Tamara Mellon is the co-founder of Jimmy Choo and founder of new, direct-to-consumer, luxury shoe brand Tamara Mellon.
How has your life experience made you the leader you are today?
When I started Jimmy Choo, my main concern was to make beautiful shoes and I had no idea what I was about to face, both building a company and working as a woman. Today, I’m very conscious of women’s issues in the workplace. I’ve learned, over these last 20 years, the importance of owning your own voice, being in charge of your own decisions, and that femininity and feminism go hand in hand.
How has your previous employment experience aided your tenure at Tamara Mellon?
My 16 years building Jimmy Choo and making shoes in Italy have helped in crafting the same quality shoes for Tamara Mellon Brand. The importance of traditional craftsmanship for luxury products is something that will never change… Unlike that, the traditional model of retail is something that I know is changing.
The next generation of great brands isn’t going to be built the way I built Jimmy Choo. The digital world has revolutionized how people shop and what they expect. Knowing that, I had to come up with a new business model to sell and distribute with the fast changing retail environment.
What have the highlights and challenges been during your tenure at Tamara Mellon?
The highlights are seeing, in real time, customers respond to the business and then being able to evolve what we do quickly. If the women who shop our brand have questions about a certain shoe, we can add information about it to our product pages. If our data shows that customers from New York are shopping for boots and customers from LA are shopping for sandals, we can send them unique emails about shoes we know will work for them.
The challenges are that I’ve had to learn a whole new business language around this tech-powered way of working. But the world of ecommerce is intelligent, responsive, fast-- and it lets us give women what they want, when they want it.
What advice can you offer to women who want a career in your industry?
The advice I would offer is to just start working, I started by selling clothes on a shop floor, and I started Jimmy Choo by following my gut. Starting is as simple as working hard and trusting your instincts.
What is the most important lesson you’ve learned in your career to date?
To speak up! This is the most important lesson for women, and one that took me a while to learn myself. Finally learning to listen to my heart has had amazing results, and this is one of the reasons my company is so important to me-- it symbolizes the importance of trusting myself, knowing what I want, and owning that.
How do you maintain a work/life balance?
Work/life balance is always stressful and I often feel guilty for not being available to either work or my personal life. I think all women can relate to this. Life is messy. Running a business is messy. Balancing is all is messy. I think the best we can do is be real, honest and transparent about that.
What do you think is the biggest issue for women in the workplace?
Equal pay is the biggest issue-- it’s both incredibly complex and very simple. Women earn an average of $0.80 on the dollar compared to men according to the 2016 census, which is about 10 weeks of unpaid work a year. I recently read that the gender pay gap, at the current rate of pay disparity, will not close until 2133. There are so many causes and complicated reasons for it, but the result is simple: women are undervalued.
I believe that equality and empowerment go hand in hand, and that it’s everyone’s responsibility (founders, employees, women, men) to cultivate both.
How has mentorship made a difference in your professional and personal life?
I wish I had asked for more help early on, and that I had reached out and had more mentors. It’s not an easy thing, to reach out to someone you admire, but building that relationship has an enormous impact. I would highly recommend it.
Which other female leaders do you admire and why?
I admire Sheryl Sandberg, Tory Burch, Donna Karen, Gloria Steinem, Mary Erdos… I look up to women who talk the talk, but also walk the walk in their lives.
What do you want the brand to accomplish in the next year?
I would like the brand to really pioneer selling luxury in a new way. That manifests itself in so many ways, but in the simplest terms, I would like to constantly exceed my customers expectations by building a brand and community that reflects my belief that women deserve the best.