How a Fashion Executive Built Teams That Win

So I always thought going through that wouldn't it be great if everyone could get along,

wouldn't it be great to run to work instead of walk to work? Wouldn't it be great to just really, really love what you're doing? So when I pivoted into executive search, it was really with that in mind that I was only going to work with clients that I felt had a good culture. Hope brick is a seasoned transformational

and results driven executive search leader, retail strategist, and founder of Hope Brick Executive Search, specializing in building strong teams for consumer brands. With decades of retail experience, she helps companies grow through strategic leadership and talent.

“The only thing that's certain in life is nothing.”

When you're in the fashion business, you're always looking over your shoulder,

you know, like who wants my job, who's going to try to get my job? So you have to kind of like save your money because you just never know when they'll be a job on the mission. These companies need the talent, which is why the pivot to executive search to me was an important part of it. It spans the goal, like a super high school, into their mountains.

Today, Apple is going to reinvent the fall. It's our goal, Apple! I'm telling how we're! The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. Hi, and welcome back everyone to another episode of Living Your Legacy Podcast. I'm your host again, Jay Slangett, and we're down here in beautiful and traffic

ridden city of Miami Beach during the World Cup phenomenon that we have out down there.

But we've got a special guest for Women in Power, and she had an amazing show. We just finished filming.

“So, introduce yourself, where you from, and what's your business?”

Thanks for having me. I'm Hope Brick. I'm the founder of my search firm, Brick Executive Search. And my HQ is all around the world, but I reside in Scottsdale, Arizona. Okay, so, yeah, you've got to get stuck in some crazy traffic on the way here. So, if you're staying, if you're coming down to the studios, I recommend staying in the Miami Beach area. Maybe the W, or I mean, something closer. Maybe not the Brickle area, but yeah,

what was going on? It was just crazy. I had no idea that this was the World Cup, but how much congestion there would be, and I'm staying at the Four Seasons, because I can, and I got so confused in that hotel. I mean, there was nothing identifying what floor the lobby is on. I'm on the 26th floor, and I got me elevator, and I'm like, where do I go? Because nothing said L on it. So, I ended up on the 6th floor,

wandered into the residences of the Four Seasons, and the pool, and meanwhile, Angel Lena, yeah, she's been amazing, and but she said three o'clock on the dot, second earlier, and I'm like, holy shit, I'm gonna be late, and so I was texting her, and the management of the Four Seasons, I'm like, can you get me a car, because there was no way to get a lift or an Uber or a taxi? Yeah, that's a bad time to, because everyone's trying

to head to the games. Ah, but down late, and so the gentleman at the parking place, whatever I said, you got to get me a car, and he's like, unfortunately this, unfortunately that, and I said, dude, stop saying unfortunately, that is not a good word to use as an ambassador of the Four Seasons.

“Yeah, you need to be a can-do kind of guy, and I need a car right now. So he called his manager,”

and the manager said, we don't go to South Beach, we don't go to my, and I'm like, what do you mean, you don't go? I have someone who is my guardian angel on this shoot, and if I'm not there right at three o'clock, she's gonna be, it's not gonna be good, and so he managed to have the car to the hotel that guy take me, his name Josh, and I've been mode-in, with a what your name, which is Zenmo, and he told me, and I've been mode-in, I'm $250 for, I said, we've got 12 minutes

to get from here to there, and anyway, he's been mode-in, we back the $250. No way. Yeah, I mean, for the hotel, he works for the hotel, but I mean, I was like, I had to get there, and it is really busy and really congested, but I love the city. But you were late, you were on time. Yeah. If you believe how we were driving. Wow, that's amazing. Well, a lot of the police are kind of tied up with doing other things rather than watching the speed limit,

in the studio, but yes, this has been crazy, especially now, with the Scottish and Brazilians placing playing, because the Scottish have just been going so viral, it goes with the streets of Boston, and Miami now. Yeah, yeah. It's been funny, kind of watching them. Actually, I took a sunrise e-bike cruise around the city, and two of them were just like, with my wife on the back,

“and two of them, it was like, you know, five in the morning, and they're just like, hey, can we hop on?”

Can you give us a tour in the city? I'm like, dude, I already got two on his e-bike. I'm not taking too drunk and Scottish guys on the bike, so I think we'll pass, but they're all good and fun. I love seeing them in their cults, so these men are wearing cults confidently. Well, that's a good way to segue into the fashion industry. Here we go. It's not a skirt, it's a kill. It's a kill, I said kill. Yeah, you're in the fashion industry, right? You have been through many different jobs,

many different careers, many different offices, right? Tell us, you know, how did you enter the fashion industry? Well, when I was 15 years old, my parents told me to get a job, like, and but you had to be 16 to work. Yeah. And they said lie about your age, so, and I mean, they taught

me never to tell a lie, and I do not lie, but I did, in that case, and I said I was 16, and I got a job

at a department store selling pantyhose. And, you know, from there, my father, it's in my blood. My grandfather was a furrier. Yeah. My father, a coat and suit buyer. And you had an interesting word for a coat and suit buyer. Yeah, so in the day it was called cloaky. A cloaky. Yeah,

“I think that might be a little yitter, so I'm not sure, but he was a cloaky. And here's a story”

that we didn't share before. So in 1964, roughly, you know, my father as a coat buyer needed a resource to look what a overstock coats, because in the day there was no off-priced. So he made friends with this gentleman, a monromal stain, who I believe was in Seattle or somewhere in Oregon. And that's who he would job out his coats for. Okay. And Monro came to him and said, hey Milton, I have an idea for a business, and I want you to be my partner. And for an investment of $64,000, you can be my

partner, and we are going to open a stores where we sell these coats off-priced. And my dad was like, "Ah, you know, I'm taking care of my wife, my mother lives." It's a lot of money back then. There's a lot of money, and I had four children, and he said, you know, I just, I can't take the rest, but I will lend the money to this kind of Norman Ross, which he did, and they partnered, my father eventually got paid back his money, and the name of that company is Burlington coat

factory. Oh, I had that in my head. It was like, oh my god, she's going to drop that. Wow. Yeah, that's all right. You know, it was like, okay, I got the money back, but I should have made that

investment. In 2001, main capital, I hired Burlington, $2 billion. Oh my lord, yeah. And now they're

kind of different now. Now they're almost like another, I guess TJ Maxx kind of, they're kind of branching out into that direction a little bit more. Yeah, good observation. Well, there's not enough off price product and the whole industry to supply these big off price retailers. So they create their own product. They have large design and product development. So they work with with the manufacturer and the marketplace for branded product, but it's their own exclusive product

that they're creating. So, and you've had many jobs, many different positions, I would say, in the fashion industry. So, yes, so interesting. Tell us about some of them. And, you know, tell us about the fashion industry, because when we think of the fashion industry, the glamour, the glitz, and yeah, and you're kind of behind the scenes. Like, there's a few movies that I thought

“of when you, when you were talking about. One is, of course, the devil words product, right?”

Yeah, but way more humble, you know? And another one, when you were just talking about,

you kind of your first job was, uh, Cruella, right, where she kind of is in the retail,

and she does that phenomenal front display store, you know, and she's kind of, like, finds her way right? Yeah. Have you seen that? Have you seen either one of those?

No, okay. I don't know why. But the humble, the humble person, yeah. Yeah. Um, so that's a classic. I hear the remake wasn't as good as the original. I didn't see, I mean, I didn't see the number two, the second one. Yeah. Yeah. I don't intend to, but it's not, it's not a remake. It's like,

“the next, you know, what happens there? Yeah. But, uh, and Cruella, have you seen Cruella?”

No, it's amazing. It's like the re-telling story of 101 Dalmatians, uh, like Cruella Deville, right? But, um, kind of like her, her story, you know, of, and, and just the fashion industry, you know, but it's brilliant. It's really, it's really brilliant. Is that, like, um, it's a Disney, it's a Disney, okay. Um, and it's got a red head actor who's just phenomenal in it. But, uh, yeah, she's just like this

badass fashion girl, you know? I never knew that. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I loved it. I absolutely loved it.

But, uh, please tell us about some of the stuff that you've been involved with. I mean, I have held senior level positions with many companies. Actually, the first 34 years of my career was just to companies. Okay. Um, macy's, the real macy's are H macy, because today the real macy's doesn't exist. No. It's kind of, we have a macy's here in South Beach. Yeah. And right now, this construction around it, and they're talking about redoing the whole building, uh, which in a way would be sad,

because it has that old school art deco macy's original style to this one, right? But I don't mind a little bit of refurbishment, but still keep the art deco, you know, almost like mid-century modern, you know, but mid-century kind of like art deco style. Um, but yes, we do have a macy's here, and it's completely different now. Yeah. Well, macy's was acquired by federated in 2005. Actually, the change of control day was July 13th, 2005. Okay. Um, it was a very significant

day for me, but yeah. So I never have walked into a macy since. Oh, whoa. Oh, that, that crazy.

I mean, I was just, because what federated did with macy's, and it just kind of tanked. Um, but now under the leadership of a, of a man named Tony Spring, it is starting to come back a little bit. They've closed a lot of stores. Yeah. Because when we merged made department stores, had was a $15 billion company. And macy's was the same. So we can't combine those $30 billion. And there was about between the two, maybe 20, 400 locations. And they were like, you know,

“you would remember going into a mall where there were two macy's, one just for men's and home,”

and the other a parallel and accessory, because they had to fill the space. Yeah. So over, it's a real estate killed that deal. Real estate is so important in picking store location. So now they've gone from 2,400 stores to probably, like 6,700 to right size. Yeah. Yeah. And they're kind of using the blooming dals, you know, paradigm of more must add luxury kinds of things that macy's. And it's starting to come back a little bit, which I am happy for, but I worked.

So after 34 years for those two companies, then I kind of went on a roller coaster ride, but it was upward. And it was like the trajectory was amazing. Like I had positions as a cheese merchandising officer, an SPP of design, where I was compensated well more than even at macy's. So you know, taught me, I mean, like I had the discipline to save, which I can really

“encourage everybody to, you know, because you just never, the only thing that's certain in life is”

nothing. When you're in the fashion business, you're always looking over your shoulder,

you know, like who wants my job, who's going to try to get my job? Yeah. So you have to kind of like save your money because you just never know when they'll be a job. Which I was affected by. Is that because a lot of styles change quickly? And so they want a person to match the styles or a person with a new vision? Yeah. Well, it's just a cut throat. You know, like, yeah, it's a cut throat. Yeah. Um, public companies do everything for the shareholders. Mm-hmm. And so they

want to be really profitable. So the stock goes out. Of course. So if you're a public company, the best way to reduce SGA is to get rid of people. And they think that that it's such an oxymoron though, because by eliminating good people, you're not helping your business, but it does take those big salaries off the payroll. Yeah. And delivers in a very, very short term something to

to me was important. Also, it's even quite natural, right? Because, you know, as we say here,

the riches are in the niches. Okay. Uh, and you answered this kind of world of executive search, and you have found you at a niche, right? Yeah. I mean, as it relates to other executive search firm, I'm a boutique firm. I mean, there's three of us. Um, I started just by myself that, you know, based on bandwidth, I need to bring it needed to bring in a couple of higher. So, um, so my cost of business has gone up. Um, but, you know, that's okay. There's a huge search firms out there.

But what I love about mine is that it's led by me, someone who knows every functional area

of the retail and wholesale business. Because I've touched it all in my career, everything from

“design to planning an allocation to store operations, supply chain. Yeah. Well, if you need to, if you”

want to find the right position for these companies, you know, you have to understand a lot, found these companies run what they need. Um, yeah. I had a friend that was doing that for engineering, you know, and of course he had worked in like print and Whitney, but he'd also, you know, done works for auto body shops and stuff like that. So he was able to find the right roles because he had done so much of them himself, right? So yeah. I mean, it's, it's really important that

you've done the time, you know, at such a high level. So it's only natural that you're, you know, positioning executives, right? Yeah. They come to you for that. I think it is important at a high level that the executive search firm you're working with has executives that have industry knowledge

“and really solid and good industry knowledge. I also love being able to, you know, watch people”

grow and develop for the short time I worked for a search firm. There were people that had no industry experience, but some of them were remarkable about learning and the way they learned was by questioning their clients and they learned from the clients themselves. So, um, and I also like to, like, I have someone that works for me, she lives in L.A. I'm in Arizona. Actually, her mother was my executive assistant for several years. Okay. And Tara was delivered by

Melody, Tara works for me. Well, Melody was working for me in the car on the side of the highway. Oh, whoa. Yeah. And so, now Tara looks for me. All right. You know, I, so I lived in Thailand for about 16 years in Southeast Asia and they have this thing, uh, it's like dude, it was this program made by the queen, right? And it's like these, uh, delivery doctors, right, on on on on motorbikes. And the reason why they have this special unit is because the traffic so bad in Thailand,

that often times on the way to the hospital, these mothers are stuck in traffic and they have to deliver the babies. So, the queen set up the special unit of these, you know, uh, doctors on motorcycle to the taxis or car deliver these babies in the car. That felt great. That's a brilliant

“idea. Yeah. Yeah. Well, as if you knew the traffic, you knew it being needed, right?”

I lived in LA in New York, cities. Yeah. And that's, that's child's play. Oh, okay. I've lived there too in both of the cities, you know, and it's like, you guys have no clue how good you guys have it. You know, yeah, when I hit my daughter, I went into labor like a nine in the morning and she was delivered just before one p.m. so that was a really fast and that's the hour. Yeah. Yeah. So it can happen if you're sitting in traffic. Yeah. Yeah. And we've got

traffic stores just sitting man and there is crazy. Go mental. Um, but, uh, yeah. I mean, what if some of the, like, you said, like, you're a senior designer, right? And, uh, tell us, like, some of the, like, hands-on experiences of like, designing clothes and, and that kind of stuff.

So I never was a designer myself. Yeah. But I had design teams reporting to me, but I couldn't

sketch or do what they could do, but because I had strong merchandising background. Yeah. It made sense for a company's to position me as the head of design and also taste, right? Yes. And I for color. Yeah. I had one position where I was vice president of color, print patches, logos, and embroidery rates. Oh, that was my title. Yeah. And I did, like, 250 color palettes a season and there's four seasons in a year. So it was back there. Both genders, all age segments. Um, so it all starts,

I would say, D to C on mine, the color is what captures the customer's eye. So if the color is

really extraordinarily beautiful, they're going to be attracted to it and walk over to it. And then it's the fabric because they're going to walk over and then they're going to want to touch it.

“Yes. So color and fabric are really key. And I've had fabric reporting to me. And in businesses”

where the margin had to be really high, we had to select fabrics that felt like $30 a yard, but we're really a dollar a yard. And so I closed my eyes and, you know, me and my fabric director, we thought, you know, if we could feel the difference, we hadn't, we hadn't more work to do. Yeah, yes. So, so that's where design starts. It used to be that designer's hand illustrated, what they wanted to design. But now that's all done on a computer and the technology is getting

more and more sophisticated. But it's important that designer's really stay up to date in the

newest technology. I always say to that there's nothing really original anymore. So everything is

an interpretation of something else. Of course, that's almost everything. Yes, I mean, it's not not maybe not just with fashion, but with music, with design, with the art, I mean, we all get inspiration from the generations before or from nature or something, right? Exactly. Yeah. Design teams that I

“led, we shopped a lot. Europe, Paris, London, Milan, mostly, always Amsterdam. China? India?”

We went to China because that's where the problem was. Because I've been to those fabric malls out there. Yeah, and Guangzhou. And that's right. Yeah. I'm suppose we didn't see each other. God. Yeah. But it's just like, I mean, linen, white linen, right? You have a whole mall of floors of just rolls and rolls of white linen fabrics. Yeah. It's like crazy. Yeah. Just the shopping in Guangzhou. When I led design for a dance costume company, it was really important that we

we go to Guangzhou. We would find the fabric and then redevelop it. So I'd give it to them now because we didn't want to copy anything and couldn't afford the price points of what we were

picking. But yeah, Guangzhou is an amazing place. It's overwhelming. I mean, I love being

expensive for cigarettes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a few things over the guy selling, you know, some, you know, some tiger penis tea or something like that. It's like, it's like everything but the dragon's toenails inside some weird glass bottle, right? But yeah, I also, I was at the dream of like man. One day, when I get a house, I'm going to go to Guangzhou. I'm going to get a container of everything I need for the house. You know, this is open but then just ship it over to

America. It's so great. Yeah. Because there's everything, just aisles and aisles and floors and floors.

“Yeah. It's, yeah. If you're never going to Guangzhou, you know, like it's an experience, right?”

It's just a different kind of shopping that you've just, we have nothing like it here in the States. You know, you might have a fabric district where, yeah, you know, they, they pull up the, you know, shed metal doors, right? And then there's just fabric rolls and like you got many shops like that, but nothing compared to Guangzhou. It's crazy. Yeah. Crazy good. And then, yeah, about Italy. I mean, I'm sure you spend time in Italy. My, one of my favorites and least favorite stories about

Malat is I was working for Walmart and I had a design for a private label. And we, me and the product development colleague of mine, her name was Daria, I loved her. We were like became best friends. We were traveling to Malat for shopping, you know, because Walmart, I mean, that product is inspired by designer fabric designer styles as well. So with, but Walmart, you know, it's smart to shop at Walmart. We embody the customer, the thing is you, you kind of like take on that lifestyle because the average

family at the time I was there had $400 annually to spend on clothing or like a family of four. Okay. So in working on that product, we had to keep in mind that that t-shirt or that woven top of that dress had to go through hundreds of washings in order to pass from one kid to the next to the next. Yeah. So it was really important. I thought it was very important work. Not curing cancer, but really helping. I feel like they don't even think about that anymore. Now it's just cheap

get it out there. Who cares how it is after five washes as long as they bite now, you know, kind of true

hundred years, you know, because of the materials to the clothes where, you know, they're like,

now, and there's like comedians that joke about, you know, and you're wearing that sexy shirt from your 1980s high school reunion, you know, because it's still last, it's still from when they're old there, you know? Right. But yeah, they don't build things like they used to fast fashion and all that. I was doing this in 2006. So it seems like yesterday, because that's 20 years ago. And the quality

“had to be there and it really wasn't there industry-wide. But yeah, that's why people vintage shop now.”

Yeah. I mean, because they want that quality. It's shop and shoes to what we have today. Yeah. Just everything about it. But it's the fastening. So everything. So yeah, I mean, having all this experience, kind of led you through all these positions, which give you, you know, the perfect kind of mentality to understand these companies that you help, right? And, you know, you said something about putting good people with good people, right? Yeah, tell us, tell us what these

companies are looking for and how you find these people. Well, one of the reasons in the main reason I say putting good people with good people is because I lived a whole career where people were with that good. You know what I mean? Yeah. You could, I mean not everybody. But it was stressful and, you know, I threatened a lot of people or people were just threatened. It was their personality.

So I always thought going through that wouldn't it be great if everyone could get along,

wouldn't it be great to run to work instead of walk to work? Wouldn't it be great to just really, really love what you're doing? And it's all about the leadership and the culture and that I call it the Rubik's Cube of the team. So when I pivoted into executive search, it was really with that in mind that I was only going to work with clients that I felt had a good culture. I've had to fire a few who didn't and I won't place anyone. I just won't do it.

Yeah. And so my clients now, they understand that happy people are more productive and that results in sales and earnings. Yeah. No one once said drama case inside there. Oh, this cow. It's like, oh no, here comes Frank again. You know, or no, you're just more like

“Francine. Yeah. What I like to ask everyone is like, you know, what are you most excited about now?”

I'm most excited about the role I can play in kind of what's happened across the human capital workforce really because there's been a significant chain where people are prioritizing flexibility and remote work. Yeah. And with that, they don't realize it, but with that, they're causing their own job elimination and also erosion in the in the business and in total, although they offer ice companies and mass retailers and clubs continue to do really well.

But everywhere else, where we used to shop, I mean, they're not there anymore. And so I spent a lot of time talking with people about, you know, why they feel that way and put it, but they can be not the ones I've placed, but I do talk to some people that can be a little bit arrogant about it. Like, this is what I'm looking for and with that, I want six weeks of PTO and I want the best healthcare benefits and I want a great 401k and I'm like, okay, let me just repeat back to you

what you just said. Yeah. Yeah. Pretend, pretend that you want the company and understand that you're paying this employee, they're paying this employee a full-time wage. And they expect a full-time person. So I'm looking forward to really influencing that even more. And it's kind of,

“for me, it's honestly, it's less about the money today. And then it is about influencing cultures”

and ensuring that helping to ensure that people are the best they can be. And that's not being

at home and bad. That's amazing. Putting people's matching kind of passion and culture and that

creates, you know, great successful companies, right? And you see the fruits of that when, you know, they come back to you and they're like, wow, this is a perfect person. We've grown our sales or whatever. Yeah. And I'm sure you've got a lot of stories like that. Yeah, I mean, like a handful, for sure. I've won a client. And actually, they weren't part of my original network when I entered executive search. They came in through a search firm that I worked for. And then when I left the search

So that was kind of flattering. They are bad at us and they are tough. But they have the,

“and I say bad at us in a good way. They, they read the customer, they read the products of”

product centricity and customer centricity has allowed them to grow their business in the most world thus way. I have any retailer I know on this planet. And when I first met them in 2018, they have very, very scrappy lean team. And they still have a very scrappy lean team fast forward 10 years just about. But their, their business has more than double. And I've placed

20 people. Oh, whoa. That come. Amazing. How do people find you? So a chat, G, B, T is a great

source. Oh, really? Just ask chat, G, B, T for a boutique, you know, fashion executive search firm and I'll come up number one. Nice. Our Google. Yeah. Brick executive search.com is my website and all the open positions are on there. All right. Brick executive search.com. That's right. Okay. Well, it's been so wonderful to have you and talk the way that you speak is so eloquent and just,

“you know, it was a pleasure to listen to a story. But yeah, if you guys, you should tune it totally”

tune into her episode when it airs talking about the fashion world, amazing story with her dad.

And yeah, just really kind of drew me in with everything that she was talking about. And it's great to kind of celebrate people's success. And I'm glad that, you know, for all that you've done. Well, thank you for that. But I'm like just getting started, you know, hell yeah. And I say to my

“fellow women in power, success has no, no cap on it. Yeah. Honestly, when you love what you do,”

you know, kind of like retire, retirees to expire, you know. It's like I'm living because I love what I do. So why would I stop, right? Yeah, retirees to expire. I'm going to borrow that. No problem, friend. All right. Well, thank you for joining us. I'm living your legacy podcast. And thank you for joining us here in our studios. Oh, my pleasure. All right. I hope you have a more enjoyable ride back. But all right. Thank you guys. See you next episode. All right. Cheers, everyone.

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