413. Leading Carhartt through growth, culture and change

How I describe the culture at Carhartt is similar to the same attributes that are Quietly confident, has a lot of humility, it's very rugged, it's gritty, it's hardworking. We're in the city of Detroit, so there's that whole grittiness, toughness. resiliency that happens in our city that I think also fits the culture of Carhartt. Welcome to Retail Gets Real, where we hear from retail's most fascinating leaders about the industry that impacts everyone, everywhere, every day.

I'm Bill Thorne from the National Retail Federation, and on today's very special episode, we're talking to Linda Hubbard. She's the president and chief executive officer at Carhartt in. We're going to talk to Linda about her journey to CEO and what's next for Carl. One of those things I just learned about was an F two fifty Ford collaboration. So we're gonna talk a little bit more about that. I'm I'm very interested in that. Linda, welcome to Retail Gets Real. Thank you, Bill. Happy to be here.

Now you've had quite the career journey, much of it there at Carhart. get into some of the highlights from those twenty three years at Carhartt, some of the growth in Well, you know, when I first joined Carhartt, uh, which would have been in two thousand two, so we always asked ourselves a couple of questions when we were building our strategy and it was around we'd say, you know what consumers

say when we talk about Carhartt, they say, Carhartt, I didn't know you made that and I don't know where to find So when you think back to our brand 20 plus years ago, those were kind of the questions we were trying to answer. How do we show the breadth of our line and all the different products that we make when we were primarily well, we really were completely a whole wholesaler at that point in time or, you know, very little other avenues of distribution.

So we, you know, we had to really work through our retail partners. And then we also had to, you know, identify distribution. That would increase awareness of the brand and give people more opportunities to discover the brand when they were shopping. And so when I think about some of the highlights of my career, a lot of it was. trying to answer those two questions. You know, we we really started opening up new avenues of distribution. We launched carhart.com in 2007.

We opened our first retail store in 2009 and now we're up to 66 company-owned stores. Wow. We actually have recently launched a whole new line of business, a B2B model around called Carhartt Company Gear, where we're providing uniforms to people, consumers that have to wear uniforms on the job. So not not thinking don't think like matched uniform sets, but think, you know, I wanna wear car to work.

Right. And I hope my employer would allow me or create a uniform program built around that brand. And so we've we've launched that as well. And then we've launched, you know, whole new categories of product like You know, there's 50% of the people around there that are uh women in our and uh they were looking for some car hurt too. And we knew they were buying men's products, and so how do we create a line that really answers the need to women that are doing hard work as well?

So I'd say those were some of the the highlights, you know, in my twenty-three-year career. I will say though that one of the highlights of every day at Carhart. is when you're part of a brand that's this old and has this much legacy, it it really is about kind of stewarding, you know, the brand. And every day

virtually without fail, I get an email from a consumer. And you know, sometimes there are things telling us what we could do better or maybe they, you know, want some help with a return. But so many times they're just people sending me pictures. of their family wearing car heart or their dog wearing one of our short coats from our pet accessories. or potentially somebody sharing a story about, you know, how it it kept them safe and helped them do their job more effectively.

I have I have one example of you know, whenever I give a presentation People always line up afterwards. And what they want to do is tell me their carhard story. Like tell me the story about their jacket or, you know, about somebody in their family that wore car hard. And I was at a women in retail conference last year.

And one of the retail leads for Apple came up to me and said, I've been look, you know, I I saw you on some of the panels and I've been, I wanna get my picture taken with you. And she introduced herself and I'm like, You're from Apple. You're you're kind of a big deal. It's kind of a big retail operation you got going there. And she's like, Well, the reason I want to do it is because my husband and my son were hiking.

And my son fell and injured his arm, and my husband had a Carhartt canvas shirt jack on, and he wrapped and immobilized my son's arm. And when they finally hiked out to safety, the people at the hospital told them it was. And the durability of the Carhartt fabric that kept his arm from having permanent injury. Amazing.

Yeah, there's just I mean, that is that's my world and what a privilege. So when you say what's what's the highlights, it's those one-on-one stories of Carhartt that truly to me are the biggest. You know, that's uh that's a tremendo uh you think about in just the twenty-three years and your career there at Carhartt, I mean that is a lot of change. I mean a lot of innovation. You have the basics and then you're constantly building off the basics.

Finding and exploring new ways to get Carhart into the hands of the consumer where it makes sense. And I and I think that that would be staying true to your mission, to your vision of what this company means, uh what it does. But it's but it's a family business. And so you're the first non-family member to serve in the position of president and CEO. How do you convince people it's time for change?

You know, it's it's a pretty amazing story when you get to that many generations of a of a family-owned business. I think there's a statistic in the US that fourth generation and beyond only three of the companies in the US have survived that. And we currently have fifth generation working at Carhart. So um it's an amazing story.

And really to to have a company that's that old and actually be thriving. I mean, not just surviving, but actually on this upward growth trajectory is I think a convincing proof point for my team here. We still have so much upside if we continue to stay relevant. And like you said, true to our mission. Our mission is we serve and protect all hardworking people by building durable products.

And yeah, I know that right now, probably over the last couple of years, there's been a moment when workwear has, you know, been trending in fashion, but we've never been about building product for the runway. We make product for the work. I love that. Every Everything we make is work worthy. And do we know that some people, you know, wear the brand, maybe, you know, aren't wearing it for work? That's okay as long as they're wearing the brand because they want to celebrate.

Sure. And you know, making making sure that we stay true to who our core consumer is because There is that higher purpose when you we have a mission that says we serve and protect people. Right. And there are people that are wearing it in very dangerous jobs and do rely on it as a tool to keep them safe and to help. In their job. And you know, there's there's a lot of conversation going on right now.

out there about opportunities in the skilled trades. And we kind of feel like this is another moment for Carhartt where maybe that piece of our mission that says we serve and protect all hardworking people. is an even bigger calling than the incredibly durable product that we make. But how do we also help more people discover these amazing careers where you can build a great life for yourself and for your family? Huge proponent of that. So I I want to go to the culture.

Mm-hmm, a family run business has a circle. I think. I mean, it's not a conglomeration. It's it is literally a family-owned business. And so culture plays an important role in any business. And I I think especially so in retail. What would how would you describe the culture at Car? Obviously, you get questioned uh that question often. And how I describe the culture at Carhartt is similar to the same attribute. So you know it's quietly confident, it has a lot of humility, it's very rugged.

gritty, it's hard working and I I think that, you know, as it you know, I know people always say that people with dogs start looking like their dogs as they get You know, as they live together for a long time. And I like to say that if you worked at Carhartt for a long time, you start acting like the qualities of the product, you know, you um care for each other, you make sure that everybody uh is taken care of, that

you know we're in the city of Detroit so there's that whole grittiness, toughness, resiliency that happens in our city that I think also fits the culture of Carhartt. So that's how I describe it That's pretty awesome. So okay, uh you know, we're always looking for opportunities to really highlight the fact that, you know, retail is a great place to work, a great place to grow and a great place And one of the things that we like to point out is some of the great brands are led by women leaders.

And yet, you know, it's still a challenge. I mean, it's not it's not something that people just, you know, fall into. I you have to work hard and everybody has to work hard, but I think especially for women. So what are the challenges? for you that you found through the years, first as a woman in finance and then in the C C suite to help you to become successful. I started my career in public accounting and that was also

you know, not a lot of women in in my start group back in those days. I will say that I've always uh been fortunate to have mentors and supervisors that were really just believed that the best idea should move forward and it didn't really matter where it came from. And so I am a firm believer in hard work and showing that, you know, you're capable of doing things. Fortunately I've worked with the first time.

You know, for the most part, men who were my supervisors or mentors who recognized that and really, you know, respected me for what I could bring. I think I'm pretty good at solving complex problems and I've had a lot of those in the span of my career and you know solving some of those and showing that you can be successful at leading is I think you know how I've been able to to move forward.

What advice do you give to other, let's say, young women starting out in business, uh, even maybe not even retail, but uh particularly if you find them in retail, what what advice do you give them to as they look to you as someone that they want to emulate, somebody that they want to be? You know, the one piece of advice I give to everyone starting their career is to ask for what you want.

Because I I think it otherwise people are guessing at what it is that that you're interested in, or they may not consider you for an opportunity if you don't express an interest in it. And when I think about my career, many of the steps that I've taken in in formal uh progression, I when I was in public accounting, I asked to be considered early for partner.

When I joined Carhart and started as CFO, I asked for the COO role too, when our COO retired. And so there are just moments where if you don't ask, Maybe people don't know that you have an aptitude for it or that you think you can be successful at it.

And sometimes people are nervous about that and I say, Well, if you're going to your performance review and you're uncomfortable asking for it, you can put it on your written agenda ahead of time, you know, so then it's already teed up for you and maybe you don't have um initiate it and your your supervisor will will bring it up in the But I do think it's important to say what you want so that people are clear. You know I I learned that.

professionally b young, which is good, but because I was with a firm and started in a director position, get made it to vice president and uh one of my colleagues was made a partner. We started at the same time and I was really confused as to why I n never had that conversation. Um, and I the guy who was the uh head partner of the firm uh came into my office and he said, I understand that you're upset.

And he said, I I but I don't understand why. You you you seem very happy with what you're doing. You're very good at what you're doing. Our clients like what you do. I never knew that you wanted to be a It's like, damn. Okay. You gotta ask. Otherwise, they're just gonna think you're, you know, happy and doing what you want to do. Um, but if you wanna if you wanna go the next step, you gotta let'em know. So that's great.

Yeah, it's it's a it takes courage, but I think it's you know, I've proven over and over again for myself, and as I've talked When they do that, good thing to do. Yeah, for sure. So the Carhartt customer, we've talked a little bit about, you know, it's evolved. I mean, there's no doubt. And to your point, is that you know

Not the runway, but the work day. But how has the customer changed over the years since you've been at Carhartt in these twenty three years? How have you seen the customer? In terms of their expectations of car. Yeah. I I think as awareness of the brand has grown, certainly the number of consumers that we have has grown and the diversity of the work type of work that they do has changed. You know, we wouldn't tw 20 years ago we didn't have uh medical scrubs in our line. We we do now.

You know, think about the growth and healthcare and that is incredibly physically demanding. For sure. So I think about the types of work has changed. The the types of consumers as we've invited women um into the brand and made product for them, that has changed. You know, we've always had a very uh strong consumer insights group here at Carhert, even when I first joined. And we've always spent a lot of time following the consumer. We have, you know, five thousand

folks that we call Carher Crew that are in all different kinds of industries and we have them, you know, be our testers for our product and give that feedback. I I do think too, the interesting thing about our consumer insights is As we followed our consumer, we found that w we could only go, we only wanted to go where our cur consumer gave us permission. And'cause that's how you stay authentic and All for sure.

So we what we found is that some of our consumers were wearing us off the job. So our double front pants that you think um that roofers would wear because they're working on their knees on on shingles and and roof roofs. We found that in the Pacific Northwest, Some of our consumers were wearing those pants for a ride. Because they were incredibly durable. And it's we started to think, you know what, that's part of our value equation that you can wear us on and off the job.

Sure and with you know uh a blue-collar worker the you know discretionary income can be challenging and you can't buy two sets of clothes. So if it's if it's tough enough for work, it's it's tough enough. for hard play too, you know. And we what what that allowed us to do is say, you know, we have your back twenty four seven and it opened up a whole new distribution channel for us around the sporting goods and You know, and that expanded awareness of the brand because

We were always strong in farm and ranch and rural distribution. You know, we were in farm stores, we were Ag was, you know, a really strong industry that we supported. But once you got into sporting goods, it took you to suburban and even sometimes urban. And that just more people, you know, found out about the brand. And although we, you know, we're we're in there as a work brand, people see the value that they can wear it, you know, for multiple functions.

When you think about the younger consumer and gig gig economy that we're in right Sometimes they work two or three different jobs and having multifunctional clothing that you can wear all day long and is gonna hold up um is really critical. So I think Some of those are some of the changes that we've seen in consumers and what their expectation is for our So you s you indicated sixty-six retail locations?

Yes. So w w how have you prioritized those? I mean, are they are they in more rural, more urban, are they more, you know, west or how how would one find a Carhartt retail store? Well initially when we first started, we kind of started in the northern tier of the country, all the way, you know, east to west. Right. And as that would have been like in two thousand nine, so Also it's been a while. Yeah. So as we the first store we actually opened um was out in Portland, Oregon.

Um, and we opened it really through a partnership with one of our wholesale customers who said, you know, you guys should really open your own store. This is like we have such amazing, you know, customers that just want the best for our brand. you know, a lot of people starting a D2C business would be worried about the conflict with their wholesale customers. And yet we had one that was like, I'll help you do it. I'll help you find a good location.

show you how to be a retailer and wow all right so If you say so. Yeah, and you know, he was right. And now I'm actually gonna see him this weekend. But um yeah, it's it's just uh a terrific testimony to how much people, you know, appreciate the brand and

what it had done for his own business as well. But you know, we so we started in the north, but now as as we evolved our product line and we've really made we kind of weatherproofed our products in that you can we've made a lot of products for warm weather. Knowing and that's really allowed us to open stores. We've opened some recently in Texas.

We opened one at Albuquerque. Um so we're you know continuing now um both looking at southwest and southeast. We really try to put them in a place where we don't have a lot of distribution. Right to use it as awareness building or just to answer that question of card. I didn't know you made So having people walk in the store and go, wow, you make all these different things. And it helps our wholesale business because those customers go into our stores too and say, hey.

I might be able to in increase my car work shop. Sure. And I might, you know, there's some products here that might be might make sense for me as well. Yeah. So th I I mentioned it at the at the start, and because you mentioned it, I was not aware of it. And this is the collaboration that you have with the Ford Motor Company and the F two Carhartt F-250. I mean that's pretty amazing. How did that come out? Well, they are our neighbors. Uh

They certainly are. We're here in Detroit and our are actually we're in Dearborn and and and their hardc headquarters are in Dearborn. So We're two longtime Detroit companies and and family held in a significant part in Ford and completely family held and in Carhart. And so, you know, we we started, you know, to have some conversations, but really wanted to make the partnership even more than just the truck. The truck is obviously.

We've been on job sites with each other for years. You you can't go on a job site and not see a truck, not see a Ford, you know, F-250, which is really their large commercial pro truck. So You know, we s thought it seemed perfectly natural that we would we would put this together. Um, but we also created part of the partnership is around Pooling our resources and trying to create awareness around the need to improve opportunities.

For skilled trades. They were really focused primarily on auto mechanics and just the shortage of workers that they have in a lot of different categories for building their. their vehicles and obviously for Carhartt we have a you know an interest in continuing to promote the skilled trades. So we joined forces on that as well. We actually are um working on building out some training programs together. to to really advance those opportunities for both our both of our

That's fantastic. I I I love that. And I think you'll be able to order your new truck very soon. I think I think orders start opening this spring. Yeah, it may be difficult to fit in your garage or your driveway. Yeah. Well, I have a nineteen ninety-four Ford F-150, and uh this got a little over two hundred thousand miles on it, and um I'm anxious to see what the new Carhartt F-250.

Yeah. We're also doing some collaboration on product together. We're doing some Ford Carhartt product that'll launch this model as well on our website. Awesome. I could go on and on and on. This is incredibly interesting. And as I told you before we started, I have colleagues that were really interested in the Carhartt conversation. And so we may have to have you back. But let me just ask you, you know, what what do you see for the future?

of retail. I mean, in in as as you view it from the Carhartt perspective. You can't have a c conversation about the future of anything without AI. So I think we're all trying to figure out how does that play. Very impressive that we got to the end of the conversation. We're just starting to talk about AI. That is awesome.

So what does it mean for consumer convenience? I I don't think we all we know that yet. I think for Carhartt, for us, the future retail will continue to be leaning into our direct-to-consumer business. We still see an opportunity to open some more doors, that that it is important to have both physical and online presence. For sure. Another thing, another area that we

have launched over the last couple of years. It and you can find it on our website is Carheart Reworked, which is product that has already been worn. Oh wow. And then it is turned back in to us and we clean it, repair it, and resell it on our carhart reward. website. So it's a really um interesting entry point for people that maybe can't afford, you know, first quality car heart. It's about 30% less in price. Right. But it's also really Kind of our natural sustainability story.

Our stuff lasts forever, right? I mean we didn't have to like create you know, a story about sustainability, what when when pro our products handed down from generation to generation. But this is a way, if you don't have a grandfather to give you a jacket, you can go on Carhartt Rework.

and find one that's appropriately, you know, worn in a little bit. And we'll kind of classify how worn it is. But all of it, we wouldn't put anything on there that you couldn't still work, that wouldn't still be work. So that's that's you know this whole idea of resale and even rental I think will be interesting as younger people are more focused on sustainability. Absolutely. What that's

Yeah, we you know, the circular economy. We talk about that all the time. And I think that the you know, a lot of the companies, uh a lot of uh brands uh and retailers are looking for opportunities just like that. taking product that is returned, fixing it up and then reselling and ensuring that people making it affordable and quality. And so that's that's that's a great, great program.

So Linda, I think that you're gonna have some good answers to this. This is rapid fire. So I'm just gonna ask you very quickly and just tell me right off the top of your head, what is the best book that you've read recently? I I'm gonna go with it in nineteen twenty nine, the Andrew Ross Sork and I you know, it's my the finance geek and me and all that. I I I do like to, you know, learn a little bit more about monetary policy and Yeah. So what's your favorite car heart?

I'm wearing kind of my favorite, which is our Detroit jacket and I I try to wear a pe at least one piece of carhard every day. And so I would kind of call this my work blazer. So you know, when I have to have to meet with the bankers or whatever, I might have to wear like a nice dress, but I can always throw my car hard Detroit. Pretty awesome. Favorite TV show? I would say right now I'm watching the pit because my son um is in medical school. So Beach or mountains. Or lakes in your Michigan.

I'd say lakes'cause we have a lake in northern Michigan and it is You know, my husband teases me about just staring at the water sitting up. It's a great, great thing to do. We growing up, we had a lake house on Coldwater Lake, which is southwest Michigan, uh near. Very formal. So, Linda, it has been a distinct pleasure talking to you. I mean, you've got a great brand personally and with the uh retail business.

You've done extraordinary things in a very short period of time. I'm I'm really, really blown away by the amount of innovation that you all have done. To make sure that Carhartt stays in front of the wave and is relevant to the new customers, to the younger generation. So congratulations. Thank you for joining us too. Thank you, Bill. And thank you all for listening to another episode of Retail Gets Real. You can find more information about this episode at retailgetsreal.com.

I'm Bill Thorne. This is Retail Gets Real. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time.