Powerful women

Rose Marcario

2006: she left a high-flying private equity job to go to India and restore herself following a burnout.

2007: she said that “the business world’s addiction to quarterly earnings was suicidal.”

2008: she joined Patagonia.

In 2020 she stepped down as CEO to “focus on the next steps in making systematic change to corporate benefit to the world”, especially leveraging technology and media.

She is also promoting the idea that “if capitalism is serving multiple stakeholders, then I think it can be compassionate. Then you care about your employees, you care about your suppliers, you care about your community, it’s different than just caring what your earnings per share is. That’s not going to lead you to a good long-term effect.2

And that …
“And we can do it! I ran a business that’s a really successful business by any indicator…and we were doing a lot of good in the world”

She took the green brand to almost 1 billion $ revenues and she launched the infamous campaign “Don’t buy this jacket”.

She could make the perfect CEO for a big brand in fashion aiming at being sustainable, walking the talk.
Will she?

I recently had inspiring conversations for my webinar series “The Fashionable Espresso Club” with fashion  start up, all focused on promoting a sustainable approach to fashion.
They are niche and very well thought and managed by unconventional people willing to create a fashion world integrating creativity with environmental awareness

Iris Skrami of Renoon, Ludovico Durante of Staiy, Marina Savarese of Sfashion have very different backgrounds and all of them are happy to devote their time to creating meaningful business in fashion.

Because, yes, there is a way to match meaning and business.
This was taught to all of us by the great Guy Kawasaki who famously stated “make the meaning, don’t look for the money”, which is a smart way to do business creating a loyal community first.

With these special guests we talked about:
– the power of curiosity, how it can move mountains and how it is important to explore as “there is no box”
– “who cares wins” in the long term and why doing good business is a win-win situation
– building a meaningful present and tomorrow thanks to a mindful and proactive way of managing fashion business

Sustainability cannot just be a trend, it has the greatest opportunity of becoming authentic lifestyle. Now

The Amazon forest is burning in a dramatic time of environmental disaster happening worldwide.
The nuclear explosion in Russia was not even covered by the news.
The China geo-engineering of the Tibetan plateau is something that most of the people are unaware of.

But Instagram has been recently flooded with posts from fashion designers, founders, pr, models, photographers and so on saying “The Amazon forest is burning!”

So, what?

Do you really think a tweet or a post can save the world while you sip champagne from the terrace facing the Mykonos sea or a spritz from a yacht overviewing the Ibiza coolest restaurant?

We can do better.

There is no obligation in being eco-friendly.
But if you want to be an authentic eco-warrior, well, you should walk the talk, move all your power, create a lobby pushing the governments being more sensitive and proactive.
Otherwise is just fluff. And people will clearly understand it.

When, following Trump tax cuts, Patagonia CEO realized that the company benefited of a plus 10 million US dollars, she could have decided to use them for rewarding shareholders or to raise the bonuses of the top executive team.

Rose Marcario decided otherwise, instead.

She posted an article to LinkedIn saying “Based on last year’s irresponsible tax cut, Patagonia will owe less in taxes this year—$10 million less, in fact. Instead of putting the money back into our business, we’re responding by putting $10 million back into the planet. Our home planet needs it more than we do.” (full letter in the first comment)

That’s not propaganda.

It’s money.

Tax cuts are defined “irresponsible”.

She says “We have always paid our fair share of federal and state taxes. Being a responsible company means paying your taxes in proportion to your success and supporting your state and federal governments, which in turn contribute to the health and well-being of civil society.”

In a world of fashion where big supporters of sustainability are investigated for fiscal evasion, Rose Marcario reminds us that a better world is possible.

And that “Taxes protect the most vulnerable in our society, our public lands and other life-giving resources”

Thank you.