Hello Inner Circle readers!

I’m super excited this week to tell you about a special report Women in Retail Leadership Circle’s sister brand, Total Retail, recently published called Lessons Learned: Stories From Top Retail Executives.

The report includes interviews with five exceptional women retail leaders, and focuses on the lessons they’ve learned during their illustrious, albeit bumpy careers. The interviews also focus on the challenges — ahem mistakes — they’ve all experienced in their careers as well as the valuable lessons these mistakes taught them about business and life.

Why did we decide to decide to focus on their mistakes? We know that most women have a strong desire to be perfect, and when we hit a roadblock or something doesn’t go according to plan, it impacts us in a big way. Women tend to dwell, fixate and stress. In fact, fear of failure is the second most common reason why women don’t even apply for jobs unless they feel 100 percent qualified, according to a survey by the Harvard Business Review. But knowing how to deal with mistakes and learning how to recover from them is really what sets the bar for future success!

The retail executives featured in the report include:

  • Vanessa LeFebvre, President, Lord & Taylor;
  • Lori Twomey, Senior Vice President and Chief Merchant, Zulily;
  • Jenny Fleiss, Co-Founder and Head of Business Development, Rent the Runway, and Co-Founder and CEO, Jetblack;
  • Karen Etzkorn, Chief Information Officer, Qurate Retail Group; and
  • Rosie O’Neill, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Sugarfina.

O’Neill has one of my favorite quotes in the report: “Mistakes can be a gift,” she says. “They teach you important lessons in a visceral way, which you just can’t get from reading a book or talking to someone. You feel the mistake and it hurts. It makes you more aware of your thought process, the potential repercussions of your actions, and how you approach situations in the future.”

Download Lessons Learned: Stories From Top Retail Executives today! Take advantage of this opportunity to learn a lesson or two from true leaders in the retail space. And make sure to share the link to download the report with your colleagues, marketing team, industry peers, etc. This is the type of content that’s too valuable to keep to yourself!

Melissa Campanelli
Co-Founder
Women in Retail Leadership Circle