Inside PacSun: The Secret To Winning Gen Z, AI, and Fashion’s Future With CEO, Brieane Olson

Brieane Olson is the CEO of PacSun, where she has worked for 17 years. With over two decades of experience in the retail industry, she spearheaded PacSun’s collaborations with cultural figures like Kanye West and Kendall and Kylie Jenner. Brieane is also a board member at Women in Retail Leadership, Shoptalk, and Design Thinking for UC schools.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[2:38] Brieane Olson explains why she joined PacSun
[4:10] The initial challenges of pivoting PacSun from a surf and skate brand to a broader youth culture focus
[8:48] Maintaining relevance with Gen Z and Gen Alpha in an evolving fashion landscape
[12:20] How PacSun harnesses customer feedback to make merchandising decisions
[17:05] Tips for driving brand loyalty with Gen Z consumers
[23:44] PacSun’s vision for connecting with Gen Alpha through creativity and self-expression
[29:49] Brieane shares how she capitalized on AI after becoming the CEO of PacSun
[33:41] How multimillion-dollar e-commerce brands can break into the next stage of growth
[42:47] Lessons from failed decisions and how to acquire leadership buy-in
[51:34] Brieane’s perspective on future fashion industry trends
[1:03:48] A glimpse into Brieane’s personal life, including being raised by teachers and her outdoor hobbies

In this episode…

Fashion brands face the ongoing challenge of remaining relevant in youth culture. With shifting values, rapid trend cycles, and a demand for authenticity, many businesses struggle to connect with Gen Z and Gen Alpha in meaningful ways. How can brands stay ahead while building long-term loyalty with a constantly evolving consumer?

Fashion, youth culture, and retail leadership expert Brieane Olson has transformed a leading youth fashion brand into a cultural movement by embracing innovation, co-creation, and purpose-driven leadership. She emphasizes balancing bold innovation risks with data-informed decisions, like investing in new technology early on while building long-term partnerships with influencers to drive trust and engagement. By leveraging social listening through platforms like TikTok and Discord, building a community through co-creation, and ensuring each initiative aligns with a clear, resonant mission, brands can build loyalty with younger generations.

Tune in to this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast as William Harris welcomes Brieane Olson, the CEO of PacSun, to discuss staying culturally relevant in the fast-paced realm of youth fashion. Brieane talks about navigating brand evolutions, the role of technology in the future of retail, and lessons and tips for unlocking the next stage of brand growth.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Quotable Moments

“You’ve got to have a lot of conviction, and you can’t be adverse to risk-taking.”
“Listening is one of the most underrated skills when you really think about what you’re hiring into.”
“Make sure you have a very clear purpose and brand proposition, and make sure it is sticky.”
“I think the power of pause and the power of reflection is something that I have learned.”
“You want to almost have so much brand love from the consumer that you’re irreplaceable.”

Action Steps

Lead with purpose and clarity: Defining a strong brand mission helps align internal teams and resonate deeply with consumers. A clear purpose also serves as a strategic filter for decision-making and partnerships.
Embrace social listening tools: Platforms like TikTok, Reddit, and Discord offer real-time insights into consumer preferences and trends. This allows brands to respond quickly and co-create with their audience for stronger engagement.
Foster a culture of experimentation: Encourage teams to take calculated risks and test new ideas, even if some fail. Innovation thrives in environments where learning from failure is valued as much as success.
Integrate AI across business functions: Using AI in planning, allocation, and personalization enables faster, data-driven decisions and operational efficiency. A long-term roadmap ensures sustainable implementation and impact.
Invest in community-based collaboration: Partnering with creators at all levels builds authenticity and diverse representation in your brand story. It also nurtures loyalty by making consumers feel seen and included.

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is a performance-driven e-commerce marketing agency focused on finding the best opportunities for you to grow and scale your business.

Our paid search, social, and programmatic services have proven to increase traffic and ROAS, allowing you to make more money efficiently.

To learn more, visit www.elumynt.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:02

Welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris, featuring top business leaders, sharing strategies and resources to get to the next level. Now let's get started with the show.

William Harris 0:14

Hey everyone I'm William Harris. I'm the founder and CEO of Elumynt and the host of the Up Arrow Podcast, where I feature the best minds in E commerce to help you scale from 10 million to 1 million to 100 million and way beyond, as you up arrow your business and your personal life. Today's guest is a powerhouse in fashion culture and retail evolution, but actively shaping it. Brieane Olson is the CEO of PacSun, one of the most iconic and influential brands in American fashion, and under her leadership, PacSun has become a cultural force, especially with Gen Z and the next generation of consumers. Brieane isn't just leading a brand, she's leading a movement, from taking bold bets on the metaverse in digital fashion to driving artist collaborations with institutions like the Met she's been on the front lines of redefining how a brand stays cool and authentic in a world that's changing faster than ever. But it's not just about trends, it's about business. She's navigated pivots, obstacles and tough decisions, turning risks into growth and ensuring Pacsun continues to be relevant for the next generation. In this conversation, we're going to talk about what it takes to run a company that has to stay culturally relevant. 24/7 the real strategies behind driving loyalty with Gen Z and the bold bets PacSun is making for the future. Also dive into how Brieane thinks about balancing digital innovation with retail reality, and how she sees the future of tech AI and the digital experience shaping the next era of fashion. If you're building a brand navigating cultural shifts, are just fascinated by what it takes to lead at the highest level. This is an episode you don't want to miss Brieane . Welcome to the up rail podcast.

Brieane Olson 1:41

Thanks William so much for having me on.

William Harris 1:45

I want to give a quick shout out also to the one, the only Cindy Marshall, brilliant retail strategist and friend. She was a previous guest on the podcast. So check out her episode. And she's amazing at making homemade pesto. I've tried it. It's delicious, but Cindy, thank you for introducing me to Brieane so we could put this amazing episode out into the world. Before we dig too deep into this, I want to announce our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is an award winning advertising agency optimizing e commerce campaigns around profit. In fact, we've helped 13 of our customers get acquired, with the largest one selling for nearly 800,000,001 that i po. You can learn more on our website, Elumynt.com which is spelled E, l, u, m, y, N, t.com. That said, let's dig in. All right. I want to start with a little chat about your journey. Why PacSun? Of all the brands out there? Why did you choose PacSun, and what excited you the most about this opportunity?

Brieane Olson 2:38

Yeah, thanks so much. PacSun is at the center of youth culture, and I joined PacSun almost two decades ago. And what I loved about PacSun was actually the very fluid and nimble business model. So PacSun, at the time, was a house of brands, and I had just come from tenure at Abercrombie and Fitch a fully vertical brand, as well as Valentino and Gianfranco Ferrari. And I recognize that there's so much B in a vertical brand, and at the same time, it becomes very difficult when they don't reinvent themselves at the right moment, and it can become a very stagnant brand curve. And so one of the things that attracted to me about PacSun was a it was a return back to California, born and raised in San Diego, so really nice to be coming back home and then B really, I loved the fluidity and the flexibility of the business model, and I saw real potential in being able to reinvent the brand at its apex over and over again. So that was originally why I joined the organization.

William Harris 3:43

I love that. And no doubt, two decades, you have gone through some significant hurdles and obstacles that have gotten in the way and felt like, you know, insurmountable at the time. What's that's something that I feel like a lot of other entrepreneurs can relate to? What's something that an obstacle that you can remember running into that you're like, This is tough. I don't know how we're gonna get through this, but how breaking through that has helped unlock new leadership level potential for you, et cetera.

Brieane Olson 4:10

Yeah, I think, to your point, the challenges have really unlocked the greatest potential in the organization. And so when I first joined 18 years ago, we were kind of at the crossroads of understanding, what should we do with the brand? We had been established in surf and skate. Men's was over 75% of the business. There was a desire or a recognition that in the market, there was a large opportunity for a women's business. We really weren't quite sure where to start, and we had these legacy brand partnerships, which were amazing relationships with the likes of Hurley and Billabong Roxy Quiksilver, but we noticed that those brands were also lagging in terms of their engagement with the youth, and so we spent a couple years trying to work very closely with them, collaborate, try to work together more. Closely to change the trajectory. But what we really needed to do was recenter ourselves around the actual kids, 16 to 24 the consumer, and be very real in terms of how much change was happening. And that's when we started to really focus on youth culture, whether that be music, art, culture or sport, fashion always playing integral role and reinvent the company. And there were a lot of questions at the time, and I would say there was a very anxious community around us in the surfskate world. And surf and skate today are incredibly relevant sports, but so many of those brands have had such unfortunate outcomes, and so really grateful that we chose to pivot 15 years ago and really start to do things that were considered high risk. So one of the things that I probably got the most pushback on in my time at PacSun was actually a partnership with Kendall and Kylie Jenner, and at the time, they were 12 and 15, so they were pretty unheard of. Keeping Up With The Kardashians was what the family was known for. And there was something in where kind of the power of creation was moving and the power of influence. And we decided to take what was at that time perceived as a very risky bit, a very risky bet, which was 10 years long, contract with Kendall and Kylie to become what ended up being our greatest success story of really putting PacSun, women's business on the map, putting fashion on the map, style influence kind of this new creator culture, but it but it wasn't without plenty of pushback and challenges along the way, and so then that opened up a lot of additional brand relationships that we have today, and the power of collaboration, which we now really refer to as co creation. But it was an incredible journey, and one I'm very grateful for.

William Harris 6:55

I love that, because I was actually going to ask you about one of the biggest bets, and so you brought this up, when you think about this, there's a lot of pushback. How do you get past the pushback? How did you get to the point where you say, I believe in this idea, enough despite the pushback, that I'm going to push harder to make sure this happens?

Brieane Olson 7:10

I think you know, overcoming that risk is you've got to have a lot of conviction, and you can't be adverse to risk taking, whether it's in AI innovation, the metaverse, we're constantly creating a culture that's willing to knowing that a lot of what you do isn't going to pan out exactly how you expect, but you do need to ensure that you're building the trust with your stakeholder community and your board to ensure that you are right more times than you're not. And so with Kendall and Kylie, it was so clear to me where their journey would take them. And I remember putting a PowerPoint deck presentation together for the board and the CEO at the time, and I think it was the passion and conviction that ultimately sold them on it, because you can feel when someone's incredibly passionate, when they really believe in something. And so I think trusting your instinct and then also looking at the data set that you have is one of the lessons and something that I continue to go back to over and over, irrespective of the challenge of really trying to balance those two pieces.

William Harris 8:12

I love that. I think passion is something that can't be faked. And to your point, if you have that, it makes it easier for somebody to say, Okay, I want to get behind that. I want to get behind the vision that you vision that you have here. I want to talk a little bit about just fashion culture staying cool. I was chatting with Kurt Elster. He's the host of the unofficial Shopify podcast, and we were just talking about just this pressure to stay cool. What do you think is the toughest part about running a business where there's such a demand for staying relevant?

Brieane Olson 8:48

I love the pressure, and I think our team culture is built on a winning mindset, and you've got to really embrace speed evolution and also take the time to pause. And so I think what's most exciting in working with a consumer 16 to 24 is that you're always welcoming in a new cohort. Things are always changing, and you can never get comfortable with where you are. And there's either, you know, people who really thrive in that environment of constant change, or for some people, it's incredibly overwhelming. I happen to be someone who thrives in fluidity and change. I find that if you're naturally curious, it becomes a really exciting environment to be in, and so it's something that I really love, and I actually talk about it as something I'm really proud of, and it's a privilege to be able to work with this young consumer. They're also our future. So whether it's Gen alpha, Gen Z, they are everyone's customer, whether you are sitting in the Ford offices or your work for Frito Lay, these are your future customers, irrespective of your brand and understanding kind of the shifts that are happening on the inside for. On them and the behavioral shifts, and really, how does they see themselves as all so fascinating, and I think that that's such an interesting unlock and such an important part of how we kind of cast out the future of retail and beyond that. I think it's a real privilege to be able to lead an organization where your consumer is a constantly evolving state, and their preferences are changing, their behaviors are changing, and meeting them where they are is really exciting.

William Harris 10:28

I'm glad to hear that you say that, because I feel like you need that type of mentality in order to stay relevant. I maybe have reached a little bit of the stage of curmudgeon we just got back from trip spring break down to Florida, and I'm definitely from the generation that fought against 10 lines at every possible way. And so we, you know, ankle socks for the way that we went. And so I'm walking around barefoot on the beach, and I see kids on the beach with shoes on and socks up to their calves. And I'm thinking, I don't understand it. But to your point, you know, being able to stay relevant to the different trends and the different things, you have to have that curiosity. It's like, okay, but why? Why are they doing it this way? Why did they like that? What we were fighting against 10 lines? What are they fighting against? There's always some type of like, this rebellion that might be taking place.

Brieane Olson 11:19

Yeah, it's really exciting. It's an exciting demographic. I think there's always a push and pull, and really the co creation aspect of PacSun, and really bringing the customer along to build the future of PacSun, I think, has made it a bit more effortless, because they're woven into all of the conversations. It's really everything is advocacy for that group and that cohort, Pac 10, doesn't have some other agenda where we're trying to push down how we want people to dress or be. And so I think that that's very powerful when you're looking at this next generation.

William Harris 11:53

So we've talked about this on other episodes, this idea of getting feedback from the consumers and bringing it up and knowing what to keep and what not to keep How are you at the scale that you're at able to source that information from your consumers and knowing which trends are worth you know, or, let's say, feedback is worth jumping into, which with, versus which feedback maybe isn't quite ready for you to bring it to market? Yeah,

Brieane Olson 12:20

that's a great question. I think the first thing is, we establish four very clear pillars at PacSun in terms of what we stand for. So our purpose is to inspire the next generation of youth, building community at the intersection of music, art, fashion and sport. And so the first piece is a trend needs to follow our fashion trend into one of those four aspects, and it needs to be relevant in that way. Otherwise we leave it. And there's a ton of other places that you know the audience can shop, and it can be that for them. So we've got the four clear pillars. And then I would say the evolution of social listening and the amount of amazing connectivity and one on one conversations that you can have with your community is incredibly powerful, and we didn't have that 510, 15 years ago. So whether it's on Tiktok, Discord, Reddit, YouTube, you can throw something up on Instagram and get an AB which gene do you like better? And make your denim buys based off of feedback that they'll give you with immediacy, and I would say we understand fairly quickly with virality what the consensus is. And so, you know, 1015, years ago, something wouldn't work, and the merchant would go back and say, reshoot it. Maybe you need to change this part of the marketing. And it's like the customer is actually voting. They'll give you that feedback live time. And if you're really willing to listen. You can see exponential results we had. We were one of the first to establish ourselves on Tiktok, the social platform. Then we took a bet on saying, Hey, this is going to be more than a social platform. This is going to be a commerce platform. And so we were one of the first brands, kind of, in the beta stages of building Tiktok shop with them, and then you fast forward. It was 2023, Black Friday, and we completely sold out 11,000 pairs of our inventory on our entire site, and what we had available with a micro influencer who had 5000 followers. So you can see that, you know, creators at all different levels with different skills of audiences, depending on the algorithm and depending on the community response, it can be massive. And that particular gene ended up having this incredible scale where we had sold out of the inventory online and on Tiktok shop, and kids were rushing to stores and they were trying to get the viral asteroid gene. So I think you know the power of social listening, and then you know the ability to also teach teams to genuinely listen. I think listening is one of the most underrated skills. When you really think about you know what you're looking to hire into and what kind of you know at. Attributes, does your talent team need to have? So definitely, we've, we've made a lot of scale that way.

William Harris 15:07

Yeah, I like the idea of listening, and so let's just say, if we take this idea of listening, what's one unexpected thing that today's youth want from brands that you think marketers often miss?

Brieane Olson 15:22

You know, I think marketers believe that Gen Z is no longer brand loyal, and I actually believe the opposite. I think their views on loyalty and how they want to engage with a brand have changed, and I think their expectations for brands are really different, even in the face of challenging pieces that are happening in the social and community aspect, the community's expectation is that brands will step up and that they're going to have a voice and they're going to have a point of view. And that's increasingly difficult, but it's really important to do, because ultimately, PacSun is building a community with our consumer and so it's allowing them to also have another platform to use their voices and to be brought into the conversation. And I think a lot of marketers, quite frankly, it's, it's, it's a big ask for a brand to have a voice beyond what the brand is known for. And so if PacSun takes as our mission and our purpose to inspire the next generation of youth, then we're also taking the social responsibility of helping carry forward some of these more complicated conversations.

William Harris 16:34

I love that you brought up this idea of Gen Z and loyalty. And to your point, a lot of times. They're not used as synonymous in the same sentences with a lot of brands. They don't think that way. I was actually talking with John Mark spiel, who's the VP of E commerce over at me a about this, I don't know, maybe a month or so ago. And one of the questions he was asking is, how do you drive that sort of how do you drive that loyalty with Gen Z, what is that thing that gets them to say, yes, I want to be loyal to this brand.

Brieane Olson 17:05

I think it's many things, but I think it's a community of voices. So PacSun uses the power of co creation at all different scales, partnering with people like ASAP, Rocky, Emma Chamberlain, as I mentioned, Kendall and Kylie Jenner and Heron Preston. But we also participate on the open platform on Tiktok, where anyone with any following can be an advocate or a brand ambassador for our brand, and can earn a commission and be a part of the Creator economy. And I think it's the multitude and diversity of voices that ultimately allows PAC su resonate with such a broad audience, because we are allowing, you know, our brand, to have this that is a beautiful and vibrant mix of diverse voices, and that actually is part of what is so special about the brand.

William Harris 17:53

Yeah, something that you have talked about before is just that idea of like, purpose driven brand, purpose driven leadership and things like that. And I think to your point, we all have different purposes in our lives, things that we're trying to aspire to, and if you can align with those purposes, then it's easier for somebody to want to be loyal to, not necessarily the brand, but they're loyal to the purpose. And if the brand is loyal to that purpose, then it's easy for them to want to align with that. Is that kind of more what you're saying, too?

Brieane Olson 18:19

Yeah, absolutely. I participated a couple of years ago in a summit in Austin around conscious capitalism, and I was having dinner with Doug, who is one of the co founders of Trader Joe's. And he was talking about the purpose of Trader Joe's was not to create and make great organic food at an, you know, approachable price point it was to have fun. And their hiring practices in stores, they would hire people who wanted to have fun, because then they would be kind, then they would be helpful. And I think that conversation in its simplicity with Doug that evening unlocked so much for me in terms of make it really simple. Make sure you have a very clear purpose and brand proposition, and make sure it is actually sticky and connects with the consumer and it matters to them, because so many brands will throw up very elaborate purposes or missions that then don't tie back and don't resonate with the customer themselves, and so that very simple conversation unlocked a lot of clarity in terms of the go forward trajectory of PacSun. And the question I always ask myself as a leader is, if our brand disappeared tomorrow, where would the customer go and what would what would be the feeling right? And you want to almost have so much brand love from the consumer, that You're irreplaceable, that there is not an easy place that they can go, that you have enough draw, that they have a certain feeling, and there's a certain brand affinity. And so that's something that is a constant focus, and something that we ask ourselves all the time, does this. Out of the customer. Is it helping create more brand love? And then, you know, what is our purpose? Are we driving towards a bigger, broader mission? And that mission of inspiring the next generation of youth is really important. It's important to them, it's important to the broader world. So I think it's helped really in terms of informing our path forward, giving our teams a lot of clarity, and it's also informed a lot of our community and philanthropic work, and really has given us a lot of ties with our community. And almost every collaboration that we have has a give back component, or philanthropic community components. So, for example, our partnership with the Los Angeles Rams, you know, we're on year five of donating $5 million of clean clothing to inner city Inglewood kids. And you know, this is helping to fight absenteeism. Now it's not something that we openly advertise, but we're doing it because it's the right thing to do, and that's the expectation of the customer, and that's the expectation of ourselves, of how are we going to help make the world a better place? We're going to have to do a lot of work together with our community to ensure that we're delivering on that promise and taking that social responsibility.

William Harris 21:09

There's so much wisdom that you just shared there. I want to call out some of these things, just to really draw in on them. A lot of brands we talk to, maybe they're struggling at the 10 million, 50 million, 50 million, 100 million dollar market, they're trying to figure out how to grow. And so that exercise that you just talked about, about, you know, asking yourself, where would the customer go if you weren't here? I think that's a really important exercise for every brand to go through. And then, like you said, maybe looking at your your positioning statement there, it's like, are you, is it? Is it big enough to attract the audience that you're trying to get to, kind of like what you just mentioned with Doug for Trader Joe's, ours personally, that I can speak to is to amplify joy through, through profitable business growth. And so what we do as an advertising agency is business, profitable business growth. You know, if you don't, if we don't do that, then, you know, what's the point in working with us? But the reason we put amplify joy at the front of that is because there are times where we can't necessarily impact that. We could go into a shutdown, right? There's things that are going to happen to a lockdown. There's things that are going to happen that are going to maybe prevent us from being able to always execute on that. If our goal is to amplify joy, kind of like what, you know, Doug was even saying, it's not just to provide organic food at reasonable prices, etc, we can always make sure that we're impacting some way, a way to amplify joy for our customers. And so that's the way. Did we do what we said we were going to do when we said we were going to do it. If somebody had a question, did we take the time to answer that, even though it might be the 13th time we've answered that question, and we're trying to find a different way and a kind hearted way to help make sure that this makes sense. And so I like where you're going with this idea of finding that purpose, making sure the purpose is big enough that people can align with it. I don't know. I think it's brilliant. Thank you. I want to jump into a different group then. So we talked a little bit about Gen Z. My daughters are Gen alpha, and I will say that. So I've got a 14 year old, almost 15 year old should be 15 here at the end of this month, one that just turned 12, and I've got a nine year old, and the 12 year old, for her birthday, just this past month, wanted to go to the Mall of America with her friends, and so Gen alpha, literally, the very first store that they wanted to go into was PacSun. I'm like, Okay, you're already doing a good job of reaching Gen Alpha. But when I think about, you know, Gen alpha in where they're going, what do you want, Gen alpha? What do you want PacSun to mean for that next generation?

Brieane Olson 23:44

I want it to be their brand. PacSun is more than a brand. It's a lifestyle, right? And so I want it to be a part of their community. I want it to be the place that they feel that brand love, that they feel connection, that they feel community, that they feel a part of something and that we are also a part of their self expression, and that can mean a lot of different things, self expression through clothing, self expression from participating in being a part of our community hub, whether that is, you know, you're an aspiring photographer or you're aspiring graphic artist, and we have the PacSun collective, and we're inviting those Voices in to be a part of all of our campaigns, or, you know, they want to be a part of the Creator economy. I want them to feel empowered to be a part of, you know, the cohort of people who are earning incomes. And this has created greater accessibility, which is so important. They're earning incomes in their bedroom by getting a sample of a PacSun gene, and being able to show the community, show the world how they want to style it, why they love it, and share just that simple feedback, and through that, inspire other people to participate. And it's a new social commerce is so powerful. It is a new way of shopping, and we're really. Starting to see it take off, but I hope you know that your daughters feel welcome to be a part of this community, and that they feel included, and that they have a voice at the table, and I think that that is what we're really looking to build here at PacSun, and drawing them in early is a really important piece of the story. We in 2020 started a partnership with Roblox, and we wanted to show up and meet the consumer where they were. And you know, for lots of 56789, 10 year olds, they were spending a tremendous amount of time on Roblox during the pandemic, and they still are engaging highly in that platform. So whether it's on Roblox or they're at the mall. Mall of America is a great example, and PAC sign is the first store that they want to check out. Those are really great early indicators that we're going to be able to hold on to that consumer and build something really meaningful for them.

William Harris 25:53

Yeah, I'm glad you brought up Roblox, because I wanted to dig into some of that then as well. You're, you're very tech forward in a lot of ways, which I've really appreciated. But you know, Roblox, you've early on Metaverse, and I was talking with Philip Jackson. He's the founder over at future commerce, and one of the things that we were talking about, we love chatting about, like our apple vision pros and testing things out and having fun with it, right? But one of the things that we were talking about, that he brought up, that he brought up that I really appreciated is for our generation. Let's say millennials. I'm saying our me and him. I'm not going to, you know, suppose that everybody was listening to this, but like a lot of people who are listening, you know, might be millennials and Gen X, etc, and we have a lot of, let's say good emotions when we think about like wandering around the hallways of a mall when we were younger, and it was good time to hang out with friends. There's a lot of sentiment there. Do you think that Gen Z, Gen alpha, is going to feel some of that same feeling that we get from, let's just say, like digital malls, like wandering around and purchasing in, you know, their Apple vision Pro, or the metaverse or Roblox and things like that, like, are they getting the same kind of thing that we got?

Brieane Olson 27:07

You know, what I think is so special for this generation, and you'll learn I'm, like, a highly optimistic person. I'm very positive. So I I really, my genuine view is, gosh, they're so darn lucky, because not only do they have the physical in store experiential go to the stores with your friends at the mall? They have that also. And in addition to that, they have these very unique experiences that we didn't have a chance to be a part of, where they're able to connect with people that they wouldn't typically be able to connect with on a daily basis. And so maybe they've got a cousin in Wisconsin, or they've got a friend that they don't get to see often. They're in LA and the friend is in San Francisco. They can jump on some of these platforms, like Roblox or Fortnite, and they can actually have chats together and have experiences and shared experiences together. And so therefore, yes, I think they will look back that, at that with some nostalgia, and I see it. I have a son who is 12 and a daughter who's 10. And I brought my son to work with me a couple of months ago. And our chief merchant also had his sons here. And so they were in the offices playing on Roblox. And later. Flash forward a month or two later, some names pop up and it's like, Hey, Mommy, I'm playing with. And they were playing again together because they had already built that connection, but it gave them another opportunity to reunite. So I think, you know, the complexities of these virtual and physical worlds are actually huge advantages if they're used in balance. And so as long as the physical and the virtual continue to have, you know, kind of shared balance in their lives, I think it'll prove to be very fruitful.

William Harris 28:53

I love that. I love that you're an optimist. I consider myself to be very optimistic as well, and I think it's necessary in the position that you're in. I think you have to be optimistic about the future and where things are going. And so I think that's that's a really good trait. Another optimist that I really enjoy meeting with is a guy named Andy hettle. He's been previous guest on the show as well. He's the head of marketing for Winnebago. And just, let's just talk about, like, like, offline. Like, that's the epitome of going offline to a point, right? But he does digital for Winnebago, right? Like, he's the head of digital for Winnebago. One of the questions that he had asked me about that I thought was interesting, specifically for you, because I was, I was chatting about, this was him. I'm going to be talking to Brieane Olson. What kind of question would you ask her? And he basically said, you know, when you became the CEO, what was the most critical digital opportunity that you tackled first? And why? Like, why was that where you leaned into,

Brieane Olson 29:49

yeah, so I'm a big advocate of innovation and creativity across all spheres of the business. And so technology absolutely is an area. Area that we hyper invest in. When I first became CEO two years ago, AI was on the cusp of being something pretty important, and I went to a d3 summit in Boston, and I came back and they had been so forthright and assertive in their kind of assertations of this is going to change our lives, and the companies who don't jump on board, the brands that don't jump on board, are going to be left way behind, and there will be no time for them to catch up. And so when I came back, I had a lot of passion and excitement for trying to understand, how can this fit into all facets of our business, and I'm very fortunate to work with an incredibly talented CT IO at our company, and she embraced this, and, you know, we started to build an 18 month roadmap, because 12 months is really too short to accomplish what you really need to in something that's relatively new. And AI, is not new, but the evolution of it and the scale and the speed in which it's working. It's working at lightning pace. And you know, the goal was, first of all to get all of our teams to be using AI in the background while they're doing their work at least 10 to 20 hours a week. And so I had all of our executives take a pledge several years ago to say, Hey, I'm going to invest in this. And every Monday, before Business Review, before going through everything else, we are going to be an AI centric company, we're going to report back and share what is happening from that point forward. We rolled out tests in almost every area of the business, with a few exceptions, in terms of where are we really going to invest. And then we made some really significant investments. And I think, you know, that's risky, as a first time CEO, to bet on something, you know, with such conviction and put big dollars against it. And we brought in a partner after a long RFP, and are doing a full integration of the backbone of the company in terms of, how do we buy, how do we plan? What is our allocation system? What is our replenishment? How are we making our buys? Are they informed by social listening? And so I think it's been great because although we've yet to see the full slew of the results, we're moving forward in a powerful way. People are learning every day. Intellectual curiosity and learning are two things that are incredibly important to me, personally and also to the company, in terms of, hey, what are our values? And so I think we're learning all the time. We're moving along with our customer, but we're also staying genuine to who we are as a brand. And so at that first juncture, I knew that AI would be a really important bet, and I think it's when that will pay off.

William Harris 32:41

Yeah. I mean, we're seeing it significantly right now. You got on the cusp of this before it really became as as widespread as it is right now. And so I can only imagine that the learnings that you've been able to get as a result of that leading into this have been pretty impactful. Where one of the things that I think you've called out that I appreciate here, let's say, when I talk about what does it take to be successful, what is, what are the keys to success? What I've heard you say on more than one time is, you've got this idea and you've got conviction behind it, you know. So you got to have conviction behind the right ideas. But something that you have is, maybe a lot of people might have the right ideas, but they don't have the conviction to execute on them. Let's say, would you agree with that statement? And then, what other attributes do you think are necessary for thinking of E commerce brands that are between 10 and 100 million that are trying to break through into that next stage that it's like, these are the things that you need to have to be successful.

Brieane Olson 33:41

Yeah. So the first part of your question, I think, you know, really, how do I define my leadership style? I think the winning mindset Absolutely because if I set goals or results, the company knows we might not get there in the linear path, and it might be challenging along the way, but there are a lot of different directions, and you can change your road map, and you can still get to the results you're looking for. And I think a lot of this was instilled into me as a child. Both of my parents are school teachers, and it was always Are you trying your hardest? Right? If you're putting in your maximum effort, then, you know, the result is good, irrespective of what it looks like. Put in the effort. The other was my dad. Every day when he dropped me off at school, he would say three things, and those are the three things that are my leading principles today. The first is truth, so that honesty, truthfulness, being truthful with people, whether that's good or bad, that is kind of a defining principle. The second was help someone so in any situation that you can and you have the ability or the privilege, help someone lean in, build the relationship, help the person. And I think that that has been a really important ethos. And the third thing was to trust, trust my instinct. And. And more times than not, you're faced, in particular, in the CEO seat with really difficult things to navigate. And this third piece of really being in touch with and getting into that inner core and that inner gut, and if you've got really strong values and principles, that will almost always lead you to the right decision. So those are the three things that are really defined. And if my leadership, and how I lead, and the importance of empathy and vulnerability in those simple, very three simple, very straightforward things for a smaller company, you know, 10 to 100 million, we're cultivating and helping these companies and these sizes all the time. And I think, you know, there's, there's different objectives and timelines. I think the first is to be really clear with what your objective is. Do you want to grow to be a billion dollar company? Are you really happy being 100 million and so you want to refine, you know, your relationship with your consumer. You want to re look at your distribution strategy. I think having a very defined view of what you want your future to look like, especially when you're a smaller brand starting out, is very helpful, because it will help inform the decisions that you need to make, and it will help inform kind of the things that you think about when you're trying to make a decision, what are the pros and what are the cons? Because it's very easy to get distracted. And so you've talked a lot about purpose. Having a very clearly defined purpose will help to guide and ensure that a small brand doesn't make decisions that impact it negatively in terms of its long term future, and then having that really clear road map, and taking the time to get it down, and vetting it with your team and other people, and then really challenging yourself about like, what are the opportunities and where do you want to go, and are you willing to take those risks, or are you willing to take on those challenges in order To get to where you want to be, because it's much more difficult, especially if you're a founder led brand, sometimes to take some of those risks or take those challenges. And maybe you shouldn't, and maybe you don't have to. It really depends on what the end game is.

William Harris 37:18

Very, very, very wise think about what the actual goal is, and if that's the goal that you want, or just the goal you were told that you're supposed to have. Um, I love that advice that you got from your dad, and so I want to come back to that, because I think it was really good. But, you know, if I wrote it down correctly, truth, help and trust. But just this idea that there were, there are these three things that your mom and dad, they instilled in you like operating system, right? And I think this is kind of where you went with trust your gut. I think that's very relevant information to trust your gut on some of these decisions, if you have practiced and installed the right operating system and software into your brain in the first place. And so this reminds me of another guest who was on here, will leach. He was previously over at Pepsi, and really interesting, but he talks about the idea of the two different brain systems that you have. And you know, there's the conscious brain system that you have, which is trying to process things. And I don't remember the exact numbers, but it's like 50 bits per second. And then there's your your your non conscious brain, which is processing like 2 million bits per second, it's so much more intelligent, and that's basically your gut. And so sometimes your gut is already making some very, very well thought out decisions based on all the data you can't even consciously bring to mind to process. But the reason why you have this gut feeling is because your non conscious mind has processed this. I think it works. If you say, to your point, you have looked at this, and you say, but I've installed this system for the last decade of truth. Help trust this aligns with my values and my mission and where I'm going. And so my gut says, Hey, this is the right thing. Trust me. Just go for it. And

Brieane Olson 38:58

you have to trust yourself. And so in order to get there, it's like you start to build trust with yourself when you're listening to your gut and then it turns out the way that you were hoping or expected it to. And so part of building trust with other people is, you know, having that back and forth and having things go well. Part of doing this with yourself and enabling yourself to really learn in is by, you know, writing down my gut on this is x, and then figure out what your decision is, and then go back to it. And so I think the power of pause and the power of reflection is something that I have learned over the last few decades. It definitely didn't come naturally to me. I was always moving very quickly trying to get to the next milestone. And I think it was actually my time living in Italy after college that, you know, culturally, there's a different shift, and you're forced to move slower. And I really learned to value the power of pause. And so in a really important just. Conversation, or even in a smaller, moderate decision, I always try to take that pause, and I think the power of pausing is really important, and it leads to better decision making. Spanish and Italian. So

William Harris 40:16

they go here. They're so similar, they're right there.

Brieane Olson 40:19

I actually learned Spanish first, and then, believe it or not, I moved to Italy without speaking Italian because I figured it would be close enough. And I got there the summer before my Master's course would begin, and the Master's course was built and was taught 100% in Italian for myself. Taught myself Italian over the summer, and I still mix them up. You know, if someone speaks to me in Spanish, I respond in Italian or vice versa, because they are so close. But yes, I spent a good part of the beginning of my career living and working in Italy, and so much good came out of that, of that, but it really also taught me to slow down.

William Harris 40:59

I want tocome back to that, because I think that's really good. But the idea of slowing down reminds me of, see if I can remember the phrase, which is Dolce, Dolce, fire nint, right? Doing the thing, yeah,

Brieane Olson 41:13

exactly. Got it down.

William Harris 41:17

It's a good it's a good lesson. You were talking though about, you know, you've made some really good decisions based on gut and then the power of pause as well, right? And so we've talked about that, but a conversation I had with Christian Limon, who was the former chief growth officer over at wish, and wish.com and to be and so, like, he's done some really fun things to his previous guest. And one of the things we were talking about was everything that went on with Nike and John. Don Hume, I don't know if you have a desire to comment on it, but it's like, you know, like people were kind of brutal a little bit about this. They're like, former Nike CEO John's downfall was a brutal lesson in corporate leadership. And I'm like, I think he made a lot of good decisions too. And so to your point, though, this idea of of trusting your gut, like, he was likely trusting his gut, and I guess I don't know where I want to go with this, other than, like, what are some things that he did well? What are things that they didn't do well? Or like, like, what, what could we learn from this of this idea of, like, going after something and having maybe made some of the wrong decisions?

Brieane Olson 42:19

You know, I think it's really easy to be critical of other leaders and other brands and other companies. And I also think, you know, there's a whole world of circumstances that were surrounding some of the decisions that he may have made at the time, and a lot of brands were making a decision coming out of the pandemic, I definitely can empathize with, hey, there's, you know, lots of indicators. And people also said malls would be dead and that we should close a bunch of stores. And lo and behold, Pax suns opening 75 stores in the next three years in the US. And you know, malls have never been stronger, and the kids love that shopping and the engagement and being able to go and have the experiences that you described growing up. And so one of the things that I always am a big advocate of is you can trust your gut, but you also need to leverage data. And so a testing strategy of understanding what those implications might have looked like, and not rolling it 100% out and taking a more tempered approach is something that I would say is hindsight and reflection that we could take forward, all of us, in terms of, hey, when there's something really exciting and new, sometimes you just jump on it. But if it's a strategic pivot, and you're pulling your product out of a lot of key brand partners, then it might be something where it's a slower test and learn or adoption strategy.

William Harris 43:44

I love it. I love the way that you even dug into this idea of data, because that really segues into something else I wanted to chat about with you, which is a lot of brands that we're talking to on this when they're stuck at that 50 million, 100 million dollar mark, maybe they've started to branch from just d to c, and they're getting into a lot more retail and things like that, and they're trying to understand maybe they've built their brand. And I'd say not. Maybe this is often the case. A lot of them have built that brand, of that 50 million, that 100 million dollars off of this d to c playbook, where they're advertising directly to their consumers through meta and through YouTube and things like that. And it's very it's very foundational on the products themselves. And it's maybe not built up brand as much as it's just built up, you know, just driving sales. Another guest that I had on here, Preston Rutherford, who was one of the founders of Chubbies shorts, he's really talks about the 95 five rule about how a lot of what we need to be spending more of our time on is the 95% of people who aren't ready to buy right now, and so meta doesn't have them in that slated spot just for you as you advertise your stuff. And so you're missing out on them. And so we need to invest, again, back into brand. I remember there was an art. Couple years ago about Adidas ran into this saying the same thing, that they had leaned too heavily into performance marketing and not enough now on continuing to build a brand, how do you look at the difference between allocating towards performance marketing and brand, and how to measure it to know if what you're doing is the right thing or not?

Brieane Olson 45:20

Well, ultimately measuring and the data is great at the end, the end, you see the customer love, and you see it through the sales. So the simple metrics of how well are we doing in total, and then did all of the pieces that we put into it pay off. And I think it is a balance that I also think it needs to be looked at also opportunistically. Sometimes with upper funnel, we have really amazing opportunities, and you can't pre plan the opportunity. You have an opportunity to have ASAP Rocky as your creative director one year, or you have an opportunity to lean in and do an incredible YouTube story with Emma Chamberlain. Those are opportunities that come up, and then the brand leans in other times. You know, with new platforms and expansion and growth, we took a lot of bets on upper funnel opportunities and activations. With Tiktok, we quickly amassed in the first two years on the platform, 2 million followers. Not a lot of brands can say that they did that, and that was by taking bets at a timely measure and then re funneling the performance marketing dollars into upper funnel and saying, Hey, this is going to pay off in the long term. So we didn't necessarily have the liberty or the luxury of having additional budget to put in. So it was a refocus. But in the end, if the brand continues to grow and we're hitting our sales and budget. For me, it's less important which particular piece happened to be working in that moment. And if you were too data driven, you would go down that rabbit hole. Instead, it's having the ability to get up on the balcony. Take in the bird's eye view. Look at what's actually happening with the brand. Look at the Piper Sandler report. Where is Pax un stacking? Are we showing up in the top 10 for the last four years? Are we improving our ranks year after year? I find it ourselves, right after Nike, Lululemon, big, big global brands. And so I think it is a balance. But I also think brands need to look at it as opportunistic when opportunities come up that will really enhance their brand story, then absolutely, you've got to take the pivot, you've got to take the risk, you've got to trust the gut, and you need to go and explore those opportunities, because they might not serve themselves in a cadence or way that would work perfectly on a marketing flow map in terms of optimal spend. And so I think that's a little bit more when you need to trust your instinct, trust your gut, and ultimately do what's right, what will resonate with your consumer, yeah.

William Harris 47:48

And those are hard, hard decisions to make, right? Because you got a CFO oftentimes. Who's saying, but Well, this is the sure thing, and so we need to go after this, or at least the measurable thing, right? And some of these other tactics are a little bit less measurable. And you say, Well, you know, trust me, it'll pay off. How do you get the buy in from the others who want to, you know, let's just say finance, who says, maybe I don't necessarily understand this. Or, how do you, how do you get the buy in on riskier things like that?

Brieane Olson 48:18

Yeah, so irrespective of where you sit in the company, living and breathing and being a part of our customer journey is really important. So when we were going to start on Roblox, everyone on the executive leadership team needed to download Roblox and engage and try to see what is happening and have their own unique point of view or perspective. Because also looking at that cross pollination of views, whether you're in finance, it someone in marketing or planning an allocation, their engagement or view of the platform might be different, and the same is in Tiktok. So often, when you get that push back, sometimes it's just because of there's lack of information. If you're not spending a lot of time on Tiktok, and maybe you're in the finance function, you don't understand the power of the platform. And part of you know really being a leader at PacSun is making sure you put the customer first every day. And so you do need to know what those experiences mean. You do need to know why those bets are important. And I feel like with the education and people really getting involved and using those as tools and resources, you tend to get more data that supports the case of, hey, this is why it's important. It's also really important to have a clear purpose. If it ties back to your purpose. If it's something in music, sports, you know, in art, I can go back and it's a tie back to the purpose. This helps enhance our overall brand story. It's really, really important you get the buy in. If you're trying to do something outside of those lanes, then it's going to be more challenging for the team to pitch and get their idea across. And I think it also sets nice guard rails for the company. You can't stand for everything. There's a ton happening out there, and there's a ton of opportunities that you would want to get. In, and so that balance of what really matters and where the audience is consuming the content also is an important strategic bet.

William Harris 50:08

Yeah, what's next? You You've been so cutting edge of so many of these things, like, I mean, truly pioneering in this space. Maybe it is just AI, but it's like, and maybe you can't say what you think is next after AI, and that's okay, if you say, I just can't say that. But what do you what are you looking at that's beyond what we're already all talking about, maybe beyond AI.

Brieane Olson 50:32

So I do think AI will unlock a lot of more personalized, engaged community opportunities for brands to engage directly with the customers. And if you have built good brand loyalty, and you have those foundations, and you have good data, you will suddenly have a tremendous amount of opportunity in terms of personalization, engagement scale. I think on the flip side for PAC 10, we've got a tremendous international opportunity ahead of us. So we've got so many cohorts of you know, customers who love us in the US, and we're starting to really broaden our global scale. So we'll be opening in the Middle East later this year with our first store footprint there and digital. And really look forward to being able to scale and take the brand global. And I think the benefits of technology innovation AI will help create a backbone where we're going to unlock a lot of understandings about, for example, you know, customer preferences and how you're thinking about them on a global scale, and how trends move on a global scale, and so I think there's a lot of exciting unlocks for us on the horizon as we go global. And I think there's a lot of excitement in terms of further having additional capabilities with AI and data to enhance the customer experience and enhancing their journey and building a really robust community, and that intersection of community for the consumer, I think it's going to be an incredibly powerful and exciting future. Way forward.

William Harris 52:11

How do you feel about AI generated influencers, or even just using an influencer, their name image, likeness, right there, and I was using that to create 1000s of different variations. Do you think that we're getting into risky territory? Do you like it? Are you like? I don't know.

Brieane Olson 52:31

It's definitely very risky. Yeah. You know, there are some AI generated personas that have, you know, a more established track record, and they've been around for a while, and they have clear personalities. And I think it's an interesting additional way to engage with consumers, Kai Sanat, who's so fun, and we have a lot of fun with as a brand, you know, has a robot that's following him around, and he's kind of guiding and trying to teach, and I think you see how the human and robotic aspects are flowing through, and I think it's engaging. I think there's a way to make it all work, but there's definitely a lot of guardrails that we all need to be paying attention to. And I think companies have to take an even broader scope in terms of the social responsibility to ensure that we're doing things that are being done in a thoughtful way. But I think it's, it's a very exciting time, and also, at the same time, there's a lot of questions in terms of, how is this all going to work, and make sure, making sure that we're delivering on our company values.

William Harris 53:39

You know, you talked about making sure that you're thinking of the customer first. And what's interesting is, for a while, I think we thought of technology, let's just say bots and stuff like that, where we're, we're, we're not going after them as like a customer, but to a point they're almost becoming a customer. You've got, maybe people are doing a lot more research in the bot itself. The chat bot, you know, chat GPT, etc, is kind of basically the one that's going to surface a lot of these ideas and these things to somebody saying, Hey, these are the shoes that you should buy. This is the sweatshirt you should buy, based on all of the stuff that I already know about you. Like, where do you think that this plays?

Brieane Olson 54:20

I think it's pretty cool, to be honest, the way that I think about AI and some of these tools is kind of like you have a coach by your side, or you have a stylist by your side, or you have a mentor by your side, or a friend by your side. At all times, you're kind of being able to get the best out of both. I think establishing clear recognition of how to balance the data that's coming out is something that's really important as we think about the new generation of people being brought in, and so it's something that I know in academia, they're really focused on in terms of ensuring that we're using it in the right way. And. You have a very well skilled mindset to understand when the model is hallucinating, when you need to use logic, or you need to trust your gut, or, you know, really leveraging that human capital with all of the amazing things that are coming out of AI. It's definitely a balance. You know, with Gen alpha, they were born into this highly digital world. For Gen Z, they adapted quickly to a highly digital world. And so you think about the next generations and how, you know, it will be more difficult for them to find that differentiating grounding set because they're born into a world that's already adapted into AI, and so again, I think there's some advantages, and then there's a lot of responsibility on all of our shoulders to ensure that we're shepherding in these new generations with all of these tools and innovation that are going to make the world a better place, but that we do it very thoughtfully.

William Harris 55:57

That’s the hard part, isn't it, making sure that we have those guardrails in place. One of the things that I would like to see happen, and I haven't seen it yet. Alo has got a pretty decent, decent app on the Met, on the Apple vision Pro, but I haven't seen anybody do it yet where it's like, you could kind of see it on the model, and you can move the model around in 3d and I'm like, that's cool. But like, I want to see, I want to see Paxton come out with something where it's like, I can try on the clothes, right, like I can see me in my measurements, and that exactly on me, and I can see, what does this actually look like on me? How close you think we are to something like that?

Brieane Olson 56:35

Well, we're trialing it on the site right now, and there have been very mixed reviews. And so you can upload an image of yourself. Or you can upload an image of someone else, and you can see how everything fits. And you can actually toggle, no, I think my shoulders are a bit wider. Or, you know, I want a little bit more room from the knee. And so you can see how things fit on you. I think, you know, if you flash forward a very short time period, that will be common, kind of a common access and that will be easy, and I think it will make the ease of shopping expedited at the same time we're seeing as that grows and those technologies grow at the same time, there's just this huge growth of people wanting to return to stores. And so I definitely think it's like what we talked about at the beginning. It's the beauty of having accessibility to both, and having those shared experiences in both, and layering them on top, I think, leads to a much richer world, and not one replacing the other, which I think was the and a lot of this technology was introduced.,

William Harris 57:41

Yeah, I love that we've talked about a lot of things. I want to shift into the who is Brieane Olson section. But before I do, I wanted to give you, you know, another opportunity to say, if there's anything that we didn't cover, that you're like, Okay, you're a brand, you're you're 50 million a year, and you're feeling stuck. If it's not a, you know, leadership problem, or, you know, maybe investing in brand problem, like some of the things we've already talked about, like, What other advice would you give to that, that founder who's stuck at 50 million and isn't sure what they need to focus on? Like, What other advice would you give them? And say, maybe, look at this, I think

Brieane Olson 58:21

I think again, it comes back to where they're stuck. Are they stuck because they want to be 100 million? Are they stuck because they're not profitable at 50 million? Are they stuck because they don't have distribution? And I would say, leverage your build amazing relationships, build networks, and then if you don't have the network, reach out to someone who might where mentorship is so important, we're helping small brands scale all the time. We're incubating brands. We're helping create brands for people who don't have them or don't have resources or access so I would say, don't be afraid to ask and then be try to be really clear about the question that you're trying to solve, because it's a very different answer. And I think where people get caught up is they're stuck at 50 million, but they haven't taken the time to figure out, where do they want to be, what's the timeline of where they want to be, and what are the problems that they're having right now? Maybe you're at 50 million, and that's a great size and skill, and you've got the right size team, and you're happy there. And so then, you know, there's a very different response. And so I think not being afraid to ask, leveraging the community, and then trying to get true clarity of what is that road map? What are you trying to solve for? And if you're trying to solve for growth, growth in what area you're trying to solve for digital growth? Are you trying to solve for retail footprint expansion? Do you want to open your own stores? Are you happy to go into other stores? And kind of, there's a lot of pros and cons in between, but I'm always happy to help and mentor, and, you know, help guide this next generation forward. It's really exciting to see so many brands and companies, and I'm just loving this. Social Commerce, because it does create so much more accessibility for people who don't have a brand of their own, but they have themselves, and they're able to create an economy and work within that system. And so I think that that's a really exciting unlock go forward as well.

William Harris 1:00:14

I love that you reminded me of a funny story I don't think I've told on the podcast yet, but mentorship is a big thing. And I can remember my mentor is, is Dave Mortensen, so one of the founders of Anytime Fitness, and he was on, I think it was like secret millionaire or something like that. And I remember this scene where he needed mayonnaise. They only had, like, $50 to buy groceries him and his business partner, Dave, and they $50 to buy groceries for the two of them. And he's like, Dude, I gotta get to mayonnaise. And they're kind of going back and forth over it. So when I met with him for the first time, I brought a man, and I was like, What am I bringing to them? I don't know. Yeah, right, exactly. And it stuck out to him. And so, like, he's been just such a big influence in me and my business that I've grown. But one of the things that I would want to call out to call out to anybody that's listening is it doesn't always have to be somebody that you think is exactly aligned with what you do. And so Dave runs, you know, gyms like this is very different than me running an agency, but where I felt like he really helped me a lot is I am, let's just say, a very typical CEO where I'm not necessarily, like people process driven. And Dave's the COO. He's very much the complete opposite of me in the way. So it's like he was able to see so many of the issues that I had and be able to lean into them and say, you suck at this. Here's what you need to focus on and think there. And he's not that mean, but you get the idea where it's like, it could still be somebody, though, who just has the right mentality outside of it, because it usually comes down to the same core issues, no matter what business somebody is that's mentoring you in. It's a people problem, it's a profits problem, it's a process problem, or it's a product problem, right? Like it's usually one of those four things, regardless of what industry it is.

Brieane Olson 1:02:01

Yeah, I totally agree. And mentors can come from anywhere. I think there's some common mis misnomers around what a mentor needs to look like and where they need to be in their career. They could be a peer of yours. Mentors can come from it might be someone in your direct report that you're learning a ton about and you're learning about yourself. It could be outside of the industry. So yeah, I would say just keeping a very open mind in terms of what mentorship can look like, and really leaning into the opportunities, kind of to learn from everyone in your in your community.

William Harris 1:02:33

That's so good. Okay, now I want to get into who is Brieane Olson, because I think this is fun. You talked already a little bit about your both of your parents were teachers.

Brieane Olson 1:02:45

I'm just curious what subject my mom was an elementary school teacher for as long as I can remember, 30 plus years. So she taught anywhere from kindergarten to sixth grade. My dad actually left business and went back into education, and he focused on special education and so mentoring special ed kids and getting them into the workforce was something that he wanted to dedicate his life to. So that's what he did for the last 1015, years.

William Harris 1:03:14

It's beautiful. The reason I ask is my mom was also a teacher, and so I learned a lot from that. My mom was a music teacher and band teacher, and so I learned a lot from having a teacher as a parent as well. You talked about how your parents instilled some really good thought processes. Your dad had these three things that you would say as you would go to school. What else about your childhood Do you think helped influence you to be the effective leader that you are today.

Brieane Olson 1:03:42

I think when I describe Pakistan's culture, it's very scrappy. And so as a kid, I remember feeling very scrappy. And all of our, you know, we always had plenty of books in the house, and there was always a big emphasis on intellectual curiosity, constantly learning, and that learning is a free tool, and then, you know, getting outside. And so I grew up visiting every single national park, and we would drive to national parks and we would always camp. Didn't matter if it was snowy, beautiful, sunny day in Yellowstone. I mean, National Parks is where we spent so that, still, for me, is like a place of peace and a place of retreat and reflection. And what my dad loved and my mom about introducing us to national parks, it was like there's this great accessibility, and you don't need a large amount of money, and you can have these incredible experiences and witness some of the most beautiful places in the world. So we never traveled really outside of the country. We rarely ever took a plane, but we always had books, and we always had national parks and tents. And so I think kind of that, that starting place, gave me a lot of humility in terms of, even when you don't have a lot of resources, you can still make big things happen and you can get stuff done. Done. And so you know, you were always hearing from your marketing teams, your merchant teams, that they need more resources, that they need more dollars to support these initiatives. And it's like, go make it happen. Go find a friend, build a relationship, work with Apple, pay and then work with your brand partner, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and and bring in the resources that you need to get stuff done. And so I think being pretty scrappy in nature is something that not a lot of people know about me, and something that I'm actually quite proud of, and kind of defines my whole philosophy. It's like, roll up your sleeves and get it done. And so we have a very hands on leadership team, my expectation, if there's something needs to get done. Anyone can do it, right? So, like, should all lean in, and it goes back to that helpfulness. It's like, you know, are you willing to help? And I think that's been a very effective part of leadership as well. So that's a bit about kind of my upbringing and why I am.

William Harris 1:06:01

Well, what's interesting is, I don't know who did the study, but I heard about a study that was done where they said one of the common denominators between families that stayed close was camping. And they they, you know, making suppositions about why that would be, but one of the things was, you have to work together to solve problems in camping, you inevitably are going to run into something, the bury the food, or, you know, whatever that might be. You have to work through that as a team. And to your point where it's like, it creates people that are resilient. It creates like that scrappiness, where you say, we will figure it out. It's everybody's job working together. Let's collaborate. And I think that's really cool, that you had that if you could only go to one national park again for the rest of your life. You're, you know, you're banned from all over there's only one that you could go. Which one would you pick? And why?

Brieane Olson 1:06:55

I think Yosemite. And I say Yosemite because it's probably my earliest memory of fishing with my dad in the river of Yosemite. I'm not even sure if there's any fish, but there's pictures of us really little like, you know, two years old, with a fishing rod. And I remember hiking that park for the last few years consecutively. The whole family has taken a road trip, and I take my parents back to Yosemite, and it's a very nostalgic place. And, you know, being able to still kind of share those moments, and then have my children share it through the eyes of their grandparents, is really special. And so I think Yosemite, irrespective of season, is just such a special place and holds so many memories and is so majestic and even more beautiful every time that I go. And so if, if you haven't gone to Yosemite, you should absolutely check it out. It's just an absolutely beautiful place. And right here in our home of California,

William Harris 1:07:50

I haven't been there, and so now I need to go. I've got a lot of them, and it's fun. We like to do this as a family. As one I mentioned I have three daughters, and we just got back from spring break, we went down to Marco Island, and my youngest daughter loves to fish. The older two care less, but the youngest one likes to fish. And I didn't grow up as a fisherman, so I'm not very good, like, I'm just trying to, like, figure it out as I go. But we were we were there fishing, and the guy next to us caught a sting ray, which was really cool for to see. But we'd been out there for an hour, and as a nine year old, that was a long time to catch nothing, not even a nibble or a bite or anything. And she was a little bit frustrated. And they have these little things you can set the fishing pull up. And I said, I said, Hold on, we're gonna set this down here, so you're not gonna reel it anymore. Just set it up there. And we laid down on the pavement. And I said, we just looked up at the clouds and watched them go over. And I said, this is what it's about, though, right here. We're just gonna enjoy our time together. It's not about catching the fish. And I really do think, to your point, that whether or not there was fish on your line in Yosemite or not, like the memories of just being there and enjoying the peacefulness of it is really what matters.

Brieane Olson 1:08:52

I'm pretty sure I didn't catch any fish, and that helps me with my patience, because fishing is definitely a game of patience.

William Harris 1:09:01

You mentioned that you guys also had a lot of books. What's I imagine you're still a reader than today. What's a book that you've read recently that's impacted you, that you think maybe should be on my reading list?

Brieane Olson 1:09:12

I just finished Shoe Dog, which I know is not a new book, but a really great one. And I think the vulnerability of the story and kind of talking about Nike, and going back to its roots, it has a lot of really strong reminders. There's quite a few books focused on AI right now that I think are very interesting, and they kind of run the gamut. And I think because it's so new, it's hard to know exactly where, where it's all going to end up. But I think reading in particular about things that are unknown and that you're still trying to figure out, and spending a lot of time on those platforms are some of the best ways that we can kind of re engage. And so there's a book by Marco in Santi and Kareem and. From HBs that's really powerful in terms of reimagining AI. So that's one that I would look at as well outside

William Harris 1:10:06

of work, outside of all the things we've chatted about today. What are some personal passions that you just enjoy? And I'll give you some context. The name of the show is up arrow, which is a mathematical notation for making really, really, big numbers. But my thing is, I love, how are we improving all the areas of our lives, not just our work life, but it's like personal lives as well. And so what are some things personally that you're you're working to improve, or that you just enjoy doing? You're like, this is this is important.

Brieane Olson 1:10:36

I love getting outside and moving. So whether it's hiking, camping, water, skiing, snow, skiing, anything outdoors, I think, really recharges my soul, and it's something that I don't spend as much time doing as I used to, and something that I'm trying to continually try to carve out as an opportunity to go forward, to spend more time outside and just spend more time being active. I'm also spending a lot of time doing whatever my eight and, you know, my kids are really into right now, and so some of the things that they've been focused on is oceanography and protecting the ocean. And so we belong to pm MC and Laguna, and we've been working on weekends, you know, raising money for different types of environmental causes. And so that's something that's very close to home, and we're spending a lot of time on. And then, you know, all of the all the kids sports, is another area that I spend a lot of time on in the weekend a 10 and a 12 year old. So that's, that's, time consuming, and really just spending time with family. I think it's people talk about the juggle and the balance, and there really is one isn't one. And so what I do try to do is, you know, be incredibly present wherever I am. So if you've you're spending that time disconnecting and you're there on the weekend. Really being present in that moment is that has been helpful for me, for someone who is constantly on the go and traveling for work quite a bit.

William Harris 1:12:10

So there's a lot of talk about work life balance, and I usually like to refer to it as work life integration, simply because of the idea that I believe that we were created for work to a point, and that if you see someone who doesn't have that work, they feel like they don't have purpose. They feel like they have an existential crisis. Like, I think there's something intrinsic that wants to work. We want to work on the things that we enjoy doing. So to your point, it's like, how do we, how do we not just find, like these separation of work in life, but just integrate work and life together in a healthy way, where it's, you know, you're still able to do the things that you enjoy as well.

Brieane Olson 1:12:43

So I love that work, life integration. I'm going to take that forward. Thank you. Yeah,

William Harris 1:12:47

no, that's great. Well, Brieane, it's been absolutely amazing talking to you. I have loved learning from you and learning about you. If people want to work with you, you had mentioned mentorship, things like that, or if they just want to follow you, what's the best way for them to, let's say, get in touch or stay in touch or follow you.

Brieane Olson 1:13:06

I think for sure, on LinkedIn, that's where I'm most active. So LinkedIn is a great spot to create connections, community and follow along. So I would encourage that, yeah.

William Harris 1:13:15

Or Roblox, right? Or Roblox, absolutely. Brieane, thank you again, so much for your time and joining me today. Thank

Brieane Olson 1:13:22

you. Appreciate you having me on Will and I enjoyed learning so much about you as well.

William Harris 1:13:28

Thank you everyone for listening. Have a great rest of your day.

Outro 1:13:32

Thanks for listening to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

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