ralph, I worked for Nike, and I had a six-year partnership with Disney when I was at HSM. But I get the call and it was to run their global apparel business. And I would be the first person hired from the apparel industry to run the apparel business, because it was mostly-

Harley Finkelstein (00:33:34):
Meaning, it was all sneaker people?

Mindy Grossman (00:33:35):
Yes.

Harley Finkelstein (00:33:35):
Okay.

David Segal (00:33:37):
Wow.

Mindy Grossman (00:33:37):
And I actually had to call back and turn the job down. I had tears in my eyes, because for many reasons, I couldn't move to Portland. Parents were older, a lot of issues. And he called me back and he goes, "Mindy, what do we have to do to make this work? We'll do what we have to do to make this work." So I ended up sitting down with my husband, my daughter, who was about eight at the time, and my nanny, who was our nanny for 20 years, and said, "Guys, can we make this work?" And everybody said, "We'll work to make it work."

Harley Finkelstein (00:34:09):
It's Nike.

Mindy Grossman (00:34:10):
So for six years I did this crazy commute between New York and Portland. I was out of the country 30% of the time.

Harley Finkelstein (00:34:17):
Wow.

Mindy Grossman (00:34:18):
But it was an incredible experience. And when I left Polo Jeans, it was because Jones New York had come and inquired the company, and I knew that wasn't going to work for me.

Harley Finkelstein (00:34:31):
And they just acquired Polo Jeans?

Mindy Grossman (00:34:34):
Jones New York acquired Polo Jeans Company.

Harley Finkelstein (00:34:35):
So the thing that you had built from nothing got acquired as an individual brand, an individual company. That must've felt pretty amazing.

David Segal (00:34:40):
Because of the founder.

Harley Finkelstein (00:34:41):
Yeah.

Mindy Grossman (00:34:41):
Yeah, we actually were hoping, we were planning to take it public and then-

Harley Finkelstein (00:34:46):
On its own, wow.

Mindy Grossman (00:34:46):
... they came in with a bid, but I felt it wasn't going to be the right thing for me.

Harley Finkelstein (00:34:53):
Right, yeah.

David Segal (00:34:54):
What was upsetting? You wanted to go public?

Mindy Grossman (00:34:56):
Yes, but you know what it's like with investors?

Harley Finkelstein (00:35:01):
Well, that's-

Mindy Grossman (00:35:02):
Somebody comes in with a really big bid.

Harley Finkelstein (00:35:03):
That's right, you say yes to it.

Mindy Grossman (00:35:03):
Those things happen.

David Segal (00:35:05):
A lot of people don't want to go public, right? Because they don't want that level of scrutiny and [inaudible 00:35:08]-

Mindy Grossman (00:35:08):
Well, this was in 1999, so it was a little-

Harley Finkelstein (00:35:11):
Yeah, pretty good time to go public.

Mindy Grossman (00:35:13):
A little different time of year.

David Segal (00:35:14):
Fair enough

Mindy Grossman (00:35:15):
Time of life.

David Segal (00:35:15):
Yeah, right.

Mindy Grossman (00:35:20):
And it was the right timing for me. And I felt that yes, I was running, we took the company from zero to almost $500 million in four, five years. But I said, this opportunity at Nike is an iconic global brand. I will get an MBA in marketing, clearly, right? It's a multi billion-dollar business that has a lot of growth potential. I'll be the most senior woman in the organization on the executive team, and I ended up starting their first women's leadership council and doing a lot of work around diversity, etc.

(00:36:00):
But again, after six years, my daughter was going into a later year of high school, my parents were failing, I needed to get back. And I remember going in and telling Phil, and the reason I got there is I'd been recruited for a number of jobs and I contemplated and literally had a contract on my desk for a big position in luxury. And I had another one of my crazy epiphanies, and I remember I was in the office in my apartment, and I screamed Neil, my husband, who's so used to me at this point, and I go, "Neil, you need to come here." I go, "I can't sign this." He goes, "What do you mean? You've been to Paris twice, this is luxury. Like this is me," I go, "I can't." I said, "I might like to wear it, but I love touching a lot of people. I love aspirational accessibility. I want brands that touch a lot of people. I can't do this."

(00:37:07):
So I had to call the recruiter. I said, "I have something to tell you." Luckily it was a friend. I said, "I can't do this." She said, "Okay." She goes, "What do you want?" I said, "Well, I'm going up to my house." We had a house in the Hudson Valley, which we've had for 27 years. I go, "And I'm going to completely write down everything that I want." So over the weekend, I'm a notorious list maker. I think through, I now call it a purpose filter. I didn't know enough to call it that at the time. And I call her up and I go, "Okay, here's what it is." I said, "I've spent the last six years really seeing what's happening with mobility in all these countries around the world, and it's not in the US yet. So I want a business that's going to take advantage of what's going to be happening with mobile. Consumers are going to be consuming content in a very different way. Brands are becoming distribution captive, so younger, smaller brands can't be found. It's a much more competitive atmosphere. I don't want a startup, I want a company of size. I love transformation, I want to get back to the East Coast, and I want to be a CEO.

Harley Finkelstein (00:38:27):
Just those things?

Mindy Grossman (00:38:28):
He said, "Is that all?" I got, "Yes, you asked me and that's what it was."

Harley Finkelstein (00:38:31):
And the Venn diagram overlap of all those things was going to be your perfect job.

Mindy Grossman (00:38:35):
Exactly.

Harley Finkelstein (00:38:35):
Unbelievable.

Mindy Grossman (00:38:36):
And about a month later or two, I can't remember, she calls, she goes, "I have it." She goes, "You need to have lunch with Barry Diller, and you need to run IAC retail." I said, "Well, I'd love to have lunch with Barry, but what the hell is IAC retail?" I'd never heard of it. And she said, "Well, it's Home Shopping Network and a whole portfolio of catalog brands and a shopping network in Germany and whatever." I said, "Okay, give me two weeks, because even if I don't want to do it, I want to have lunch with Barry and I want to be able to give him my thesis on the business."

Harley Finkelstein (00:39:18):
Yeah, by the way, another legendary founder type, right?

Mindy Grossman (00:39:21):
Oh, yeah.

Harley Finkelstein (00:39:21):
Oh, that you're obviously attracted to, right? These are-

Mindy Grossman (00:39:25):
But with Barry-

Harley Finkelstein (00:39:26):
Oh, I know Barry. It's like, yeah.

Mindy Grossman (00:39:28):
You better have a point of view, right?

Harley Finkelstein (00:39:28):
For sure. Although frankly, I mean, you're talking about people, I also know Lawrence and Silas. I also know Ralph a little. These are people that are tough mother fuckers.

Mindy Grossman (00:39:37):
Yeah, but they're also visionary and smart.

Harley Finkelstein (00:39:39):
Yes.

Mindy Grossman (00:39:40):
And so there I am watching Home Shopping Network.

Harley Finkelstein (00:39:45):
Did you ever watch it before?

Mindy Grossman (00:39:46):
No.

Harley Finkelstein (00:39:46):
Okay.

Mindy Grossman (00:39:47):
I'm watching the competitor, QVC, and I'm flipping channels back and forth. And at the time, this was around 2006, I also loved Food Network, which at the time was more really around cooking versus contests, right? And so I'd go back and I'm watching and I'm like, oh my God, what would I do? There's people screaming at you to buy things and the product is not-

David Segal (00:40:12):
It's a hard sell.

Mindy Grossman (00:40:13):
All of a sudden, I go back to Food Network, I'm watching and I click on Home Shopping Network and Wolfgang Puck was on, and he was amazing. He was engaging, he was funny, he was demonstrating product, he was showcasing, he was showing his expertise, and I was mesmerized and I wanted to buy that product. And this light bulb went off in my head that this is what needs to happen. And I don't know, it just came to me. I said, "It needs to be editorial program commerce. It needs to be like Food Network, HGTV, DIY style, but you can buy the product."

David Segal (00:40:59):
Right, it's sharing the passion, was that really the-

Mindy Grossman (00:41:02):
Yeah. I said it's storytelling. It's storytelling, and it's the storytellers and they have to be authentic. It's not selling you something. So I go to the Four Seasons restaurant to have lunch with Barry, and as I'm having lunch, Michael Bloomberg's stopping by and this one's stopping by. And I literally sat there and you guys can appreciate it because you've done it. I pitched him like a VC. I said, "This is what it needs to be." I went on a whole thing and he said, "Go forth." Barry, yeah.

David Segal (00:41:35):
But hold on, this time you're running a clothing division at Nike. You've had some incredible wins at Nike. It's an amazing company.

Mindy Grossman (00:41:45):
And now I'm going to a complete turnaround. I was the eighth CEO in 10 years.

Harley Finkelstein (00:41:50):
Wow.

David Segal (00:41:51):
Right.

Mindy Grossman (00:41:51):
I had no television experience, no media experience, limited digital experience. I didn't have experience in a lot of the other categories of business, that [inaudible 00:42:02].

Harley Finkelstein (00:42:01):
Is this another one of your moments? Is this, Besheret, or yeah?

Mindy Grossman (00:42:05):
Yeah, it was Besheret. I said, "But I see it. I see it." Well, if you can imagine when it got announced that you are the queen of the castle when you are at Nike, you go to a cocktail party, people, who do you work for and what do you do?

Harley Finkelstein (00:42:19):
Nike, wow. Yeah, it's amazing.

Mindy Grossman (00:42:21):
Yeah, and now I'm going to Home Shopping Network.

Harley Finkelstein (00:42:25):
Like, what is going on here?

Mindy Grossman (00:42:26):
Which people are like, "What?" And I remember going to a cocktail party and someone comes up to me and goes, "I've shopped at Home Shopping Network." Why are you whispering, right? And that's when I realized when you're in transformation, when you're turning around a business, what you see from the outside, once you get in and I tell people this, it's always going to be worse. You're going to find something. And I remember it was going to be my first day of work and I was showing up at the campus for the first time. I had never seen the Home Shopping Network campus in St. Petersburg, Florida. And my head of HR said to me, "What do you want to do on your first day?" I said, "Well, what does anybody else do on their first day?" She said, "Well, they go to employee orientation." I said, "Well, I'm going to employee orientation." She goes, "Really?" I go, "Really, because I want to experience it."

(00:43:23):
So I show up and I get into this big conference room and there's like 25 other people, and you go around the room. What do you do? I'm in backstage TV, I'm a merchant, I'm in the call center. What do you do? I said, "I'm the new CEO of Home Shopping Network." And it's spread like wildfire. I spent the day in the call center, backstage TV, learning everything about the business, with the creative team.

Harley Finkelstein (00:43:51):
Wow.

Mindy Grossman (00:43:52):
So by the time I did my first town hall the next morning-

Harley Finkelstein (00:43:57):
You knew everybody.

Mindy Grossman (00:43:58):
... they felt it was different, because when you are the eighth CEO in 10 years, they're waiting for you to go.

Harley Finkelstein (00:44:03):
And I bet you the previous seven never did anything like it. Did not connect the same way, did not put them through onboarding. I mean, you were clearly different.

Mindy Grossman (00:44:12):
I knew I had to do something that was a jolt.

Harley Finkelstein (00:44:17):
Is that-

Mindy Grossman (00:44:18):
That made people believe this was going to be different.

Harley Finkelstein (00:44:21):
Right.

David Segal (00:44:22):
I mean, you say you put culture first always, right? Is that how you do culture? Is it always by demonstrating, by doing through your actions?

Mindy Grossman (00:44:31):
Oh, definitely, but in this case, the culture was frozen. I always say if anybody read Great Expectations, Ms. Havisham with the cobwebs, right? Because they were just waiting for the next person to go, the place was in disrepair. There was no pride, right? And I always use this example, and when I said whispering, it's the barbecue example.

(00:44:59):
So you're in your neighborhood and your neighbor invites you over for dinner and he has a bunch of people there, and someone goes, "Who do you work for?" Do you go, "I work for HSN, it's an amazing company. We're changing what shopping is going to be like, or do you go, "I work for Home Shopping Network." And it's the pride in how people feel about what they're doing and the part that they're taking in it. And that's what I had to revive there to make people believe.

(00:45:28):
And I remember saying at my first town hall, why I joined and why I believed and what we could do. And I said, "But I'm going to tell you there are three type of people in this room. There are the evangelists. You are so excited that someone's coming in and saying, I believe this. You're there." There's the wait and see. You've been through a lot-

David Segal (00:45:52):
Eighth and 10 years.

Mindy Grossman (00:45:53):
Let's wait and see. And that's okay, but you're going to have a timeline and then there are the blockers and you're not going to be here because we together are going to build this. And I think everyone kind of understood that.

Harley Finkelstein (00:46:13):
Sure, because they can sort of self-identify what bucket. I mean, we read something sort of what I think is now famously called your Winnie the Pooh metaphor.

David Segal (00:46:24):
I love that.

Harley Finkelstein (00:46:24):
Which is that you look for Tiggers, not Eeyores. And as I was thinking about it, you're absolutely right. You cannot have blockers. The blockers, you can be skeptical, you can be unsure, uncertain, but at some point you either get on the bus or you don't.

Mindy Grossman (00:46:41):
It is so true, and I think too many companies, and in some cases leaders, right? There's someone on their team that may be brilliant and they're doing a great job and making money for them, but they are toxic. They are negative. They're creating spin. You're losing people because of them.

Harley Finkelstein (00:47:05):
Good people.

Mindy Grossman (00:47:05):
Right. The longer you keep them, the more devastating it's going to be. You have to get rid of toxicity. I don't care how fabulous a job that person is doing, because ultimately, you are going to lose every dollar you may have gotten from that person.

David Segal (00:47:25):
How do you find, how do you identify it in the early days when you waltz into this company to try and change the culture?

Mindy Grossman (00:47:33):
You can easily identify toxicity, and that's why you have to be someone, and you have to surround yourself with a team that has really good listening skills. So they know what's happening under the surface, because if you have someone like that, the people under them, fear is not a motivating factor at all. Actually, it is a negative to moving forward in business, because if people have fear, they won't take risk. If people have fear, they won't say what they're really feeling or thinking, they'll be afraid to speak up. That is a disaster, and so you can't be like that. You have to create an environment where people feel safe, they feel valued, they feel that they can do what they need to do in their role, and they're trusted to be able to do that, and they're going to support other people because no one doesn't notice it.

Harley Finkelstein (00:48:39):
Yeah. On the topic of feeling valued, one thing that we read that we loved was that I think you'd bought something like 2,500 Herman Miller chairs at HSN. And we're in a sort of quasi-tech office right now, at Shopify you see these chairs everywhere. It's a small thing, but it means a lot because most people spend most of their day sitting in a chair. And so this idea that someone cares enough about the chairs you're sitting on, to replace them, to me seems at least at this stage, somewhat obvious.

David Segal (00:49:13):
Well, but not just that. I mean, the company's not doing well.

Harley Finkelstein (00:49:16):
Well, exactly. The company's struggling right now.

David Segal (00:49:18):
[inaudible 00:49:19].

Harley Finkelstein (00:49:18):
So talk to us about, it may seem like a small thing replacing the chairs, but I think it's a huge signal. Can you talk about that?

Mindy Grossman (00:49:25):
I needed the signal, and to your point, I couldn't afford to renovate this huge campus, and but I'd walk around and it was in disarray, things, it was messy. And I also noticed that it was broken chairs and mismatched chairs. And it also goes back, you want people pride in what they do and how they're treated. And so I'm like, what am I going to do? And I walked into a room and I stared at the chairs and I said, "I know what I have to do." So it was a Friday, so I made a call to the CEO of Herman Miller, and I said, I think it was 4,000, actually.

Harley Finkelstein (00:50:14):
Wow, yeah.

Mindy Grossman (00:50:15):
A lot of chairs. And I said, "I need these chairs."

Harley Finkelstein (00:50:21):
And these are like $1,000 chairs, right?

Mindy Grossman (00:50:22):
Right. They're like, "Okay," and it was a Friday, and I brought seven dumpsters into the campus. I gave everybody the day off, unless you were in the live TV, that never stops.

Harley Finkelstein (00:50:37):
That's right.

Mindy Grossman (00:50:38):
Because it's a 24/7 business. We plan the business average weighted dollars per minute, okay? So you're live, and said, "We are going to clean everything." I had the walls all power washed, and I did as much as I possibly could. And then Monday morning when everyone came to work, all the old chairs were gone and all the new chairs were there.

David Segal (00:51:05):
Wow, they delivered over the weekend, 4,000 chairs?

Mindy Grossman (00:51:07):
Well, no, I had given them time before I picked this day.

Harley Finkelstein (00:51:11):
Yeah, the Friday was the day.

David Segal (00:51:13):
What was the reaction?

Mindy Grossman (00:51:14):
That was the day I had probably 800 emails thanking me-

David Segal (00:51:18):
Wow.

Mindy Grossman (00:51:18):
... for these chairs, that you care about us and we have pride. And over time, the campus became like Disneyland. I had pink flamingo golf carts. But it meant something to people, that they cared about them as humans, and they wanted them to be successful, and they wanted the business to be successful. And when we did all the work to go okay, what we were going to relaunched the business as? And I think it took about a year, and it just turned out that July, almost like a year later was the 30th anniversary of the business. I said, "We're going to use that moment to relaunch as HSN." And the tagline when we relaunched was, "There's no place like HSN."

Harley Finkelstein (00:52:17):
Amazing.

Mindy Grossman (00:52:18):
And I said, "But before we can launch to the consumer, I've got to get our team so excited. And I always believe your culture and your team have to be your first advocates, because ultimately, they're also consumers. They have to have the belief. And we erected this giant tent on campus, and we had thousands of people and there was a manifesto on every chair of what we were going to be. And it was a multimedia presentation, and I think that was in October. And then the actual launch to the public-

David Segal (00:53:00):
World.

Mindy Grossman (00:53:01):
... the television network, the marketing also, was July of that year, and it was unbelievable. It just took off.

Harley Finkelstein (00:53:09):
It's amazing.

David Segal (00:53:10):
Was there a moment where you're like, they don't need to whisper about HSN anymore?

Mindy Grossman (00:53:15):
It was when we launched.

David Segal (00:53:16):
There was that, you knew it then.

Mindy Grossman (00:53:18):
It was when we launched

Harley Finkelstein (00:53:19):
In many ways, as someone that my entire life has been spent around retail and commerce, Dave's too. What HSN sort of did was it created a new way for shopping to exist. We all sort of talk about things like TikTok shopping today, or social media commerce, which we power quite a bit of it in Shopify, but in many ways, HSN was sort of the OG of that. HSN were the ones that conceptualized the idea that you're not sure if it's content or if it's an ad, or if it's a shopping channel. You're kind of confused by it, but it's all delightful.

David Segal (00:53:57):
Just entertainment.

Harley Finkelstein (00:53:57):
Or it's just entertainment. It was so dense.

Mindy Grossman (00:54:00):
And that was like that first realization to me with Wolfgang.

Harley Finkelstein (00:54:03):
That's right.

Mindy Grossman (00:54:04):
Right? Like-

Harley Finkelstein (00:54:04):
Like, what this, am I watching a show, or?

Mindy Grossman (00:54:06):
But the other thing that, and it's still today, it's still today. I spent probably my first months there living in a production booth. Okay, because you plan the business by minute and you have a chart, right? So you're paying dollars per minute, margin per minute, a new customer acquisition per minute, right? What we do today in digital, right?

Harley Finkelstein (00:54:33):
Sure.

Mindy Grossman (00:54:33):
And you'd be sitting in the booth and there'd be a chart. So there'd be a host and a guest. You were having a conversation about a product, the tea kettle, whatever it is, and you're seeing a graph of sales. Then all of a sudden you'll see the graph spike. Well, what was that moment that made someone make a decision that they're going to buy the product?

David Segal (00:54:58):
Yeah, what was sad? What was... yeah.

Mindy Grossman (00:55:00):
And at the end of the day, it's not somebody screaming at you to buy something. It's somebody articulating what this product is, what need it's going to serve, and what it's going to do for you in your life. And it could be a 60-inch television, or it could be a fabulous pair of fun trousers that are just going to be comfortable and fit into your life. But what is that moment? And what you really realize is its human behavior, it is purely human behavior. What makes something all of a sudden become the thing that everybody wants? Because it's doing something for them. And I learned so much about that, and that's what marketing is today if you think about it.

Harley Finkelstein (00:55:52):
Totally.

Mindy Grossman (00:55:53):
That's what-

Harley Finkelstein (00:55:54):
Well, the best marketing, I think.

Mindy Grossman (00:55:55):
Yes, yes.

David Segal (00:55:55):
I think it's always been, I mean, it's the moment of truth.

Mindy Grossman (00:55:59):
So you look at the evolution of direct response marketing. It used to be, and by the way, it's still plenty of it, somebody on TV screaming at you to buy something, but wait, there's more. But then there's the world today where you can have brand and you can make people want something.

(00:56:21):
I use the example of Farmer's Dog, for example. There's an emotional part of it, and you want that in your life and you want that for your dog. So there's two ways of looking at something, and what we were trying to do was intersect the worlds of entertainment and fun and emotion, into the shopping experience. And that's what made it so fun. And actually, about five years after we launched, we-

Harley Finkelstein (00:56:58):
Relaunched.

Mindy Grossman (00:56:58):
We relaunched. I called everyone together and I go, "It's time for phase two. So right now, there's no place like HSN, why?" And we did a lot of work around this, and we had a second kind of campaign and launch, and it was HSN, it's fun here. This is a place for community, this is a place to build people, and this is a place where people can come and even if they can't buy, I want them to come, and I learned that. So we relaunched the business in July, and in November at 9:00 at night, my phone rings in my apartment and my husband said, "Barry's on the phone." And I go, "Well, when Barry's calling you at 9:00 at night, this is either really good or really bad."

Harley Finkelstein (00:57:53):
Or really bad.

Mindy Grossman (00:57:55):
And he gets on the phone, he goes, "Mindy," he goes, "You've done an unbelievable job. The business is on a trajectory. It's time." And I knew what he meant. It's time to spin out of IAC because it had really become more of a technology company. We were the only company that had inventory in the company.

Harley Finkelstein (00:58:13):
And that was sort of Barry's model also, right?

Mindy Grossman (00:58:15):
Yes, yes.

Harley Finkelstein (00:58:15):
Incubate, and then, yeah.

David Segal (00:58:16):
But when you transform a company and you bring in an entire new way of doing things, you don't necessarily throw out all of the old.

Mindy Grossman (00:58:23):
No, you don't.

David Segal (00:58:24):
So people buy for different reasons, right? So what was it that you took with you from Home Shopping Network's legacy?

Mindy Grossman (00:58:32):
So, what was really important to me when we were relaunching, we wanted to take our existing customer and bring her with us, but we wanted to attract new. And the expression I use consistently with brands, it's okay to be provocative. Don't ever be polarizing. Bring people along with you. Give them a little, okay, what is this going to be like? But never be polarizing, and that was really important to me. This was a legacy business that had people who were very passionate about it. We just weren't giving her kind of more of what she wanted, an excitement. We were kind of underestimating. And so now we could move forward, and that's when we did our partnership with Sephora, our partnership with Scoop at the time, our partnerships with so many celebrities, and then ultimately, entertainment. But we always brought the consumer along with us and gave her a new reason. And so when he said that, I was incredibly excited.

Harley Finkelstein (00:59:47):
You were.

Mindy Grossman (00:59:48):
Incredibly excited, because we could really chart our own path and look at our investments, and Barry was a huge supporter. And so, great, right?

Harley Finkelstein (00:59:58):
Yeah, yeah, I'm in.

Mindy Grossman (00:59:59):
Well, fast forward, my CFO, who also happened to be a woman, Judy and I, are on the road in the summer of 2008. And we took HSNI public, which was the HSN business, and we had a whole portfolio of catalog businesses like Frontgate and Ballard Design and Grandin Road and Garner Hill, in August 2008, two weeks before the Lehman bankruptcy.

David Segal (01:00:28):
Whoa.

Mindy Grossman (01:00:30):
So until COVID, I thought that was going to be the crisis I had to live through. And-

David Segal (01:00:36):
Tough one to say it's for sure.

Mindy Grossman (01:00:38):
First time public company, CEO, new board I had never worked with before, but a business that I felt had tremendous opportunity. And I said, "You know what? We're going to lean into this." And I remember going to the board and say, "Look, we'll have to make some hard decisions. I think we'll definitely have some issues in our really high price point businesses, given what's going on with the consumer. But I think we can grow HSN during this time. So here's where I can make hard decisions, but here's what I have to protect. I have to protect our innovation lab that was doing all the work around mobility and content. I've got to protect my consumer base. I have to make her feel, even if she can't spend, I want her to be with us." And I did get the support of the board, but it was a very intense year because you were less living it minute by minute.

Harley Finkelstein (01:01:38):
And you're in a lockup at this point anyway, so you can't... I mean-

Mindy Grossman (01:01:41):
Correct, correct.

Harley Finkelstein (01:01:42):
Yeah.

David Segal (01:01:42):
And the stock's probably crazy.

Mindy Grossman (01:01:44):
We couldn't even get coverage. Right?

Harley Finkelstein (01:01:45):
Of course, yeah.

Mindy Grossman (01:01:46):
So I said, "We are going," and the good news is that HSN grew in 2008 and 2009. Some of the other businesses had a challenge, but coming out of it, we were able to accelerate. And we ended up, because we protected that innovation engine, we were the first retailer to do video commerce on an iPhone.

Harley Finkelstein (01:02:12):
Wow.

Mindy Grossman (01:02:12):
And so we were able to come out of it, and I think there were studies done of how businesses manage themselves in that particular time period, and the businesses that still leaned in and said, "What do I want my business to look like coming out of this?"

Harley Finkelstein (01:02:27):
On the other side.

Mindy Grossman (01:02:28):
"What do I need to do? I kind of have some air cover if I have to do it." Then the businesses that just hunkered down and just stayed nascent, they didn't do well. The other businesses are the ones that did. It was a very interesting case study.

Harley Finkelstein (01:02:44):
The Tigger businesses, not the Eeyore businesses. Right?

Mindy Grossman (01:02:46):
Yeah, no, it's true.

Harley Finkelstein (01:02:47):
That's right.

David Segal (01:02:47):
COVID was the same.

Harley Finkelstein (01:02:48):
Yeah, yeah.

Mindy Grossman (01:02:49):
COVID was the same.

Harley Finkelstein (01:02:49):
Yeah. So at what point do you leave HSN and why?

Mindy Grossman (01:02:53):
Yeah, so it was an amazing, amazing experience. I was in my 11th year and we were going-

Harley Finkelstein (01:03:03):
This is the longest stint you've done?

Mindy Grossman (01:03:04):
Yeah.

Harley Finkelstein (01:03:04):
Pretty much.

Mindy Grossman (01:03:05):
Yeah, and it's a long stint, even for a CEO.

Harley Finkelstein (01:03:09):
For sure, anyone.

Mindy Grossman (01:03:10):
And so I was going to be come, chairman, we were going to put a new CEO in, and then this voice in the back of my head-

Harley Finkelstein (01:03:18):
The Besheret voice.

Mindy Grossman (01:03:19):
Yeah. I had gotten very, very interested in where the consumer was going because I had great people running the business. So I kept looking at, what's next, what's next? And I started spending a lot of time in the health and wellness area. Technology was investing in it, venture, everything that was happening in health and wellness. And at the same time, I was looking at the health and wellness trajectory of the world, which was not in a good standing. I started doing some health and wellness shows on HSN and I thought to myself, I think I want to do one more thing. But if I do one more thing, I want it to have human impact and financial impact. I don't want to go work for a not-for-profit. I was on the board of UNICEF at that point, I'm now on the board of the American Heart Association. That part of my life will always be there, but I think I'd be very interested in something in the health and wellness space.

(01:04:24):
So while I'm going through that, I'm watching the news one morning and I saw that Oprah had joined Weight Watchers as a board member, as an investor. And never thinking I would be there. I said, "That's really interesting." And my husband, he was in the financial world. I said, "Buy some of the stock. Just interesting." Six months later I see and I read that they had parted ways with their CEO. And I said, "Interesting." About two weeks later, I get a call from a recruiter, "Mindy, do you want to go run?" It was a big iconic jewelry company, and I said, "You know what? The world doesn't need another piece of jewelry." I said, "But don't you have the Weight Watchers search?" And she said, "Yes." I go, "Why haven't you called me?" She goes, "Mindy, you run much bigger business. It's in a category completely different. You're been running this and it needs a lot of work." She goes, "Are you interested?" I said, "I don't know if I'm interested. I'm curious."

(01:05:31):
And with that, they said, "Well, would you go and spend a day with Oprah?" I said, "Well, my daughter's about to have a baby, her first child." I said, "So I can say yes and pick a date but just beware if I can't. And I'm also about to become the Chairman of the National Retail Federation, so I have to be in New York at this point." I said, "But okay," So I end up getting on a plane and flying to California. We spent a day together and before going there, I had written a manifesto of what I thought this business could be. Now to tell you the truth, my first Weight Watchers meeting, I was 13 years old with my mother, and my mother had obesity problems her whole life. She didn't take care of herself. She had her first heart attack at 50.

Harley Finkelstein (01:06:21):
Wow.

Mindy Grossman (01:06:23):
And I remember going with her in 13, and all I cared about was, I should lose a little weight because I want to be a cheerleader. But I had the experience and I said, "This is an iconic brand and it should mean more than what it is today. It should be not just the number one leader in weight loss, but it should be about sustainable health and wellness and living your best life. Like what my mother never did." And I said, "Here's what it could be," and everything down to we can inspire people and do events and all these things. And she and I were very aligned, I came back, met with the other people on the board and said, "Okay."

David Segal (01:07:07):
And so it was, Oprah didn't own the company, but she [inaudible 01:07:12], yeah.

Mindy Grossman (01:07:11):
No, no, but she would be a very strategic partner.

David Segal (01:07:13):
Yeah, right.

Harley Finkelstein (01:07:14):
Shareholder.

Mindy Grossman (01:07:14):
As would the board and investors and all that. And I said, "All right, this is going to be a ride." So now imagine this gets announced. Now at this point, people just thought I had a midlife crisis. They were like, okay, she has lost it. Right?

Harley Finkelstein (01:07:31):
And your husband's following along, he's ride or die?

Mindy Grossman (01:07:35):
He is so used to me.

Harley Finkelstein (01:07:36):
Okay, he's just ride or die at this point.

Mindy Grossman (01:07:37):
And now not only that, but we were living in Florida and now he was going to have to move back to New York.

David Segal (01:07:42):
Well, it feels like another barbecue whisper test, right?

Mindy Grossman (01:07:46):
It was, it was, but that's what-

Harley Finkelstein (01:07:50):
Wow.

Mindy Grossman (01:07:50):
... we did and it was an incredible, incredible experience. I'll have Oprah in my life forever. She was an amazing partner and we did amazing things in what we wanted to do with the brand.

(01:08:05):
And then we ended up doing, she called me one day and goes, "I'm ready. We're going to bring this out to the masses." And we did incredible nine-city arena tour, 20 to 40,000 people per arena from morning till end of day, having an entire day of people rethinking what they wanted their life to be. And people would come in and they'd leave changed, and she did that and we put this on. And it started January 6th, 2020, and the finale was March 7th in Denver-

Harley Finkelstein (01:08:50):
Right before COVID.

Mindy Grossman (01:08:50):
... 2020.

Harley Finkelstein (01:08:51):
Crazy.

Mindy Grossman (01:08:53):
And I remember flying back to New York on Sunday, and on Wednesday I had to shut our offices down. But I said to my team, at the time we had 30,000 physical workshops a week in 13 different countries. And I said, "Here's what we have to do. We cannot leave our members without each other." I said, "Let's focus on them. Yes, I know there's tremendous financial implications of what's going to happen with COVID, but let's keep our focus on humanity."

David Segal (01:09:34):
Customers first.

Mindy Grossman (01:09:36):
And I remember calling Eric Yuan at Zoom and corporately, we were a Zoom company and I go, "I need your help." And we took all areas of the company from the product and tech teams, to the operations teams, to the culture teams, and in six days we relaunched every single one of those meetings virtually in 13 different countries.

Harley Finkelstein (01:10:01):
Wow.

Mindy Grossman (01:10:02):
And we knew we weren't going to get new customers into the physical environment because there were none.

Harley Finkelstein (01:10:10):
But you took care of existing ones.

Mindy Grossman (01:10:11):
They would go into digital, so we would have, because it was a significantly higher membership. So I said, "We're going to have some financial challenges," but this saved the company and-

David Segal (01:10:25):
Right now, that feels-

Mindy Grossman (01:10:26):
... we gave people their community. So, I got-

David Segal (01:10:29):
But that feels obvious now sitting here knowing what actually transpired. But let's go back to that moment. People were thinking, I remember at the time Harley was like, I think this is going to last two months. And my wife and I were like, no way, it's going to last weeks. And we were both wrong, obviously I was much more wrong. Take us back to that moment. You're saying we need to go all virtual. I can't imagine everyone else around you is saying, "Yes, Mindy, that's the right move."

Mindy Grossman (01:10:55):
You know what I think they did, because what were the alternatives going to be? We would lose 40% of our business if those members didn't stay with us, right? So that was one reason. And the second was, we meant something to them. In a time where everybody was scared, they wanted community more than anything, and we had to provide that to them.

(01:11:25):
And look, we had to make hard decisions that time. We had to make people decisions. We had our executive team take salary cuts. I gave up 100% of my salary, said, "If I have to affect one person, I'm going to affect myself." And so you make decisions at that time because you want to be there, right? You want to be there for the people you need to and you want to keep the business afloat. And we were all at home, and I remember doing Squawk Box in my library before I even had a desk, and you are doing all those things. But got the company through COVID.

(01:12:09):
And then fast forward, and then it's about July of 2021. And I said to the board, I said, "We've built a business, we got the company. It's time for me to transition out and let's figure out a way to do that." And-

Harley Finkelstein (01:12:30):
And you went to, what David Rubinstein would call the highest calling in the world, which is private equity.

Mindy Grossman (01:12:34):
Well, we do actually, the business is unique, actually. So it got announced in October 2021 that I was leaving. I started getting all these calls about going to run other companies and I started talking to a couple of people. And all of a sudden I was like, wait, it's the first time in 45 years I'm not going right from one thing to something else. I want to think about this.

Harley Finkelstein (01:13:01):
Oh, wow.

Mindy Grossman (01:13:02):
What do I want? How do I want to run my business life? How do I want to run my board life? How do I want to run my family life? It's, I can take a step back and think about this, and it was like an epiphany. And so I told people, "Stop."

Harley Finkelstein (01:13:20):
No recruiters.

Mindy Grossman (01:13:21):
"I'm not talking to anyone right now. I really want to think about this." And it took me a couple of months of the deep soul searching and I said, "You know what? I don't want to go run another company, another public company," but how do I take 45 years of experience and the consumer being my client, 20 plus years being on boards, 15 and a half years being in the seat running a public company? I would love to work with CEOs and teams on how they affect transformation or growth and be a part of that.

(01:13:59):
I'm not going to go run another company. I said, "But if I'm not, what am I going to do?" Because I want to work work. I wanted nobody to use the R word to me. Okay? I'm not retiring. Anyway, [inaudible 01:14:12]-

Harley Finkelstein (01:14:12):
And why [inaudible 01:14:13]?

Mindy Grossman (01:14:13):
Kind of like Mickey.

Harley Finkelstein (01:14:14):
Yeah, but why not?

Mindy Grossman (01:14:16):
Because I love what I do. It's passion. It's what I want to do and I now just want to do it a little differently. So I said-

Harley Finkelstein (01:14:25):
And you feel like you're going to have passion, purpose, and impact?

Mindy Grossman (01:14:28):
Completely.

David Segal (01:14:29):
What's the difference now, doing what you do versus operating?

Mindy Grossman (01:14:32):
So what happened was I said, "Okay, there's three scenarios. I could start my own advisory or something." And I like being part of a team, I wanted to be part of something, private equity, or advisory, consultancy advisory. And I was speaking with a number of people, great people.

(01:14:52):
But I then got a phone call from a gentleman named Declan Kelly. Declan was my CEO advisor for eight and a half years at two different companies. And I knew what his concept of CEO advisory, it's you having the most trusted partner in the world who's focused on yours and the company's success and is going to be there. He goes, "I'm starting a new company, it's called Consello. It's different than anything else out there. It's different what I've done before." And I said, he goes, "I'd love you to be a partner." I go, "Well, why is it different?" And he said, "Well, we are going to have a private equity and investment financial side, but we are going to build a CEO advisory, but we're going to create an entire portfolio and ecosystem of advisory services to be the partner to the CEO and the company." So financial services, advisory growth and business development-

David Segal (01:15:56):
Recruiting, [inaudible 01:15:58].

Mindy Grossman (01:15:57):
... Consello experience.

David Segal (01:15:59):
You're not consultants, you're investing, but you're also providing services.

Mindy Grossman (01:16:02):
Yeah, and not with the big. So a lot of our major clients, I think we have half of the Fortune 100 as clients, but the interesting thing about us in private equity, because we have visibility of what's out there and whatever we invest in, we're not just investing. We will also advise and return value more quickly, but we are the trusted partner.

(01:16:25):
The second thing that makes us different, and this is another compelling reason for me, is every one of our partners have been operators. They've been in that seat, they've had different experiences and we're all very different but we care about the whole, we care about the client. So when we are coming together and saying, "Okay, what's the opportunity we're trying to maximize? Or what's the problem we're trying to solve? We lend so much value, what are we going to do?" So I'm a partner across the firm horizontally, and what I've loved about it is the diversity of the type of businesses and industries and problems and opportunities and the business development part of it.

(01:17:14):
And what I like to say, and now I'm going to go back to my first job. I say to people, "The reason I was so successful in sales is I've never sold anything to anyone. I have determined a need. I've tried to fulfill that need, and I focus on making other people successful." And that's exactly how I feel about what I'm doing today. And the way I articulate it is, and the reason why the company is growing at the pace that it's growing, which has been stratospheric, is we're looked at as an asset, not an expense because of what we do.

David Segal (01:17:56):
Well, it's just... And consultant can be a dirty word sometimes, right? It's another barbecue test. You whisper like, "I'm using a consultant," right?

Mindy Grossman (01:18:03):
Yeah, yeah.

David Segal (01:18:04):
You use a term-

Mindy Grossman (01:18:06):
And that's what I say, "We're a partner, not... We are a partner to the business, and we're intellectually and business-wise, not necessarily monetization, but we're invested in success."

Harley Finkelstein (01:18:20):
You used the term success a couple times here. To wrap up, I want to ask you sort of a final question, which is that there's obviously, and this is sort of the reason that Big Shot exists, there was this connection between Jews and people that, not necessarily just religious Jews, but cultural Jews and success.

(01:18:43):
There's this funny moment in one of the episodes where one of the guests who's sitting where you're sitting, who's worth many, many billions of dollars, says, "I still pay my law society fees." And we sort of laugh together and then Dave looks over and says, "Harley still pays his fees also." And I say, "Well, just in case," and he says, "Same reason for me, just in case." There is this, some anxiety, there's some stress about it, but there's generally this desire, this ambition that Jews have that is so disproportionate. I mean, something as simple as we're less than 2% of the world's population but we're like 20% of noble laureates. We are a tiny group of humans on the planet, yet we've disproportionately excelled in business and the arts and all types of industries. Why do you think that is the case?

Mindy Grossman (01:19:35):
Well, I think it's everything you're articulating. There's a belief within us, not only in ourselves and what we can do, but a belief that we can truly have impact on others and the world, if we elevate ourselves to another level while keeping our humanity. And I always say I'm still that girl who showed up in New York, scrounged around for the quarters on Fridays to take the bus, 23 people at her wedding because she paid for it, but I was given the opportunity that I felt that there was no way I couldn't maximize that opportunity. And I think that's very, very consistent in the people that I know and the world that I know, of what they want to accomplish. And it's not about greed, it's about impact.

Harley Finkelstein (01:20:42):
Wow, that's amazing, beautifully said.

David Segal (01:20:45):
Did you get a moment with your parents where they realized where they stopped trying to convince you to go back to law school?

Mindy Grossman (01:20:50):
Oh, yeah.

David Segal (01:20:50):
Yeah?

Mindy Grossman (01:20:51):
They were so proud. They were so proud.

David Segal (01:20:53):
Got a chance to see your success?

Mindy Grossman (01:20:55):
And I'll tell you, the world works in crazy ways. So I took care of my parents their whole life. And unfortunately, my parents actually passed away within 60 hours of one another. And they were, their service and their burial was together.

David Segal (01:21:17):
Wow.

Mindy Grossman (01:21:18):
And I remember having to write my eulogy, rewrite it, because now I was writing it for two people and people showed up at the funeral home not knowing there were going to be two caskets, because my father passed away first and then my mother, who'd been sick for a while. And I remember believing this is what they would've wanted. And I also was able to speak about the life that they gave me, which was not about money. It was about belief, it was about belief in myself. It was about that I could do, but if I could do it, I had to do it not just for myself. I had to try and have an impact beyond myself, and that's what I've tried to instill on my daughters. I'm blessed, I now have two granddaughters,

Harley Finkelstein (01:22:15):
Amazing.

Mindy Grossman (01:22:16):
One's seven, one's going to be five.

Harley Finkelstein (01:22:18):
Amazing.

Mindy Grossman (01:22:18):
And I want them to fit-

Harley Finkelstein (01:22:19):
They call you Bubby?

Mindy Grossman (01:22:20):
Mimi.

Harley Finkelstein (01:22:21):
Mimi, I like that.

Mindy Grossman (01:22:21):
I'm Mimi.

Harley Finkelstein (01:22:21):
You're not really a Bubby to me, you're more of a Mimi. Yeah, that's wonderful.

Mindy Grossman (01:22:26):
I was really happy with Mimi.

Harley Finkelstein (01:22:27):
You were clear about that. That's excellent.

Mindy Grossman (01:22:28):
But somehow they call my husband Ba.

Harley Finkelstein (01:22:30):
Oh, okay. That's cute.

Mindy Grossman (01:22:31):
I don't know, we don't know why.

Harley Finkelstein (01:22:31):
That's cute.

Mindy Grossman (01:22:32):
But he just became that. And I want them to feel that they can do anything they want to do. And I tell people, people say, "What are the things that you want to tell younger people or whatever?" And I said, "There's two things that are very important. Acute self-awareness and self belief, and you need to have those two no matter what else you're going to have because if you don't believe in yourself, why is someone going to believe you? And you also have to understand your impact on others, both positive and negative and what might you have to change.

Harley Finkelstein (01:23:10):
Thank you for joining us today.

David Segal (01:23:11):
[inaudible 01:23:12].

Mindy Grossman (01:23:11):
This was one of the best conversations I've ever had, thank you.

Harley Finkelstein (01:23:13):
For us too.

David Segal (01:23:13):
For us too, thank you so much.

Mindy Grossman (01:23:13):
Thank you.

Harley Finkelstein (01:23:14):
Truly inspiring to us and I'm sure everybody who's listening and we really appreciate you coming in. Thank you.

Mindy Grossman (01:23:22):
Thank you.