Hello and welcome to Women in Retail Talks, the podcast where C-suite executive women in the retail space share their stories of professional growth leadership development, personal journeys and more.
I'm Marie Albajes, Managing Editor of Women in Retail, a membership-based community of executive women leading retailers and brands.
Today, I am so excited to be speaking with Anu Narayanan.
She's the president of Women's and Home for Anthropology, which is in our backyard here in Philadelphia.
So Anu and I talk about her path to anthropology, her change or fail approach to leadership, how the company really thinks about customer behavior, and so much more.
It's going to be such a wide-ranging conversation.
So Anu, I'm going to bring you in.
Welcome.
Thank you so much.
I'm so excited to be here with you today and talk retail, which is absolutely my passion.
I know.
And I feel like you've been on our radar for so long.
You were a 2025 top women in retail.
You were speaking for us at previous events.
So it's about time we had kind of a more one on one conversation.
So I'd love to get started just hearing a little bit about, you know, your career journey.
What drew you to the world of retail and how did your path lead to where you are today?
Sure.
I mean, I'll try to keep it somewhat brief.
But then when I say like oh, I'll tell you from when I started in college, you'll be like oh Lord, this is Elon.
But I, you know, I was a finance and marketing major in college.
And I minored in French, always hoping that I was going to go this international business route.
And I was not the person who ever worked in a retail store in high school or grew up around retail.
I grew up in an entrepreneurial family.
And thought that I would go a business route.
And it was really my first job out of college.
I worked for Talbots and I was interviewing for all of these banking jobs and I just couldn't relate.
I always loved shopping.
I had a passion for fashion, so to speak, and always wanted to kind of get into something where I understood the customer and that it was a relatable type of a role.
So that's really what kicked off my retail career.
I started more on the planning and allocation side of the business, given my finance background.
And then worked with an incredible leader at Gap who said, you seem more like a buyer.
You seem like a merchant who has a ton of product passion.
Would you ever consider moving over into the buying side of the organization?
And I did.
And from there I really feel like by saying yes to new opportunities, my career kind of took off and I found the sweet spot for really what works for me.
And that's being a merchant.
It really ties kind of the financial and business side of the business together with customer and product passion and led me to go across a few different roles throughout my career.
I've primarily been a women's merchant my entire career.
I've done everything in every category of the women's sector of the business.
And then a year ago I took on home within anthropology and that's been another whole new learning experience for me.
But I've had the great fortune of working at a lot of different companies throughout my career and learning along the way which has led me here.
Yeah, you've had merchandising roles throughout your career.
And I feel like if you're going to be a merchandiser anywhere, Anthropologie Group is like the place to be, because you guys have such cool stuff.
So I want to touch on what you said.
You know transitioning to home after being a women's merchant, primarily in apparel.
What was that transition like, that little learning curve?
You know, I think having been part of the anthropology business, understanding and watching kind of how that side of the business was operating, just more from like a viewer and customer perspective, I already had an idea of what that would be like.
Additionally, I own more than one house.
And so I've had to furnish different places and purchase different things for houses.
So, you know, I'm definitely a customer in the same realm.
And it was so fun for me to step into that side of the business.
I got to really dial up the curiosity that I innately have already as a leader ask a lot of questions, learn from experts on the team and really think about how to build a more holistic lifestyle brand for anthropology, knowing that the people who cross our lease line are interested in everything we have to offer.
And take some of the winning formulas that we've had in women's and bring them from a process and process standpoint over into the home business as well.
So it's been very fun.
It hasn't come without its challenges.
There's a lot that I've had to learn, but I've had a great team who's surrounded me in order to teach me and help me along the way.
So maybe let's take a step back.
And for those that are listening that may not know what group consists of and how it's different than some of the other retailers that you've worked for.
Yeah, for sure.
So Anthropologie, we consider to be a lifestyle brand.
We have a women's business that consists of apparel, accessories, shoes, beauty.
We also have weddings underneath the women's umbrella within the business.
And then over on the home side of the business.
We have furniture, we have decorative accessories, things like tabletop, our famous Icon juice glass.
And then we also underneath Anthropologie Group have Terrain, which is an outdoor garden center.
So we really are a lifestyle brand.
And in my opinion that means being able to bring a curated edit of product for how we all live our everyday lives.
We all live in a house that you know.
We're also wearing clothes around friends, family and going to work.
And we're really bringing kind of that vibe of everything you need for your lifestyle in a curated way to our customer.
And so a lot of other stores and environments that you shop in.
You have to go into a section of a store first.
And look for, you know, your beauty items or you're stepping into a beauty retailer to get those.
And then you have to go to another store to find new dinnerware.
And you have to go to get another store to find something for you to be able to wear, you know, to an event or an occasion.
And at Anthropologie, we're able to curate for you a similar type of look that we could envision your whole life needing.
And we bring that to the customer all in one location to really give her a frictionless shopping experience, both online and in stores.
And who would you say is kind of your target demographic?
What's amazing about Anthropologie that's also different than other places that I have worked at is that we're a multi-generational retailer.
So you'll often see in our stores and hear from customers shopping online that we're servicing the mother and the daughter who are coming in.
Some people... are shopping with their grandmother.
And it's absolutely incredible to see.
We really service a customer who is in her midlife stage area, where she has a growing family, probably has just moved into a new home, has a thriving career.
And really appreciates creativity.
Our company.
We lead with creativity in everything we do, from product to our store visuals and our creative photography that we showcase.
And it's really for someone who has an appreciation for that type of a lifestyle.
Mm hmm.
Leading with creativity in everything you do.
I love that.
How do you maintain and encourage your team to infuse that into their work every day when, I'm sure, like everyone else, you're constantly like putting out fires and working, you know, through the whirlwind?
How do you emphasize that creativity throughout the team?
I think it's by remaining curious, asking questions and encouraging the team to take risks.
I am a big believer in taking calculated risks within the business and being insatiably curious and asking a lot of questions to learn.
And I think when you work in an environment where you're not afraid to throw out a new idea, you are more willing to stay creative and come up with new things and ways to work or new product ideas.
I, as a leader, host what I call is a coffee chat with the most junior members of the organization.
And I intentionally do that because I really, truly believe good ideas come from everyone.
And a lot of the new hires in the business have fresh perspectives and they don't have all the baggage, so to speak, of thinking through why something can't happen or maybe why an idea might not come to fruition.
So I often use those forums to find out from them.
What are you seeing as an opportunity in the area of the business that you manage?
Or as a new customer for the brand, what do you think we should be paying attention to?
And a lot of those ideas are very good.
And at the end of those meetings we recap as a team what are the top one or two that we think we want to try to implement.
And that has created an environment where they can see that even me with the most junior member of the team is encouraging not being afraid to share what their thoughts are or their point of view.
And I think the biggest thing that's important about it is taking action and being able to implement some of the ideas.
And if it fails...
I try, I'm not always the best, but I try to take accountability with them on a failure.
So I remember a time where I had pushed the team to make an investment in a jewelry concept for all stores.
And they were like, we're not sure if this is gonna work.
And I said, I know, but you're really excited about the trend.
Let's try it.
It's only 5% of the jewelry business.
If it doesn't work, then we're all in it together.
And it didn't, we over-invested in it and it was okay.
But I think the fact that they saw that I took the accountability and I wasn't blaming the team for them coming up with this idea only on their own, It encouraged them to then be able to come to the table with another one.
And if we had a lot of risks and they all failed and they were sizable, then obviously that wouldn't work.
But it's about the calculated ones and encouraging the team to really go after them.
Yeah, we've had that question come up a lot within our own membership of you.
Know what do you do when you have teammates on your team that are struggling to adapt or who have this fixed mindset of this is the way that we've always done things.
And that you know that team member.
It may be harder for them to come up with new ideas and think outside the box.
And it sounds like it really needs to that encouragement to fail and take risks.
It really needs to come from the top, right?
I think it's great when it comes from the top, but I also encourage people to – usually, if there's an idea about wanting to change a process, it's not held by only one individual.
So I think another way that teams can influence is really finding other stakeholders who might have a similar point of view and then having them share across a few different teams, perhaps that they all have an idea on what they think that they could try to change.
And I always think, when you're bubbling ideas up to a manager level, it's being able to understand the risk assessment and giving options.
So if you're a younger team member trying to encourage a group of people to make a change in a process, I think it's about how you're framing it and being able to say there's three or four of us who would love to try this idea.
And, you know, here's what one option could look like.
And maybe we test the process out once.
If it doesn't work, we'll revert back.
You know, the upside of the thing could be that there's efficiency and time savings.
The downside could be that we have to redo it again.
But being able to provide the pros and cons and options to leaders as you're in your early stage of your career enables you to show that you've thought through how to approach it.
And it usually gets more buy-in when you have more stakeholders who have the same point of view.
That's such a good point.
I mean, there's always going to be someone else within your company that probably has the same idea or is thinking the same way.
And there's power in numbers, right?
Exactly.
I love that.
So you mentioned that you worked for Gap at one point early on in your career.
And you said in your interview for the 2025 podcast top women in retail report that Don Fisher, the founder of Gap, gave you the advice change or fail early on in your career.
So I would love to hear maybe a few instances where you've applied that to your career and how it's kind of shaped your leadership.
Yeah, it was great advice.
The idea is that you don't always need the same thing for yourself personally as your career develops or from a product standpoint today, that you'll need in two or five years from now.
And that if you aren't willing to personally learn and grow and or professionally make changes in your process or product offering, then you won't succeed.
And that has been pivotal to me in my career.
And I think from like a career and leadership development standpoint I had mentioned, I've always been in the women's business.
And I have often run larger parts of a business or organization, even when I was a junior team member.
And I had this entrepreneurial curiosity and I would often network with different mentors and find out what were the different things that I needed to try in order to expand my career.
So I knew that I had aspirations to lead Total Women's at some point in my career.
And with that I realized that I needed to try different aspects of the business and learn those in order to grow more professionally.
So one example was when I was earlier on in my career, I was working at Ann Taylor and I had been running the Topps business for Ann Taylor.
And I am plus size and had always been curious about plus size businesses.
But I didn't have any expertise in it.
But I knew that it was a growing sector of the market, but it wasn't one at the time that was considered sexy or fashionable.
And I was worried that it might be a career hinder for me if I actually learned about it.
But I was curious about it.
And I had been given an opportunity to work for a plus size retailer and to launch their Intimate Apparel brand.
And I hemmed and hawed on whether or not I should take that career role and I did, and I'm so grateful that I did.
I was thrown into a world where I had to learn a whole new sector of the business.
The opportunity also taught me a lot more about production and design.
I had to oversee more in production and design than I had earlier in my career.
And saying yes to that and learning the new aspect of the business then led to more future growth for me.
It then led to the return for me to go back out to San Francisco and work for Gap Inc again at Old Navy.
At the time they were in plus sizes and were trying to figure out exactly what they needed to do for their business there.
And I said yes, to come back and help them with that and somewhat worked myself out of a job, which was kind of ironic.
I went back and thought that they really needed to get a grasp on their business on DTC prior to expanding in retail and had ratcheted back the amount that they were doing in stores and And it was a great learning for me.
So I think, making those changes in my career, being open to saying yes and really understanding what was my ultimate objective,
I knew that I wanted to lead a larger scope of women's.
And part of that was learning things like special sizes, learning other categories of the business which I had said yes to, like accessories or shoes, learning beauty.
And I think that's helped me grow along the way.
So let me ask you this.
How do you, you know, if you find someone like that who is interested in learning, like you said, the different parts of the business?
But maybe you're being told or thinking self-consciously let me stay in my lane, or they're afraid of imposter syndrome.
You know, how do you get someone in your corner to say, hey, you have no experience with this?
But what you're doing now is really cool.
And we want to see how you can thrive in this other department that you don't necessarily have a background in.
Like, how do you get to those opportunities?
You know, I think that as a manager, it's really asking of your team, what is it?
What motivates them?
I think when you understand what motivates a person and where they're seeing their career aspire to, then you can match opportunities against an individual's aspirations.
On the flip side as an individual contributor who's thinking about where they have potential.
You know an interest in another area of the business.
It's about having the confidence to express it and determining how you can have that exposure.
It may just be sitting in another part of a meeting.
So you might be someone who's working in buying and you have a really strong interest in styling and or in planning and finance.
And I think it's finding out.
Are there meetings that I can shadow and just understand if I really have that interest or not?
Or are there projects I can work on that are going to give me exposure to that side of the business?
And then you learn and you understand more along the way.
And then, as those opportunities take off, it winds up being able to provide you a chance to change your career trajectory.
I also really truly believe that you are most successful when you're paired in a role that you are passionate about and is driving your skillset.
And I see this often when I'm coaching people who aren't performing well and they see that as terrible.
And I don't, I often am like, okay, well, it's not working.
That doesn't mean that you're not going to thrive somewhere.
You're just misplaced in the wrong thing.
And then, when people move into an area of the business that is more aligned to their skillset or their passion, They are thriving, and then they often progress much faster in their career.
So I think it's like, you know, are you looking at things glass half full or glass half empty?
And I'm just an eternal optimist as a merchant and coach.
So I believe that there is usually good when you can find the right match.
And that's a great – that leads me right into my next question, which is going to be how do you develop that next generation of talent, especially women who are interested in rising through the merchandising or the creative ranks?
And it sounds like you're well on your way being a coach.
So give me a little bit more about what that looks like in practice.
I –
I think known as being tough, but fair.
And I'm a fairly transparent leader.
I think often, I don't know if it was how I was raised, being extremely polite and respectful.
There was a fear of being honest at times and saying it how it is.
And I've learned through people who I have worked for that the feedback that they're given to me and you often hear feedback is a gift and you're like oh, is it really?
It really is a gift.
And understanding where you stand whether that is true or perception gives you the ability to then be able to course correct and change and understand what to develop in order to get where you need to go.
I think people are often afraid to give transparent feedback.
And As managers, it's our duty to do that in order to see people succeed in their career.
So I have a few different thoughts.
The first is I like to understand, like I said, where people's motivation comes from and what drives them.
And then I definitely provide very clear direct feedback in an empathetic and kind way.
But I think it's important for people to know what they need to develop and what skills they need to improve on to get where they want to go.
The other thing that I often think about is finding mentors, finding someone else that you can confide in to be able to give you another perspective.
And I think that helps in terms of how you're managing the conversations.
I think it also winds up being the individual's ownership to drive their own career.
No one is going to drive your career like you are.
And being able to ask for feedback, especially when you're earlier on in your career, when you might have a newer manager who might be more afraid of being as transparent.
When you ask for feedback, how did you think that meeting went today?
Did I show up with the right materials?
Did you think my presentation quality was successful?
Is there anything that you think I could have done differently to better improve for the next time around?
And doing that fresh when it's on someone's mind enables your manager to then feel much more comfortable providing feedback that maybe you're not getting, but craving on a regular basis.
And it just opens up a much more two-way dialogue for where you can go in the future.
I was just about to ask how you like to give and receive feedback, and you just nailed it and gave us very concrete examples.
Thank you so much.
You're welcome.
All right.
So I want to talk.
I want to pivot a little bit and talk about the business side of things for a few minutes, because Anthropologie is just a fascinating organization.
And I know you guys have had, I think, 10 straight quarters of double digit operating profit growth over the last couple of years.
So I guess the big question is why?
What do you think is driving that success right now?
What's going on?
Oh, we have such an incredible team.
We work with an amazing customer.
So first and foremost, for me, it always starts with people.
The people who I work with are amazing and the customers we serve are amazing.
So that definitely helps.
But I think what's been really fun is we've had a very strategic approach to growth within the business.
We've really started by focusing on core areas of the business that are anchors for driving profitability and driving top line sales, and then really listening to our customer on where we should continue to expand.
So our customer is loving our own brands that we offer so that are exclusively only available at Anthropologie.
And we've been growing those.
One of the customer's favorites is Maeve our label.
That is a little bit more of a optimistic, quirky kind of fun lifestyle, modern lifestyle label.
And the customer loves that.
And so we've been focusing on listening to them and then continuing to grow that.
Our customer also said we love shopping at Anthropologie and we buy a lot of our items there for special occasions and events, but we would love things that are for vacation or to wear in our lounging, relaxed time.
And we've seen incredible success in growing those areas of the business.
Selandine is our new resort wear label, as well as Daily Practice, which is more of our active and lounge lifestyle label.
And so really it's about listening to the customer.
You know, we've strategically started with our core and then expanded where we're seeing that they are looking for more opportunities.
And then that has led us to be able to expand into those concepts into stores and have a larger digital footprint as well.
How are you thinking about customer behavior differently?
You've been in retail so many years now, it's got to have changed so drastically.
You mentioned kind of the digital experience as well.
So how are you really looking at customer behavior and adapting to what's been changing?
You know, I think it's to your point, it is a constant evolution.
And what I've noticed is I think that there's still this like heartbeat that exists within stores.
And there was a point in time where you know people were so focused only on digital and the digital growth and experience.
But people crave being in an environment where social creatures we like to be able to you know look touch, see and feel.
And so I think the shift has really been bringing a more creative environment to the Omni experience.
So how are we showing up in an emotional, creative way in stores as well as online?
And then the impact that social has had on that.
And I think people are just constantly on their phones.
They're absorbing information at rapid fire speed, both on their social media channels, on their phones as well, as there's so many new platforms.
And I think we've really invested a lot more in our social experience and really building a community that then is shopping both of our channels through social
And that to me is one of the largest shifts that we've seen in the business.
Yeah, that's great.
Anything that you're excited about related to anything new coming out of Anthropologie this year?
Anything you can reveal?
I am very excited about two things, I'll say.
One is I'm super excited about our store growth.
So we are opening a lot of new stores, which is exciting for our customers to be able to bring Anthropologie to a lot more locations around the United States.
So people will be excited to find us opening, maybe hopefully in your backyard soon.
And the other thing that I would say is that we're seeing a lot of success and growth in our intimates and sleepwear side of the business.
And our new Lyrebird launch is one thing that I'm really excited for the customers to be able to experience in our stores.
They already love our product, and I think they're going to love our new brand as well.
Great.
Okay, so two last questions, a little bit more personal before I let you go.
And I've been asking these same two questions to all of our podcast guests.
The first one is what are your non-negotiables when it comes to work-life balance, if there is such a thing?
I always love the work-life balance question.
It doesn't really exist.
You have to love what you do and you integrate your work and your life together in a way that makes sense for you.
And I think we're so fortunate that we have so many different ways to do that now, with hybrid work environments and just always kind of figuring out how to manage your life and your work.
But I do have a few things.
So I don't schedule any meetings from my calendar before nine or after five.
If I can make that happen, I really try to stick to it.
And that's very much so that I can get my own work done in the morning.
And I really like to you know, leave work on time so that I have my own personal time at the end of the day.
And I might But it enables me to kind of have time for a walk or to go visit a friend.
I am very, you know, regimented about that.
And, you know, I think the other thing for me is setting expectations around weekends.
You know, our website and our stores are open seven days a week.
So there are things that come up all the time.
But I really, you know, obviously respect people's personal time.
And I am a huge proponent of making sure people take vacations, myself included.
I think it's important to lead by example and really not be on and truly take time off.
Enjoy that time off not be answering work emails, not be connected and to show my team that's how I'm leading and that I encourage them to do the same.
I think it's really important to you know, refuel and have time for yourself and your loved ones and do the things that you love.
I love that.
Okay, last question.
How, if at all, are you using AI, either in your personal life, professional life, you know, maybe on a daily or weekly basis?
Oh my gosh, I'm using AI so much.
It's kind of crazy.
I'm moving into a new house.
So I have been using AI to do room renderings, which has been very fun.
So personally, I've been using it.
I also used it to write my change of address card.
I was like I want it to be in my kind of tone and my vibe and asked for suggestions on how I could use it.
So definitely personally, I'm using it a lot.
And then it's become also my new like search function.
So I often go to AI enabled tools whether it's chat, GPT or you know other tools, and I'm asking questions and looking for a search that way.
So I think that's interesting.
And then that also leads into professionally, we really embrace AI in our organization.
And I think it's interesting because so many people are freaked out about like is AI going to take your job away?
And I see it differently, and maybe I'm naive and we're on an early journey of this, but I really see it as more enhancing and making our role more efficient.
Our design team, who some people would be afraid that AI is going to have a huge impact on design.
They're probably the first team to truly embrace it.
And they are leveraging AI to enable them to envision new designs, new print designs.
Graphic designs show product environmentally, for the home team, for example, in an environment that you could imagine what this couch could look like.
And they love it.
They will present most of their concepts and their design showbacks with AI embedded in it.
And They don't see it as a threat.
They see it as a tool that is enhancing how they work, similarly to how I would use it in my personal life.
So I think it's fun.
I think it's another thing for us to learn about as we evolve and grow and enter our so to speak Jetsons era with so much more technology.
But I think it's great.
So yeah.
Yeah, totally agree.
And you'll have to tell me more about the room renderings thing, because I just moved into a new place myself and I'm, like you know, trying to figure out my style.
And I asked I took a picture of my living room and I asked ChatGPT like, how would you describe my style?
And they told me it was, what did they say?
Mid-century, eclectic with a bohemian vibe.
And I was like, okay, I'll take it.
Love it.
Well, that's so funny.
It gives you a starting point to jump off with and then use your prompts.
Yeah. in order to like, you know, find out more stuff or search on Pinterest and get more ideas.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And I'm sure it's going to lead me right to anthropology.
Hopefully it will.
A great way to end this.
Anu, thank you so much for joining me.
I had a really good time and I wish you the best of luck.
I can't wait to see what you do next.
Thank you.
It was great being with you, Marie.
Really appreciate it.
Thanks for listening.
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