The LinkedIn Podcast Network is brought to you by ExxonMobile. The world needs ways to reduce carbon emissions. ExxonMobile is working on solutions in its own operations, like carbon capture, that could also help businesses like yours deliver lower emissions. Learn more at ExxonMobile.com. LinkedIn News Do you hesitate about thinking about becoming the CEO? Oh yeah. Hey, welcome to the path. I'm Ryan Roslansky, the CEO of LinkedIn.
On this show, I sit down with the world's top leaders to talk about the decisions that shaped their unique careers and how these valuable lessons can help you pave your own path. Today, I sit down with Angela Arns. Angela has one of the most shocking and inspirational career shifts corporate America has seen in decades. After eight incredible years transforming Burberry into a fashion powerhouse, she quit her CEO job to take on an SVP roll at Apple. For a lot of people, that didn't make sense.
Who quits a CEO job for what looks like a demotion? And what is a fashion exec going to do in tech? For Angela, it made perfect sense. Here's how Angela Arns paved your path. I know you grew up in Indiana and a small town in Indiana, and if I were to go way back then to a young Angela in Indiana, I'm almost the first time you had any kind of inkling of what you maybe wanted to be one day when you grew up. The long time ago. I am from very, very humble, humble beginnings.
And so we all worked, and that's just what we did. I'm one of six kids, and I grew up with a very spiritual mother, and a philosopher father. Wow. I think my dad knew that I was a sponge. I was always a curious student, just my whole life, and a worker. I mean, I loved to work, and so I would put the chart on the refrigerator with all of the chores, and I'd get a dollar for that, a dollar for that, and that if my siblings didn't do theirs, I'd want to do theirs too.
And I worked at a very young age. I used a lifeguard growing up. And then in between, I'm in my spare time, I loved fashion magazines, and I sowed, you know, would make doll clothes. So I always somewhat knew at a young age, I kind of wanted to angle into the fashion industry. And it's funny when you grew up in a small town in the heart of the Midwest, and you know, I just remember everybody wasn't always happy. And I just vowed at a really young age that I needed to do what I just loved.
And so I really pushed myself, you know, what do I love? What's my passion? So a certain point, you decide that college is the right path for you, and it's not always the right path for everyone. But do you remember your kind of framework at the time to say, for what I want to be doing, this is the right choice for me? Mm-hmm. Yeah, because I really debated it. Yeah. Because I was hungry. I mean, I kind of got the bug, my junior senior, high school that I was moving to New York.
My sister went to Ball State University, and so I went up to visit her one weekend. And I literally, you know, they say signs in life, and I literally walked into this one building. There was a huge sign talking about this new merchandising and marketing course. And it was funny. It was like they wrote it for me. And I left there that weekend saying, I'm going to Ball State. So I studied merchandising and marketing just as the little sign said.
I took as many courses as I could, because I went to college to get out. Yeah. I didn't go to college to find a spouse. I didn't go, I mean, I literally went to get out because it was the only thing between me and New York. Yeah. And then when I got to college, I needed to work the whole time through college. I took a job at Music Land and the Muncie Mall. And you meet people along the way.
You start to learn, and each one of these jobs, more about yourself, more about people you want to not emulate, but just, you know, put in your head to pull from later, et cetera. So this all eventually leads you to New York, to your first job. What was going on at that point in your life? The career path was get to New York and get a job in the passion industry. So I had one appointment, which then connected me to this menswear company, and they happened to be hiring.
Now, I didn't really want into menswear. I didn't really want into sales, but it didn't matter. It was a foot in the door to meet great people. And then everything else started from there. It's not always the door you want to go in, but getting that first thing, I think, is always the hardest. Once you're in, then you can go. I think there's something super important about what Angela is saying here.
Because a lot of times, especially for people starting out in their career, they believe that there is this pre-ordained path to go down. I want to get into fashion, but men's fashion wasn't part of my plan. So I'm going to forgo that. But the truth is, sometimes you have to take those opportunities, even though it's not what you plan. I think that's a really important insight coming out of Angela's career. Men's fashion got her in the door, and her career just catapulted from there.
She bounced around some jobs working with different designers, and then landed at Donna Karen. She spent seven years there working crazy hours and making her way up to president. And eventually, she found her way to women's apparel company, Liz Claiborne. Many know it now is Kate's fate. When you rose through, I mean, you know, a career path in fashion at a pretty amazing pace, what led to what seems like a pretty amazing and quickly successful career path through fashion.
Yeah, you make it sound so weird. Yeah, yeah, I was looking back. I don't think there's ever a silver bowl in anything. And I think it was nothing but sheer work and hours. And it was my passion. I used to lay in bed at night because I lived all by myself in a flip-flour walk-up and I knew nobody. You know, I take myself to the park on the weekends with my magazines and pretend I was living this incredible New York life. And I was lonely at times and I just got a cat and a dad.
And he kept me company. But I also used to say to myself, but just imagine, most people can't work like you can work. Most people can't work or won't work 60, 80 hours a week. And if you do that in 20 years, that's like 40 years experience. I mean, I used to tell myself this stuff. And again, I was only there to do that. And I was just a sponge. I would make a list of stores I wanted to hit on the weekends. You know, I couldn't afford anything in the stores. I mean, I was making a popper sour.
But it didn't matter. I just wanted to expose myself. And we didn't have phones. We didn't have, we had nothing to search. I just would spend the weekends and I'm just learning and growing and feeling and having opinion on things. And exhibitions would come to town and I, you know, stand in line and go. So in any meeting, I could contribute. And so you started to have a voice. And you and people started to lean into you more because you were growing. And they weren't all out doing that.
This theme of the work ethic that you had comes through so clear in this story. Going out of your way, always being informed. It doesn't feel like you were doing it to get ahead. You were doing it because you cared about it. It inspired you. You wanted to be able to contribute in the meeting. You wanted to be part of the process. It wasn't like you said, I want to be the CEO. So I'm going to do this, which I think a lot of people chase like they missed it. I want to be that thing.
So I'm going to do it versus I'm just going to work hard and be passionate about it. Is that resonator? Absolutely. Yeah, I always say I never, I never even, I'll never talk about becoming a CEO. You know, yeah, it was never on my radar. I just wanted to love what I did. When somewhere along the line you wake up and it's like they're actually paying me to do this. I know.
You know, when you start to travel to London and Paris and Milan and flying around the world with Donna Karen and going to Fabric shows and, you know, and you're like, wow, I mean, I'm living the dream. And they're actually paying me. This is incredible. Liz Claiborne is where Angela truly stood out in corporate America. She started out as a VP of merchandising. Helping lead acquisitions of companies like Juicy Couture and Lucky Brand.
And by the end of her tenure, she was an executive vice president. She had a crazy work ethic and a talent for attracting customers to her brands. And that's why one day out of the blue, Burberry calls her, asking her to become their CEO. Do you hesitate about thinking about becoming the CEO? Oh, yeah. I am loyal to a fault. And you build relationships, trusting relationships.
And it was funny because I was it was it was then called the Liz Claiborne Corporation or LCI and the New York Stock Exchange. And I had been there for, I don't know, seven or eight years. And I just it couldn't be any better. And I had had my third child and we just got the country house. And I mean, it's perfect. And it was the strangest thing because there was two EVPs at the company.
And one day we were having lunch and and Tudy said, you seem so happy like it feels like you would never leave. But why would you ever leave? Like, I'm just curious. And it was so instinctual. I said, honestly, I would love something more global. I would love something more direct to consumer. And I would love it in the luxury space because that's just naturally where my heart is. And literally two weeks later, I think it's when you put stuff out into the ether, you know.
Literally two weeks later, I get a phone call from the search firm. But but I wasn't I wasn't open. I said, no, thank you. Finally, Rosemary at one point she wants got mad at me. She she called me up and she goes, do you know what you're doing? Do you know how few women CEOs there are in the world? I mean, she gave me this incredible lecture. And I wasn't losing sleep before. And I don't care about titles. But her whole thing was almost on behalf of women. And then I lost sleep.
You know, when you lose sleep, it's kind of all over. Yeah. Angela joined Burberry after years of it underperforming. It was losing its reputation for fine luxury. But she came in and changed it all. Reestablishing it as one of the finest luxury brands in the world. All while tripling the company's stock value. It was so impressive that it caught the eye of Apple CEO Tim Cook. He was looking for someone to revamp their stores.
So, Angela got another unsolicited phone call asking her to join Apple as an SVP leading retail. It was kind of the same thing, thanks, but no thanks. And they actually hired somebody else. And I think that was short lived. And so then the phone rings again. Would you come out to California and just meet him? I was such a student and an admirer of the company and the brand. And so I thought out of respect, I need to go out and meet with him. But I really, I thought I'm not leaving again.
And then I was actually, I was blown away by him the man. Got it? So he calls Andy, he says, I have an offer ready. I'd let him send it off. And I said, don't. I don't want an offer. It's not about the money. I need to know in my heart and soul that this is where I'm supposed to be next. I said, it might sound really weird to you. But I don't need a job. And he's like, well, what do you want? How can I make it work? And so I spent the next couple of days talking about that.
And then I sent him an email. And I said, we created a seamless customer journey at Burberry. If you believe that the app and dot com. And if you want to combine all of that into one. And then if you believe that this should also be your philanthropic arm out into the community, then that would be something I have to consider. So, you know, in, I don't know, five minutes, I get the email back. You know, I've never thought of it that way. But great. So that was the premise that I took the job.
And so to me, it was a higher purpose. It was a bigger mission. They were already three times more productive than the retailer. But were they giving and doing enough in every community? Angela ended up joining Apple and rebranding their physical locations from retail stores with minimal sales to community building hubs. Then in 2019, she announced that she was leaving to spend time with her family. But that break was short lived.
Because just a year later, she got yet another phone call asking her to become the chair of Save the Children International. She said, yes, and started down a new path. Not in fashion, not in tech, but in nonprofit. One thing I've, I've loved through this conversation is kind of, you know, a focus on, a lot of these just skills you seem to have picked up along the way. When you look back and these, you know, all this stuff, you keep adding to who you are, as a professional and as a person.
What are maybe a couple of the most valuable things you picked up? If I look back, I actually think that I've learned more in the valleys than I have on the mountain tops. And I used to tell myself that at Burberry wouldn't there be something really hard just coming at me. And I'd be like, it's okay, this is a test, just a test. You can pass this test. And when you do, you're going to get a bigger one thrown at you.
And I think I learned more and accelerated more, getting through those challenging times. I'm sure in your career, you've come across the same thing. Well, I'll tell you what resonates a ton is your story about how you lead when things aren't going your way. I think that's the key to all of it. I mean, adaptive leadership is critical right now. But when I was a little boy, my dad had an office in our house and he had a little cut
out from a Forbes article. It was a Shakespeare quote. It said when the Caesar calm, all ships alike show master ship and floating. And I'm a little kid. And I think it's a quote about boats. But what it's really about is that it's not how you act or react when things are going your way. Anyone can look good when that's happening. It's what you do when things aren't going your way. And I go back to that. I mean, especially for the last three years, like on a daily basis,
you know, things are tough. And how do you show up and how do you act? I guess my question for you is with everything you have now, what's next? You know, it's funny when I was young, it was fashion. And then when you're at a company a long time, your passion brought you in to do something. But the higher up you go, the further you are removed from why you started to do it to begin with, right? And then it became about leadership. I love the old Steve Jobs quote. He said,
you can never connect the dots looking forward. Only when you look back does it all make sense. And so it's funny. I look back. And it was the Liz Portfolio job and the working with founders and understanding how left brain, right brain I am and how to build incredible teams that set me up for Burberry. Burberry was almost like a startup. So everything I learned at Burberry was actually a warm up for Apple. And now I feel that everything I learned at Apple was a warm up for I chair,
save the children international out of London. And so I find myself in this place again and it's daunting and it's a totally new sector that I've never been in. You know, you're it's constant learning. But you know, I do feel incredibly honored if I can use my my expertise and my passion and my my leadership skills that I've acquired over the years to help make a difference and not just raising money for save the children. But you know, we've got this recession and so all you read
about now is the layoffs. Like that's not socially responsible and that's only going to prolong the recession. So can we not get creative and figure out a way to, you know, maybe full time goes to part time. Maybe people want a freelance. Maybe there's early retirement. There's a lot of other ways to to cut expenses. I know because I've done it twice in the big companies that we've been talking
about. So without laying people off, there's a lot of innovative things to do. So I do think it's a moment also that, you know, it's time for companies to start filling in that S a little bit broader as a company. What is all of our responsibilities? What is, you know, how can we help? It's super inspiring. I love to hear your passion come through the way you talk about it. Last thing, how do you think about career advice or when someone asks you what is your best career
advice? How do you share your thoughts? First of all, I ask them, what's their passion? Because if it's not your passion, it's a job. And life is too short just to have a job. What's your passion or what breaks your heart that kills you that you want to lean into? Because that's a passion as well. You know you better than anyone will know you. It's your job to align yourself with a person that you think will mentor you and will respect you and honor your knowledge and partner with you and
put you under their wings. And I was used to say people work for people. You know, yes, there's great companies and a lot of egos like to say, I work for Apple. But if you really don't like the person and you're really not going anywhere, then kind of what's the point then you're not doing your greatest life's work. So I just think, I think listen to your heart, listen to your passion and then align yourself with people who genuinely care about you and making, you know, bringing out the greatest
in you. I consider Angela Lucky for one specific reason. She knew from a young age that she loved fashion. Not a lot of people can identify their passion so young, but something you love can easily become a hobby that fizzles out in the background if you don't nurture it. You have to find a way to align your passion to what you do for work, but your passion can change. You don't have to stay stuck on what you did before, even if you dedicated decades to it. Angela started
off completely committed to fashion, but as she changed, so did her goals. Along the way, she made a name for herself in both the tech and the nonprofit world. And now take this, she's working as the senior operating advisor for Sky Partners, a private equity firm founded by Kim Kardashian, shown us once again that Angela's always open opportunities, as long as she sees something meaningful coming out of it. But how do you find your passion? And how can you pivot into a different
industry if you're not getting phone calls from Tim Cook or Kim Kardashian? We'll get into that after the break. The LinkedIn podcast network is brought to you by the Progress Report. Progress demands continuous transformation, but how do you know you're making the right kind of progress to overcome IT challenges? Welcome to the Progress Report, a podcast brought to you by Kendral,
your partner for continuous innovation. Join us as we sit down with thought leaders, technologists, and innovative problem solvers, and keep your finger on the pulse of progress. Listen to the Progress Report wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the path. Before the break, we heard from Angela Arrants, who pivoted jobs and industries multiple times. The decisions weren't easy, but what helped her was a pretty simple question,
and my passionate about this. Because as she said, life is too short to just have a job. But finding your passion, that can be pretty overwhelming. So I asked Doray Clark to chime in and help us make this intangible goal something more real. Doray's communication coach and a business consultant, and she's the author of five books, including Reinventing You. Here's what she wants you to know about her actively finding your passion and work.
It is really essential in today's work environment to take initiative. In the past, you know, let's call it the post-World War II past, it's true that there was generally an expectation that essentially you got on an escalator, and as long as you didn't do anything horrifyingly wrong, you could basically just rise up the escalator and good things would happen. There was a highly predictable path. And starting in the late 80s, especially the 1990s,
that norm busted up completely. And we are now in much flatter, more matrixed organizations. A lot of my speaking business, frankly, is being called in to speak by companies that want to convey to their employees that there is a lot more room. If you have a passion and interest, you can raise your hand, and if you're good, people are probably not going to say no. They'll say, oh, okay, great. Yeah, let's do that. That's really exciting because that wasn't really possible
in the past. But the problem is that for many people, possibly even the majority of people, the concept of finding your passion can be really challenging. And I think part of the problem is a terminology problem. When we think passion, it's almost the equivalent of asking around dating or romance, who's your soulmate? Is what you're doing now? Your passion is the person you're dating now? You're soulmate? So I actually often advocate for lowering the bar a little bit.
And instead of saying, is it my passion? Is it my calling? Which is very high stakes and high stress? I like to basically ask, is it interesting? I often talk about how do we optimize for interesting? Because I might not know if this is my ultimate destination or the thing I'm meant to be doing. But I certainly know whether I find it interesting in some way. And so lowering the bar so that we can feel curious about something and just say, you know what, I'm going to keep pursuing
this until it stops being interesting. And then maybe I'll pivot is I think a useful way for people to approach things if they just aren't sure because it enables us to live our way into a deeper state of knowing. Oftentimes research has shown we actually develop passions through mastery. The better we get at something, the more enjoyable it is. And so it's not necessarily that passion is out there somewhere and we have to discover it. We often create our own passions through the act
of doing things, learning about them and going deeper with them. I love that framing because it can help anyone at any stage of their career. Find a genuine interest, explore it and create passion from that. Passion and work really is something that can grow and change over time. Just like how Angela's passion change from passion to marketing and merchandising to leadership. But Angela is in a unique position. It's not every day that you get cold called and offered a completely different
job. So how else can you navigate a big career pivot if your interests have changed? One of the most important elements when it comes to professional reinvention is understanding that in addition to the technical details of learning your new job or learning your new industry, there may be people who are a little bit actively skeptical of you. You have to find a way thoughtfully to overcome those skeptics. And part of it is being thoughtful about what skeptics might be responding to and
leaning into that. One question I get all the time is from older professionals, people who are 50 or over, even 60 or over. And they might want to change industries, but they feel like there's a lot of skepticism about their ability to learn new skills or to be competent in a realm that they haven't done before. And I actually advise people to try almost deliberately to shock their interviewers or the people in the new company. It just breaks the pattern enough so that people
are willing to give you more of a chance. The professional reinvention challenges of younger professionals are slightly different. People assume that if you're younger, you can learn anything. You're pretty malleable. You can figure it out. But the part where there's a little bit of a perception challenge is, are you serious about it? Or are you just going to be this kind of flighty person? And so if that's the case, what I often advise younger professionals to do
is to make sure that you're pushing against that in a strategic way. So double-town on the Gravitas. And by Gravitas, what I mean is the sense of thoughtfulness, seriousness, show that you actually are deeply interested in and perhaps hopefully committed to that industry or to that company. Show that in your research. Show that in the way you talk about issues. Show that you're not just somebody who had chat GPT write your resume and suddenly you're in front of the interviewer.
But do you actually know this stuff? You care. You know the terminology. You know about factors in the industry. There's a reason why you're talking to this company and not any other company in the world. And show that you are in it for the long haul or at least the foreseeable future. And that this isn't just a way station for you. You need to be thoughtful and proactive and really ask those questions. Where do I want to go? How do I want my career to look? Because you now
have more ability to shape that than ever before. And that's quite powerful. So here's my takeaway. I think it's time to let go of this idea that you can only have one passion in life. You can only have one career or one trade. And that passion will just appear out of nowhere like in a piphany. Don't be afraid to go deep in whatever you're interested in. And remember that everyone's figuring things out one day at a time. It's becoming more and more of the norm to pivot interests
or roles or even industries. And with new technologies every day like generative AI, there's always an opening to get curious about a new passion. Follow the path for more career insights weekly and find me over on LinkedIn where we talk more about this episode and all episodes. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash the path. The path is a LinkedIn editorial production. Our production team includes Ava Aanabhagi, Steven Valdivia, and Rachel Wong. Enrique Montalvo is our executive producer,
Dave Pond is head of news production. Our head of regional program is Courtney Koup and Dan Roth is our editor in chief. Thanks to Tatiana, DelMeta, Caroline Gaffney, and Valerie Barry. And a big thank you to Dory Clark. If you want to learn more of her strategies, download the long game strategic thinking self-assessment for free at Dory Clark.com slash the long game.