Name: VF Corp's Mantra: Embrace Change and Build Purposeful Brands
Uploaded: 2019-08-15
Duration: 7 min 3 s
Description: VF Corp CEO Steven Rendle says the company stays true to its mission by building purposeful products.

[ MUSIC ]. Steve, do you mind giving us an overview of your company and your brands? Absolutely. VF Corporation is a hundred and twenty year old enterprise focused in the apparel and footwear segment. Some of the brands you might know would be our Vans business. It's our largest and fastest growing today. The North Face, Timberland, Dickies, our most recent acquisition. And then smaller brands like icebreaker, Smart Wallet, Ultra, Napapijri Really focused on a global consumer with a very specific lifestyle that our brands help to define So your company's experienced a lot of change recently you've had a spin off of contour brands and you're moving your headquarters to Denver? Yeah How do you keep your employees focused on your mission during that change is not something that we look at in a negative way in fact, we embrace it, because with change over this 120 years that we have been in business our companies evolved at very key points in our history. To remain relevant and remain focused on where the consumer marketplace was growing. So we set a very clear objective of what we were doing in reshaping our portfolio. Specifically with a spin. And our why we were choosing to relocate our brands to Denver Colorado. And with those objectives and those guiding principles against each one of those projects And project management teams focused on just driving the execution, helping our people move through the different actions. We've arrived on the other side in a very strong way. The spin has been executed. Our Contour Brands is now trading on its own, and the move to Denver has begun. And the energy level You know, that we see in Denver of our brands coming together, our corporate leaders co locating with these brands. It's really exciting to see. One of the things that you had said that's in your company's mission is that you want to be purpose led Yes. Focusing on sustainability and the outdoors, Can you describe why you've decided to focus on this path? Consumers are looking for brands that stand for something more than just product. But more importantly, we know that employees, current employees and future employees are looking at companies where they can bring their own personal purpose, you know, to life. So we embarked on a journey, two and a half years ago to begin to define what is VX purpose. And through that work, where we really went from the bottoms up and top down, talk to all regions of our company, all levels, all different functions and engaged, close to 2500 people and helping us define what our purpose is. And that purpose is that we power movements, sub sustainable and active lifestyles for the betterment of people and the planet. And we created a rather large kind of overarching purpose that will allow our brands to come up into that overarching vision and through their actions, activate towards the consumer. And at an enterprise level, We focus in the outdoors around a platform called Outdoor Matters. We focus around the active space around a platform called Free To Be. And we focus in the work category around a set of actions called Worthy Work. And each one of those are very specific to those consumers, specifically those brands. And we drive activations. Specifically, to really raise the why to why VF exists and what we do every day driving products and experiences to enhance the lives of our consumers. What do you do if your company ever faces. A conflict or a trade off between social responsibility and profits. And could you give an example of that happening? Now, That is a great question. And I will tell you as we rolled out our purpose, that was one of the first questions our employees asked of our leadership team. When faced with that question, what will we do? Would we move towards the financial side of that equation or would we stay true to our commitment to repurpose that? And the way we've answered that is that it's neither an either or an or. It is really an and, and we look at all of our decisions now through the lens of purpose Does this drive forward our vision of who we intend to be? And does it benefit our shareholder? Is there a financial return that our shareholders would be comfortable with? But I think probably the easiest one to wrap your head around would be our decision to support A north faced campaign last year that was around the whole area that walls are meant for climbing. It's an outdoor focused brand, climbing walls are deeply imbedded in its history and we looked at weather we should take a position that could be interpreted from a political point of view. Or, should we take a step back and not put ourselves into that position. We needed to allow our North Face brand to make a position around walls were meant for climbing specific, to what it means the outdoors specific, what it means to inclusion and diversity. And celebrating each one of us as individuals and being free to be. Do you believe that capitalism is in crisis? If so, what specifically can VF do to address this crisis? I do not personally believe that capitalism is in crisis. I think we ae in the midst of more of a Of a social crisis. You know, where we as a community, specifically in the United States, have gone to the edges. And we are struggling through really, I think, the actions of our leaders. And people who are in position who have the responsibility to pull people together, to have conversations. To celebrate our differences to find the commonalities and strike a balance in the conversations that drive our nation, and our enterprises forward and I firmly believe and this is why we are so committed to being purpose lead. Corporate America is really Has the position in the opportunity to be the leader and step forward in through the power of our employees and a collective vision around what drives us from a purpose to standpoint. We can be those change agents, bring people back together, back to the middle, have the conversations, celebrate our differences and recognizes that we know we all won't win. But if we can agree on a common vision we can drive ourselves forward in a very successful path. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

VF Corp's Mantra: Embrace Change and Build Purposeful Brands

Leadership

VF Corp CEO Steven Rendle says the company stays true to its mission by building purposeful products.