18 | theceomagazine.com
After kicking off her fashion career in 2003 as
a buying manager trainee with UK department store
company Fenwick, Jacqueline accumulated hands-on
experience with fashion labels including House of
Fraser, and Marks and Spencer, before joining
Swedish multinational clothing retail giant H&M.
“After nine years in various management positions
at H&M, I was headhunted by 6IXTY8IGHT in
January 2015, and I’ve never looked back.”
GROWING PAINS
Over the past three years, Jacqueline and the team
have turned a relatively disorganised and unstructured
company into an efficient, streamlined business with
a rapidly growing brand profile and customer base.
Today, her greatest challenge is one that many
businesses can only dream of having. “We’re growing
so fast – by up to 30 per cent each year – and we’re
opening a new store each week. It feels like I’m
running a marathon every day,” she laughs. “Don’t
get me wrong, it’s exciting, but also very challenging
for us to keep up with the number of people we
have to hire, the infrastructure we have to create, and
the technology we need to embrace.”
Jacqueline believes the success of any retail brand
relies on its product. “If you have a good product,
people will come. The second aspect is branding, now
largely controlled through social media campaigns. We
narrowed our customer profile to specifically target
young women aged between 15 and 25 years,” she
explains. “The third aspect is culture. We’re fun, fast,
focused and flexible. We’re open-minded and we
embrace mistakes – as long as you learn from them.
With a flat hierarchy, we make quick decisions and
take action, giving us a competitive advantage over
larger companies where the decision-making process
is more drawn out. One of the main reasons I love
my job is no day is the same – it’s ever-changing.”
DOING IT DIGITALLY
Now in the thick of the digital revolution, Jacqueline
reflects on her start in the fashion world. “When
I was at Fenwick, we were taught to do everything
manually. If I was to order new jeans, I had to go to
the shop floor and count have many jeans we had.
I then looked at the number of units we originally
ordered, the difference we had sold and thus needed
to reorder. It was so old-fashioned, but now
everything has changed – it’s all digital,” she notes.
“Particularly with a target demographic of
15–25-year-old women, we have to use the
technologies that they use in order to be seen and
heard. Our customers are shopping online like never
before, so a large part of our focus is centred on
data and artificial intelligence to create a better
shopping experience both in-store and online. This
is something big retailers and department stores are
struggling with – they can’t get as many people in
to their stores anymore.”
Jacqueline believes that in order to survive as a
modern retailer, innovation is not an option but a
necessity. “Retailers have to offer something extra that
helps them stand out from the crowd – from offering
in-store returns for online items, promoting same-day
delivery or even the ability to pay with facialNUMBERS SIX
AND EIGHT mean
‘forever fortune’
in Mandarin.
INSPIRE | Interview