We know you’ve heard of the music icon Rihanna. Odds are you’ve also heard of Fenty Beauty, her cosmetics brand, and Savage X Fenty, her lingerie brand. Pattern Beauty was founded by Tracee Ellis Ross, and has been bringing haircare products to curly, coily, and tight-textured hair patterns since its founding in 2018.
Imagine getting to work on the leadership team at both of these powerhouse brands. Talk about some amazing insights that would make for a great podcast….
In Episode 112 of Earned, Conor sits down with Christiane Pendarvis, Co-CEO of Pattern Beauty and former Co-President of Savage X Fenty.
To start, we dive into what it was like for Christiane when she came into a top role at Pattern Beauty as Co-CEO. After years of working in the fashion industry, the jump to beauty was daunting, but Christiane explains how she took a humble approach, and understood that listening would help to build a solid foundation. Next, Christiane shares her advice about not losing sight of the clarity you had on the outside of an organization, as it can quickly dissipate once you’re immersed in the day-to-day. We explore Christiane’s strategy of urgency awareness, which she uses to decide if the situation is mission-critical and requires a clean slate, or whether it requires smaller levels of change.
Unpacking the success factors behind Rihanna’s brand Savage X Fenty, Christiane explains that the market was “ripe” for this brand, which emphasizes confidence, inclusivity, and fearlessness for women. We then learn about how a brand’s foundation, product assortment, and perfect-storm opportunities can lead to massive success. Christiane emphasizes the importance of a founder being ingrained in the brand’s story, which she has seen firsthand with both Tracee (Pattern Beauty) and Rihanna (Savage X Fenty). When people are genuine and authentic in their product and brand creation, it translates into opportunities that consumers can relate to, and products they want to buy. Christiane then reveals her own pivot to passion- and purpose-driven brands, and shares that as she’s progressed in her career, the quality of an idea has become increasingly important. To close the show, Christiane speaks to the growth of the gaming industry, and where she (and her children) think it's headed next.
We’ve included a couple of highlights from the episode below, but be sure to check out the full video above, or tune into the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts!
The following interview has been lightly edited for concision.
“You have to be clear around the sense of urgency”: How Christiane Pendarvis Successfully Approaches Leadership and Transitions Brands
Conor Begley: I’m curious about this idea of turnaround versus taking over something that's growing very quickly. I know you've had some experience with brands that were struggling when you came in: what is that difference? How do you approach Pattern Beauty, which is doing well and growing fast, versus a brand that's having a harder time
Christiane Pendarvis: You have to be clear around the sense of urgency, which I think definitely looks different in a turnaround situation. You don't have the same runway to listen and be patient, but you need to understand where that brand is. Is it mission-critical, and you're going to run out of cash in six months? That would mean that you have no luxury whatsoever. You've got to institute change very quickly while history and context doesn't matter, because you're starting fresh from that moment forward. That’s different from a brand that isn’t running out of cash, but has been in decline over a prolonged period of time and lost market share to competitors.
You have to really understand where the brand is to help guide the approach that you want to take, and therefore to govern how much runway you have. How quickly do I have to institute something dramatic? There are times where it'll seem to people inside a company, if a company really is in distress, that someone comes in and just completely wipes the slate clean. Oftentimes that's what's needed.
“There are really stellar influencers that have so much insight into how the product works”: Pattern Beauty’s Christiane Pendarvis on Creators in Different Industries
Conor Begley: Something that we've seen as a trend is getting creators involved in the product creation process, either as a kind of part of the feedback loop or as actual co-creators of the product. Is that something that you've played around with? Is that something that you've thought a lot about? How have you seen that work, or not work, in the past?
Christiane Pendarvis: Yeah, I think it's amazing. I haven't spent much of my career within merchandising, but the avenues for connectivity to the end consumer—that creators and influencers play haven’t been done well on the apparel side. I haven't ventured into that in terms of my own personal experience. On the apparel side, there is this cycle of seasonal collections that have you on a treadmill. You've got five seasons and development of some stage at all times. From early concept, to working on samples, to production, to in the store— there's so much going on, and I think that cycle is hard to figure out. How do you inject these moments of getting first-hand feedback and involvement from creators? On the beauty side, beauty has done a much better job of that. The nature of beauty is that there are really stellar influencers that have so much insight into how the product works, and by advising consumers, they become a natural conduit.
I think it's a really big opportunity for fashion apparel to figure out the same thing, and how to have that be more organic. I've seen some interesting partnerships, like the partnership that Coach did with JUV Consulting around Coachtopia, that really involved the circularity around sustainability, as well as the influence of consumers. I hope to see more of that outside of just beauty, because I think it's a really big opportunity. Especially in light of an industry, on the apparel side, that needs to come to grips with how much product we put out into the world.
Keep up with new episodes of Earned by following the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, or subscribing to our YouTube channel. To catch up on our previous episodes, featuring leaders from brands like Revolve, K18, Instagram, and Roblox, visit our Earned Podcast page.