#264: Bracken Darrell, CEO of VF Corporation – Good design can make anything better

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: How Leaders Lead with David Novak
Episode: #264: Bracken Darrell, CEO of VF Corporation – Good design can make anything better
Release Date: November 6, 2025
Host: David Novak
Guest: Bracken Darrell, CEO of VF Corporation

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Episode Overview

This episode features an insightful conversation between David Novak and Bracken Darrell, the CEO of VF Corporation (parent to brands like The North Face, Vans, and Timberland). The main theme explores the transformative power of design thinking in both product and organizational culture, Bracken’s passion for reinvention, and his leadership philosophy developed over decades. The episode is rich in practical leadership advice, stories about brand turnarounds, and perspectives on fostering creativity and growth-oriented cultures across industries.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Bracken Darrell’s Approach to Design and Leadership

• Broad Definition of Design
  Bracken sees design as far more than aesthetics—it's about improving user experience across every touchpoint, including internal processes, organizational culture, and consumer products:

  "Design is about creating an experience for users around what users really need, whether they can express that need or not.” (21:25, Bracken)

• Applying Design Thinking to All Facets
  Design isn’t limited to “creative” teams. Bracken pushes design thinking into HR, accounting, and operations by encouraging everyone to ask, “How can we make this better for users—internal or external?”

Reinventing Self and Organization

• Annual Self-Reinvention
  Bracken shares his habit of “firing and rehiring” himself with a new, objective mindset each year to stay sharp and avoid complacency:

  “There’s nothing that I have to be today that I was yesterday. I can completely transform myself today.” (06:45, Bracken)

• Strategic Self-Awareness
  He and David discuss the importance of routine self-assessment (“three by five” exercises) and the power of objectivity in both personal and business growth.

Turnaround Stories and Brand Revitalization

• Old Spice Transformation
  Bracken walked through the deep overhaul of Old Spice:

  • Lowering prices (rare at P&G).
  • Changing the product name and advertising.
  • Direct involvement and bold decisions when leadership gaps existed.
  • Results: Doubled market share in a year, with further substantial growth.

  “We just were off to the races.” (19:57, Bracken)

• Logitech Turnaround
  Similar playbook at Logitech:

  • Refocusing on innovation.
  • In-housing design talent.
  • Resizing the company after years of excessive overhead.
  • Result: 10x value increase over a decade.

• Bringing Design to VF Corporation
  Bracken’s challenge at VF is to infuse design-thinking across legacy brands and departments:

  “You really should be designing everything.” (23:22, Bracken)

Leadership and Culture

• Recognition and Accountability
  Emphasizes genuine recognition for teams’ contributions and full accountability for failures as CEO:

  “When things go wrong…it really is all about you. It’s something you could have changed almost always.” (17:35, Bracken)

• Ownership at All Levels
  Leaders should encourage everyone to act as owners, regardless of their role:

  “Everybody in the company is my partner. Everybody’s got a job to do…you can have a dramatic impact on the company from whatever chair you’re in.” (44:40, Bracken)

• Brand as Community and Culture
  The best brands create a sense of club or belonging, where community defines brand identity more than the company itself:

  “You don’t really own it. The users…own it, especially those who feel most passionate about it.” (31:49, Bracken)

Brand Highlights

• The North Face: Balancing hardcore explorers’ needs and the broader market as the puffer jacket becomes a cultural icon.
• Vans: Doubling down on “off the wall” culture; revival of the Warp Tour music festival to reinforce community.
• Timberland: Deep respect for hip-hop’s role in defining the brand’s place in culture; active efforts to honor and learn from the brand's passionate user base.

Collaboration and Influencers

• Strategic Collaborations
  Ensuring co-branded products respect and stretch the identities of both brands, with examples from Timberland (Telfar, Louis Vuitton).
• Influencer Partnerships
  Genuine involvement (e.g., SZA as artistic director for Vans) rather than mere endorsements is critical for real impact.

Embracing AI in Business and Leadership

• Organizational Impact
  20+ AI projects across reporting, product creation, and marketing. AI is embraced pragmatically, both as a productivity and (potentially) a revenue driver.
• Personal Use
  Bracken uses AI tools (like ChatGPT) for everything from personal health to work, emphasizing a hands-on approach.

  "Sometimes the best application of AI is...to remove a whole function...Many other times...to give it to the person who’s designing." (40:14, Bracken)

Personal Growth and Learning

• Continuous Education
  Bracken chooses a new topic every five years to “go deep in” (most recently: quantum mechanics and gravity):

  “I’ll never be finished…I’ll never stop trying to learn new things.” (49:47, Bracken)

• Reflection on Leadership

  • The lesson he wishes he’d learned earlier: Cultivate total ownership and model it for all.

    "You wash the windows, you clean the floors." (42:59, Bracken)

Memorable Lightning Round Answers

• Three words to describe himself: "Basketball. Family. Design." (47:57)
• Biggest pet peeve: “Injustice.” (48:05)
• Greatest city impact: “Owensboro, Kentucky.” (48:09)
• Most prized possession (besides family): “My friends.” (48:31)
• Something few people know: "I was exceptionally shy when I was younger." (48:45)
• One thing he always does: “Working out.” (48:51)

Advice for Aspiring Leaders

“Focus on growing everything around you, not including yourself. If you focus on growing everything, making everything better—every person, every process, every experience—you’ll de facto be a good leader…Growth is the most important thing in life.” (51:10, Bracken)

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Bracken Darrell, on Design:
  “Design is about creating an experience for users around what users really need, whether they can express that need or not.” (21:25)

• Bracken Darrell, on Reinvention:
  “There’s nothing that I have to be today that I was yesterday. I can completely transform myself today.” (06:45)

• On Brand Ownership:
  “You don’t really own [the brand]. The users who feel most passionate about it do.” (31:49, Bracken)

• On Recognition:
  “No matter how much you recognize other people, you never do it enough.” (17:35, Bracken)

• On Ownership:
  "You wash the windows, you clean the floors." (42:59, Bracken, recalling advice received)

• On AI and Leadership:
  “Sometimes the best application of AI is...to remove a whole function…and then many other times…the best application of AI is to give it to the person who’s designing something today.” (40:14, Bracken)

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Segment Timestamps

• 00:00 – Bracken shares his customer-centric design philosophy.
• 02:17 – On most fun design projects and favorite brands.
• 06:29 – Annual process of “firing and rehiring” himself for objectivity.
• 08:04 – What Bracken’s working on to better himself as a leader.
• 12:11 – Childhood experiences shaping his leadership (shyness, deliberate warmth).
• 15:37 – Lessons learned under Susan Arnold at P&G; importance of belief and candor.
• 18:45 – Turning Old Spice around: strategy, execution, team buy-in.
• 21:25 – Logitech turnaround, building a design-driven culture.
• 23:22 – Bringing design thinking to 125-year-old VF.
• 26:49 – Brand as a club: perspectives on North Face, Vans, Timberland.
• 31:49 – Culture, community, and the customer’s role in defining the brand.
• 34:38 – Collaborations and influencer partnerships (SZA, Telfar, Louis Vuitton).
• 39:18 – Perspective on AI’s present and future applications.
• 42:59 – Reflections on early leadership lessons and total ownership.
• 47:55 – Lightning round: Bracken’s personality, curiosities, routines.
• 49:01 – Leading at home: family, relationships, and deeper connectivity.
• 51:10 – Final advice for aspiring leaders: relentless focus on growth.

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Memorable Moments

• Bracken’s Self-Assessment Ritual:
  Firing and rehiring himself annually for a fresh, objective start.
• Brand as Club:
  The “ownership” of brands like Timberland by entire social cultures, especially hip-hop.
• Old Spice Guarantee Ad Story:
  Creating an ad offering to buy back any stick if customers didn’t prefer it—a huge legal risk, but a strong belief in the product.

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Tone and Style

The conversation is direct, candid, and filled with humility and humor. Bracken is approachable, thoughtful, and passionate about both design and people. David Novak provides a warm, curious, and experienced presence, creating a conversational and insightful interview.

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Practical Takeaways

• Leadership is about continuous growth—for yourself, your business, and your people.
• Design is everyone's business—every process, product, and experience can be improved for the user.
• Great brands become clubs—community, not companies, own a brand’s soul.
• Recognition is endless—find ways to uplift teams, and take responsibility as a leader when results falter.
• Let curiosity drive your learning—go deep, master new disciplines, and apply them to leadership.

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For Further Listening

• Focus on how you can bring a design mindset to all facets of your work.
• Reflect annually on your approach, and don’t be afraid to “re-hire” yourself for the next challenge.
• Seek inspiration from outside your industry for ideas in innovation and leadership.

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Transcript

[Bracken Darrell]

My ideal scenario is that how you interact with our company, whether you buy our products or you sell to us, or you just walk in the lobby one time and you never come back. Somehow we make your life a little better.

[David]

My hometown is Louisville, Kentucky, as you know. And I know you lived in Louisville, Kentucky, and I understand you grew up in Owensboro, Kentucky. I gotta ask you, are you a Kentucky Wildcat fan?

[Bracken Darrell]

I'm gonna get a lot of shade from this, but no, I am not a Kentucky Wildcat fan. I grew up an Indiana Hoosier fan, believe it or not, and a Louisville Cardinal fan.

[David]

That's funny, because when I moved to Louisville, I was an Indiana fan, a Louisville fan, and a Kentucky fan, and a Kansas fan. Now, nobody, and I guarantee you nobody in this part of the world has, has those four teams. But, but when you grow up here, you, you, you really throw the mantle down behind Indiana, Kentucky, or Louisville. No question about it.

[Bracken Darrell]

You know, I am. I still play a lot of basketball today. I'm a basketball fanatic. I admire great basketball, so I've always admired Kentucky. But I, if you asked me if I was a fan, I was a fan back when Bobby Knight was the Hoosiers coach and he was crazy at times, so, so I lost a lot of love for that, but I did love the fundamentals, and that's what Indian always stood for.

[David]

So you had to have a hoop in your driveway like everybody else in Kentucky.

[Bracken Darrell]

I had a hoop in my backyard that my dad laid with some, some other guys he worked with. And they, they made the mistake at the end of getting a broom and brushing it over the top, and it made it the roughest court you've ever seen. And I had, I still have scars on both knees and both elbows from that.

[David]

You look in great shape, so it's, it's obvious you're out there in that basketball court. That's pretty hard. When I got to be about 40, 40, I'd. But my body wouldn't go with me, so I gave it up.

[Bracken Darrell]

I ignore that. I ignore that myself. And luckily, the people I play with seem to. I know. I love it. I still play three or four times a week. I'm a fanatic.

[David]

Well, Bracken, you didn't make the NBA, but, but you're known for making design a competitive advantage wherever you go. What's the most fun thing that you've ever helped design?

[Bracken Darrell]

Boy, that's tough. You know, I, I, I. My definition of design is probably much broader on a product level. I help my head of design Designed an iPad keyboard cover that had a little loop in it for a. For a pencil, for the Apple pencil, Apple Apple pen. And. And I. That that was probably the product that I loved the most because we did it so fast and it was based on real consumer insight. From a real design standpoint, though, I'd say re. Redesigning Logitech for. To become what it was was probably the most fun thing I've ever done. Although this one that I'm working on now is going to be the most fun when we're done.

[David]

Yeah, you're off to darn good start and you're making great progress and you've led some great brands from Old Spice to Logitech and now North Face and all the brands that you have there. So I'm really curious, you know, when you look outside, you know, what brands do you admire for their design and creativity and overall positioning?

[Bracken Darrell]

You know, I look across a lot of things. I think there are so many great, great brands and great designers out there. And some, some people probably wouldn't think of as designers, but I'd say, you know, everybody looks at Apple. It's hard not to. Apple's just got such an incredible story. And Jony, I've had. Had such a monstrous impact on all of us. Johnny, I've. Steve Jobs, you know, there's a whole crew over there that did that. All those, all those amazing products and still are. So I think Apple's. It's hard not to look at them, but. But there are so many great companies. You know, when I look at people like Hermes or Louis Vuitton or Sephora, you know, I think it depends on what kind of design you're talking about. Whether it's store design or product design or website design. There's a. There's just a lot of amazing things happening out there, and it's a great time to be in design. You know, you have more and more tools that you can do. You can basically have a team of designers working for you now that I can enable. So it's. It's an exciting time to, to believe in design.

[David]

You know, what was going on in your life, Bracken, when VF came calling and what made you say yes?

[Bracken Darrell]

Well, I'd been doing this job for about 11 years, actually. You know what? I'll go back. I'll go back, David, and I'll tell you a story. Before that, after my first five years at Logitech, the company completely transformed. It was very different company than what I joined in so many ways. And so I really wondered if I was the right guy for the job for the next five years. I was doing my annual kind of assessment of myself, and I thought, you know, I wonder if I really am the right person. So I decided to write up what the next CEO should be like, if it's, if it weren't whether it's me or not. And I did that. And then I wrote down my credentials on the other side of the page, and I thought, you know, I'd be in the running. But I just read thinking fast and slow, which you've probably read. And I was thinking, you know, can I really be objective, though? Cause I've touched every product, every leader, every strategy. You know, I feel ownership for all of them. Can I really take those apart when it's, when I need to? And so I thought, nah, there's no way. So I decided I'm going to quit. I'm going to, I'll tell my chair tomorrow, and then I'm going to go do something different, because I can do something different. We'll find somebody who's a better fit, who's got more objectivity. So I went to bed that night and I slept on it. Like, I started to do decisions about, then woke up the next morning like I often would, and said, you know what? I was wrong. I just need to be completely objective and park everything I ever did and not be afraid to undo anything I touched. And so I really signed a new contract for myself, didn't tell anybody, and I started over again. And I went to the job feeling like a newcomer. I tell you that story because I did that serially. Then for the next, you know, every year or two, I would do the same thing. And it helped me stay fresh and objective in my job. But then after 11 years, I thought, you know, I'm running a public company. I just turned 60. I thought, you know, they might not let me know. Maybe nobody will want me to run another public company at some point. And at some point I will leave Logitech, and it's inevitable. So maybe I should start listening. So I started listening to recruiter calls. And VF called, and it sounded super exciting.

[David]

Yeah, that's fantastic. I love this notion of how you reinvented yourself every year, basically, almost like firing yourself.

[Bracken Darrell]

Yeah, I, I, that's what I do. That's how I describe it normally. I did fire myself, and, and then I rehired a new me under a new contract with. There were no, nothing was sacred. And I, and I never regret that. And I, and it, it's consistent with something I really believe in, David, and I wonder what you think of it is I listened to Steve Jobs commencement address when he said, you know, if you look in the mirror and too many days in a row and you don't like what you see because you don't like the, I'm paraphrasing, but you don't like what you're doing, then you should change it, you know. And I, and so I was thinking, I kind of think, you know, if you get up, if you get up every day and you think, wow, actually I flipped that around a little bit. There's nothing that I have to be today that I was yesterday. I can completely transform myself today. I can decide, I can take completely different set of decisions, I can do a different job, I can do have different passions, I can make different decisions. And I think that's at the heart of what I really believe in is that starting every day fresh or at least every year fresh and saying, okay, I really am going to strategically live my life rather than just go through in on autopilot, which we all do all too much. So I really believe in that.

[David]

You know, Bracken, you know, since you asked me about my process for doing that, I, I do what I call my three by five exercise every year where I put down what am I today and how can I be even more effective tomorrow. And then the same thing with the business, you know, but it's a basic, you know, it's basic. You have to have high self awareness of yourself and your business. You know, for example, right now, what would you be working on to make yourself better as a leader?

[Bracken Darrell]

You know, I'm trying to be better at giving feedback to my team. You know, I think I'm a very intuitive person. So I, you know, like unfortunately, I think by the time you get to the age of 60, you become very intuitive because you've, you've got, your pattern recognition is. So you've practiced and practiced it so many times. But I think it's the downside of that is you can sometimes not do a good enough job expressing how you're thinking and what you're thinking and why you're thinking it to your team. And I often, I catch myself not doing that enough and I'm trying to do a better job of that. So that's one thing I'm really working on. The other one is, you know, I'll give you a board example. I think with my, I was lucky in my Logitech board experiences because I had a fantastic Partner in crime my first few years, who had been the CEO, and he was the chair, and he led a lot of the interference for me with the board. But I learned through, along the years, man, I'm not very good at managing this board. You know, I mean, I like them, they like me, but in terms of really working with them to make sure that I'm getting the most out of them that they're feeling, they. They feel ownership for what we're doing and the decisions. I wasn't very good at it, so I really worked on that here to do better. And I've got a fantastic board. I had a fantastic board of Logitech, too. I've got a fantastic board. So I'm really working at. To make sure that I'm really getting the most out of them. I spend more time with my board here than I did before. Not too much, but enough. And I. And it's. I think it's one of the exciting things that I'm making progress on and.

[David]

Is the key to that just getting more involvement from them and asking them what they think or, you know, what's. What's your secret in that area?

[Bracken Darrell]

It really is, because I think, you know, boards can be just something you go to once a quarter and you get the document, the stuff sent out ahead of time, you read it, you go, and then you react. Or they can be something where you really feel ownership for the company, not as a manager because you're not running the company, but really where you feel like, wow, I really understand more what's going on in a deep way. And I think one of the best ways to achieve that is to go one on one with board members and talk through the issues you're facing and just make sure that they feel aware and they are aware of what's happening, and they're not surprised during the meetings with the latest set of information they get. And so that's really what I've tried to do. That's probably like, you know, obvious to a lot of CEOs out there. It was probably not obvious to me. And I'm getting better and better at it. And I love my board and I love what I'm getting out of them.

[David]

So you left Logitech and you went to vf, and what was it that really got you excited about this opportunity?

[Bracken Darrell]

You know, I think I loved, as you said in the beginning of this podcast, I love design and I love products. You know that. And I love. And I love marketing, too. You know, where. Where could you possibly go to Work on products, have as many products to do. Think about how many products we must do every year. You don't have to know anything about our business to know we must be putting out thousands of new products every year. And we are. And then secondly, think of, think of the brands we have. I mean, they, we all grew up touching, in some cases inhaling and exhaling these brands like Timberland and the North Face. And it's such an incredibly exciting thing to be able to figure out what are the next products we're going to have for them. How do we engage with consumers even better in this time when engagement's everything. So it's a super, super exciting business to work in.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Hey friends, I hope you're loving this conversation with David and Bracken. And if you are loving it, which I'm sure you are, I want you to stay tuned to the very end of the conversation where David and I debrief this interview. We're going to give you some really practical takeaways from this conversation that you can apply to your leadership, to your life and to your work. And honestly, it's just a lot of fun to talk about all the iconic brands that Bracken has the privilege of being able to lead with this company at VF So I hope you stay tuned to the very end of the episode and enjoy the rest of this company conversation with David and Bracken.

[David]

And you know, I want to dig more into VF in a minute, but first I'd like to take, take you back and tell us a story from your childhood. That one that really shaped the kind of leader you are today.

[Bracken Darrell]

You know, there's so many things that shape you when you're a child. I guess maybe the one, maybe what I would say is I was about this height. You can't tell. I look pretty tall. Actually. I'm looking at myself here. I'm about 511 now. I was about 511 when I was 11 and 12 and 13 and so on. So I've been 511 for a long time now. 511 when you're 12 or 11 is a lot different from 511 when you're 21 or 62.

[David]

You were wilt Chamberlain for a while?

[Bracken Darrell]

I was absolutely. And I was about, I had two rough and tumble older brothers and a great younger sister. So I was a pretty good athlete. I was big, I was fast, I was strong. I was bigger than almost everybody else, I think everybody else. And so I was a natural leader. And everybody looked up to me physically and looked up to me because I was Just big. And I was successful in sports and stuff. And then I had a mom who's a first grade teacher, so I learned to read really early. And I was good in school. So I had these advantages that had nothing to do really with me except that they were in the DNA advantage, temporary advantage of getting things early. So I was the team captain. I was this and that. By the time I got to the eighth grade, people were starting to catch up. I went from being the center to the forward within the 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th or 12th grade, I went from the big forward to the small forward to the two guard to the point guard who couldn't handle the ball well enough. And along the way, I realized I'm probably not going to get into the NBA, as you said in the beginning of this podcast. So my best shot is really to plan for something else. And what I figured out that I really loved was leadership. Once I realized that, I realized I didn't have what it takes. I was very shy. I was terrified to speak in public, even though I was very, you know, in quotation marks, popular. I wasn't popular because I was out there getting in front of everybody. I was popular because I was big and I was an athlete and I was pretty good in school. So I had to work at being friendly and warm and showing that I cared about people, because I always did. So I started in about the 9th grade or 10th grade. I started being. I just willed myself to be friendly and to be extroverted. You know, you talk about introverts and extrovert. Well, I decided I was going to be an extrovert and I would just smile at everybody and be as warm as I could with everybody and talk to everybody. And it was the best thing I ever did in my life because I realized how much, how, how much you can improve your life and the people's lives around you if you actually do care enough to talk to people. And so that was probably the biggest change in my entire life. And it all happened between about the age of, you know, 14, 15, 16.

[David]

Yeah, I. It's so. It's so interesting to listen to you because when, when I was a kid, I moved in around. My dad was a government surveyor, went to all these small towns, and I was always the best athlete. And then I moved to the big city, Kansas City, and I quickly learned that I was not. And so I went through the exact same process and realized I had to survive in some other manner than being the major League baseball player I thought I could become. So you're good at school, you go to Harvard, fantastic education. You join Procter and Gamble, which is a company known for shaping great leaders. Was there anybody at P and G who showed you what great leadership was all about? And what did that person do that's that stuck to you? If you had that kind of person?

[Bracken Darrell]

Yeah. By the way, I went to Hendricks College too. A small college in Arkansas that I loved. Yeah, a lot of people made me better at P and G. But I'll point out one who I still feel very close to today is Susan Arnold. Susan became vice chair of P and G and then became the chair of Disney. And she just had a phenomenal career. She's retired now, but she's, she's a wonderful human being. She believed in me, you know, when I'm not even sure I believed in me as much as she did. And she came into the. I had been running Old Spice deodorant as an assistant brand manager, which for those of you who don't know what that is, it's like that's exactly what it sounds like. You're the assistant to somebody. But I didn't have a brand manager because my brand manager moved out. I felt responsible for figuring out how to turn this thing around. That had been in a steep decline, you know, for years and years. And the company was about to give up on it. And, and so I had this plan and I shared it with Mike Wege, who also had a big impact on me and Susan Arnold. And Susan just really believed in me and said, look, if you really believe this is the right thing to do, it makes sense to me. We're going to have to sell it to the mythical 11th floor at P and G, which was this place where all the top executives live. And it's got art on the walls and all this stuff. It's very quiet up there. And so we made, I don't know how many trips up there. I went with Susan and then later with Mike and Susan after he arrived and we sold piece by piece, this multi step change that I had planned. And I saw from her such common sense, such candor. She had fun at work. She walked around barefooted all the time, laughed like crazy. She was also very serious. She was a super hard worker, very smart, didn't hold back. She could be really tough. I just learned so much from her and, and I still admire her today. I sent her a note not too long ago. I just said, you know, I just want to thank you because she had such a big impact on my career.

[David]

I'm sure she loved that. Recognition. How much is recognition a part of what you do on an everyday basis with your own people?

[Bracken Darrell]

You know, I, no matter how much you recognize other people, you never do it enough. So I, I, I, I hope I'm doing it. I hope I'm doing it 50 enough. I, I try to recognize people. I always think, you know, there's just, when things are going right, man, there's just no limit to how many people are involved and should get recognized. And so I try to do that, and I try to make them feel good about the contribution they made when things go wrong. You know, I really, I, I really believe, you know, especially when you're the CEO, really, it really is all about you. It's something you could have changed almost always. So I try to pass along the good vibes and suck out the bad ones and then do what Susan did with me and make sure that I'm being candid with people and giving them coaching where I can. As I said early in the podcast, I'm really working on that to do it better now.

[David]

Old Spice was like a pretty old stodgy brand, and you turned it into more youthful image. Certainly gave it a much cooler feel. What did you see and what was your process that you, you went through to really say, hey, this is, this is how we could turn the corner on this brand?

[Bracken Darrell]

Look, first of all, I didn't, I was not the one who, who defined the campaign as the ad campaign of the, the guy on the horseback, which was brilliant. What I did.

[David]

One of the best ever.

[Bracken Darrell]

Yeah, one of the best ever. What I did do with a guy named Larry Plosky is we wrote a. Larry drafted, and he and I worked together on kind of the seminal document that set the tone for that, that really said, here's where we're going to take it. What I did do was the deep turnaround that went on for a couple of years. And what I learned in that was before I'd gotten there, they had changed every piece of the marketing, but not in a synchronized way. So I changed the pricing. I actually lowered prices, which doesn't happen at P and G very often. I lowered prices. I changed the name of the product. I made some really tough cost decisions. We upgraded a product. Then we changed the advertising, which was probably the hardest. And we changed the advertising. I was new enough not to realize that you try not to cross your agency very much. If you know. And David, you'll appreciate this, you know, the ad agency loved the campaign we had, and I didn't think it was working, so I didn't have a boss at the time, as I said. So Susan was too above me with nobody between me and her. And so I really didn't have a chance to ask opinions because I couldn't see her that much. So I decided to just make my own commercial with a local agency. And it was. And I. And I did. And it was. It was a commercial where a guy got on screen and he just said, hey, you know, this thing, this product is better than whatever you're using, and if you don't think so, we'll buy you a stick of your own product. I had a. It was incredibly difficult to get that through legal because they were afraid we were going to bankrupt the company because we're going to. It was a guarantee where you'd buy people competitive product if they decided they wanted to. I wasn't worried about that at all because we had great product. So the bottom line is we did it. We had this young guy on screen doing it. He was very likable. And so we tested it, and it tested exactly like you would expect based on the fact that I'm telling the story. It was one of the most boring ads ever created. But it was convincing. And so I went to my agency, I went to Susan. She said, look, this is boring, but it's very convincing. She said, what do you want to do? I said, I think we should go with it. She said, then go with it. So we went with it. And that plus all those other changes we made, we doubled the. The market share in one year, and then we doubled it again. I went up 50% again the next year, and then. And then 50% from there. So we just were off to the races.

[David]

That's fantastic. And. And then you. You did a huge turnaround at the Logitech. What did you. What did you walk into in that situation? And, and do you have a playbook that you use or think about when you look at brands? And, and. And they may be struggling.

[Bracken Darrell]

The situation in VF was very similar to the situation in Logitech. So the, the business was in decline. The products. The products weren't in. In Logitech 8, the products weren't good enough. And we had. We had kind of underinvested in product development and innovation. And we didn't have any designers. So we had. Literally all of our design was. Was outside, so we didn't have any designers in the room. And I'd come from Braun. I don't know if you know, Braun But Braun Shavers and Ablators. And there's this very famous designer named Dieter Rams who I'd gotten to meet with a lot. And Braun was really the closest thing I'd ever experienced to a design company. Dieter Rams was one of the big inspirations for Jony. I've that Johnny told me later. So I fell in love with design there and I decided I wanted to create a design company. So the central change that we made was to really get the company focused around design. What is design? Design is about creating an experience for users around what users really need, whether they can express that need or not or what they want. And so I hired my first designer, who was Alistair Curtis, who actually I have hired here. So he works with me at VF again. He worked with me for 10 years there. And we really went, we resized the company because we'd gotten too fat. The company had grown just like VF for a long, long, long time. And then when it stopped, we realized, well, for the last few years we were still really good at growing the company, but only in overhead, not in revenue. And that's a problem. So we had to resize the company and then we really focused on getting great products and building the brand and the rest is kind of history. I mean, it was a very great, it was a really exciting story. I think we 10x the value of the company over 10 years and we'll see if we can do that at bf.

[David]

But how do you bring this design, creativity, innovation, how do you bring that to 125-year-old apparel company?

[Bracken Darrell]

You know, the cool thing is people are hungry for great design. Consumers are hungry for it, employees are hungry for it. Design extends way beyond the product you deliver to users. It's also, you can design your benefits program so that they're built around the users in your company. You can design your accounting and the way you close your books every quarter so that it's designed around the people who need to get that done so they can move on to the next quarter. You can design everything and you really should be designing everything. And so I think getting people excited about the concept of design isn't hard because at the end what you're really saying is, let's all care about the user. Now. Some people are closer to the user of our products and what we do to create those products than others in the company. But we all support that somehow and we're all users inside the company of our own services. So it's early days, just like it was about two years in at Logitech, you know, I certainly don't think I had. I don't think we. We. We transformed Logitech into a design company after two years. But give us five, and I think we can. And we'll do it here, too, at vf.

[David]

You know, it seems to me, you know, when you're talking about design, innovation, creativity, you know, obviously the marketing team's going to probably gravitate, gravitate to it quicker. But you were. You're talking about design across all aspects of the. The business you're in, inculcating that into your culture. How do you. How do you do that, Bracken? I mean, how do you. How do you get somebody in accounting to think about design? I mean, they're further away from the customer, like you say.

[Bracken Darrell]

I think design. The term design can be intimidating because it can sound like the domain of Virgil Abloh, you know, or. Or Pharrell, you know, who. Who are great design leaders or designers. But if you can simplify it into, you know, how do you make. How do you make this better for users? Which is really what it's all about. How do you make this? My ideal scenario. Okay, this is a. I'll dream for a little bit here. My ideal scenario is that no matter what, how you interact with our company, whether you buy our products or you sell to us, or you just walk in the lobby one time and you never come back, somehow we make your life a little better. That's the goal everywhere. And then if you take the people inside the company, my goal is that everybody in the company is growing the entire time they're here, and they're positively growing all the time. So to do that, you've got to care about it. So in our values, we define growth. Really, having a growth mindset is one of our core values. And we're building training programs internally that are very much about personal growth and growing yourself and your capability that connects directly to growing our brands and growing our business and growing our share price and growing everything. And, you know, all that can only happen if we do two things. Well, one, we create products that people want to put on and they feel a little better about themselves when they do. And the second one is we create these clubs that people want to be part of. They feel an affiliation with. They feel part. They feel ownership of in a way called brands, you know, And I think when we do those two things, well, the whole. The whole system can work, and that's what we're working on. And. And I won't pretend that it's easy. And I, and I don't think I ever got all the way there in Logitech. And maybe you do never get all the way there, but it's such an exciting thing to try. And along the way I think you can make huge, huge impact and value creation.

[David]

You know, you're leading a portfolio of some of the world's most iconic lifestyle brands. And I'd like to go through a few of the brands and pull out a key story from each one of them. You know, let's start with north facing. You know, when a product like the puffer jacket suddenly becomes a fashion statement, you know, how do you make sure the brand's purpose, exploration and performance doesn't get lost?

[Bracken Darrell]

Yeah, you know, it's a great question. So Caroline Brown, who runs that brand and she's got a fantastic team around her, we talk about that a lot because we talk about there are two kinds of people we're really catering to and then the bulk of our market is in the middle. On the one end of the spectrum, it's the obsessive explorer. It's the person who's just obsessed. Alex Honnold, who is obsessed with exploring the edge of everything. The guy who did free solo, he's going to climb 101 story office tower in Taipasin with no ropes. Know, these are the people and we literally develop products for those people to optimize, to perfect their experience because they're, they're, it really is a life and death experience when we develop products for them. It's the same thing for a person who's climbing Everest or skiing down Everest. We've got people have skied down Everest, believe it or not. So we've got all these athletes who really are on the very edge of it. On the other end of the spectrum, you've got, you got people who really love to express who they are and they're also part of our family. So we do collaborations with Gucci and collaborations with a lot of, you know, skims and, you know, so being able to express yourself. But they still believe in that. They still like the performance attributes or aspect of the brand, but they have a different need that we've got to deliver and there's everybody in between. So we try to make sure that every one of our products has this performance dimension that, that echoes through, through, from, from the, from that Alex Hondal experience all the way through to the consumer, even if they're wearing it just to get on the New York subway and stay warm.

[David]

That's great. And Vans has always been rooted in creativity and a youth culture. What's the leadership takeaway you've drawn from that team about keeping a brand fresh and relevant?

[Bracken Darrell]

You know, we're in the middle of that now, and Sunshay runs that brand, and she's a perfect example of the brand's off the wall idea. I mean, I think you've got to get down to the real essence of what the brand's all about. And if you really get down to the essence of what. What Vans is all about, it's about being off the wall. It's about being a little different, feeling good about yourself, being different. You know, I think you and I probably can relate going back to when we were 13 and 14. You felt different, I felt different. Everybody feels different. You know, Vans gives you permission to feel different, but be part of something. You're off the wall and. And the more different you are, the more exciting it is. And so I think we brought back the Warp Tour, which you may or may not know what it is, but it was this big music festival that ran multi cities around the world for many years, and we stopped it in 2018, well before I got there. And with Kevin Lyman, a guy who owns and runs the tour now in partnership with us, we restarted it this year. And it's so exciting because you really get to see how deeply embedded in the culture this off the wall mindset is in all these cities we've been to so far. We've done two cities so far. We're doing a third in Orlando in November. 85,000 people in two days. It's one of the biggest music festivals there is now. It's so fun.

[David]

Yeah. I just went to Bourbon and Beyond here in Louisville, so I'll have to hit one of those up. That sounds like a lot of fun. You know, you said something that was really interesting to me, which is, you know, consumers want to feel different and be a part of something, talk about the. And be a part of something, part of that statement.

[Bracken Darrell]

You know, human beings are social. We're super social. Right. We. Even the least social of us are social. We love people and we love to be a part of a group. And I think the brands. Brands have. Each brand has its own soul, you know, and some brands you feel more part of than others. And I think that's at the heart of brand building and consumer market in consumer marketing. And it's one of the things I love the most about it, you know, about consumer brands, is that you really do feel association with them and you and when you look someone in the eyes who's. Who's wearing the same thing you are, in our case, you know, another person wearing vans, you feel a little close to them. There's something there. You know, Timberland boots is another one. You know, I love Tim's because no matter where, you know, if you go to a basketball game and you. And you get lucky enough to get near the floor, you're going to see people wearing Timberlands on that floor. Especially if you're in Madison Square Garden, where Tims represent New York. They also represent Baltimore and Chicago and Atlanta, others Detroit. But there's something about Tims that everybody awares them. When you see other people in them, you feel like, hey, we're part of that group. I'm one of you.

[David]

Say hip hop owns Tim's. We just shepherd it. Say more.

[Bracken Darrell]

I think the Schwartz family who created Timberland would be the first to say, and they have that when they created the brand, you know, the hip hop movement really picked it up and ran with it and really created and embedded it in the culture. And it was the yellow boot, that's. That was born in the same year hip hop was born. And so they've grown up together. And. And I would say no brand is more owned by its culture than Timberland is owned by the hip hop culture. And so we're very aware of that. I'm very aware of that. I love that aspect of it. We try to. We try to really pay homage to it all the time because it's so important to the brand. You know, you can't really. I don't know. I don't know if you feel this way, David. You've been doing consumer brands your whole life, but in a way, a really strong brand. You don't really own it. The users who own it, especially those who feel most passionate about it, what you can do is contribute to that, but you. And support it. And that's what we do. Yeah.

[David]

And you've got this notion, which I really love, of having your brands being part of a club, creating a club that people want to be a part of. I love that. Now you've really leaned into influencer partnerships at vf. What's a story about one that's been a runaway success and what it's taught you.

[Bracken Darrell]

Well, it's so early to call anything a runaway success yet, because I've only been here a couple of years. I'm very excited about cisa. You know, SZA has agreed to be an artistic director for us on vans and you know, that might sound like just a name, but she's literally directly involved in brainstorming where we're going next, what off the wall really is gonna mean. I think for these influencer relationships to work, they have to be real. I mean they have to. You can't just pay money and have somebody put em on and think they're gonna work. You know, Sza, I think she actually came to us because she loved Vance, she loved the off the wall idea. She feels off the wall and if you follow her, she is off the wall. And I think she also is a great representative of so many people in this world who are trying new things on a regular basis and trying out stuff and not afraid to take chances and fail. And so I love that and I think I can't talk about it. We've got several things in the pipeline on influencers that I'm very excited about and always trying to be really true to the brands but also stretch them.

[David]

You definitely are doing that. And you know, can you give me an example of where you have all these brands, they're, they're iconic in their own right. Do you keep them independent or do you ask them to share or what you're thinking about embracing other people's ideas and collaboration? Is this a competitive advantage for you or how do you think about that? That whole independence of the brands and collaboration.

[Bracken Darrell]

I guess I'll, I'll address that two ways. One is independence of the brands within our company that we, we, we. We. They operate very independently. So each brand has its own teams of build it and work on it and we do overlap in, in some areas and where we do, we, we, we try to make sure that the brands don't lose any of their, their, their soul. You know the definition of what they're all about. When you talk about collaborations with other companies, I think they can really. Yeah. I've learned this because we didn't do many collaborations in Logitech. I've learned that. I think collaborations can be very powerful as long as, as long as you respect what each brand's all about. And there's an overlap that is really that, that connective tissue that can, can make each brand stronger. We just did a collaboration with Telfar and Timberland and it's an interesting one where they've got a, they've got bags that, that honestly feel very Timberland and were co designed by us with them and their boots which they varied the normal yellow boot to be. It's not tied, it's a, it's Kind of like a wrinkled boot. It's really cool. Feels very Timberland. I think it's a very stretching collaboration. I really like it. And we've got several of those we've done. We did a. Another one on Timberland with Louis Vuitton where Pharrell took the boot and. And turned it into a Louis Vuitton boot boot. But it feels very elevated for Timberland and Wright and. And yet feels very culture. Right. For. For Louis Vuitton. I think those are good examples of ones that really work.

[David]

Yeah, I've got to run out and check those out. I love it. You know, what do you look. Look at in the leaders who. Who run your individual brands? I mean, what are you really looking for?

[Bracken Darrell]

You know, I think the most important thing in a. In a leader is drive. You know, you can. You know, everybody's smart. You know, by the time you get to about age 33 or 35 or something, I think IQ is really. That distribution curve really gets tight. So everybody's smart and you can develop the social skills you need every time. But there's something inside some people who have a lot of drive and really want to make a difference and want to have a big impact. So that's one I love. People who are extremely driven and just want to have a big impact, a positive impact on people and on the business. So that's probably the most important one, I'd say. There certainly are, I admit, biased to people who love speed. I'm not a fast car driver. I'm not even into cars. But I do believe that there's a lot of discussion around moats and competitive advantage and all that stuff. I think in the end, having an orientation to be faster than everybody else is probably as good as any. And so people who just get stuff done very quickly always impress me. And so I noticed it in interviews, and I really noticed it at work.

[David]

That's great. You know, as CEO, you gotta make a lot of tough calls. And before you joined VF, the company acquired supreme for $2.1 billion, only to sell it later for $600 million loss. You know, I think this was under. In under four years. Take us inside your head on how you make a decision like that.

[Bracken Darrell]

Yeah. So supreme is a fantastic brand, and it's a fantastic business. I love the whole storyline of Supreme. It's a very unique business model. It runs differently from all the rest of our brands, runs independently of all the rest of our brands, completely independently or ran independently. Now, what does that mean? That means from a marketing Distribution, selling, product creation, supply chain. Everything is independent inside Supreme. When I arrived, it also is worth. It's a very valuable brand. It's worth $1.5 billion. So the starting point for me was strategically, does this brand fit inside our portfolio? It's much more of a fashion street brand than a performance brand. Many of our brands, as you know, like North Face, are very performance oriented while they sell a lot of lifestyle products. That's a crescendo off of a performance story. That's not the case with Supreme. Supreme is a street story, and it's a business. It's a model story. So I would say supreme stood out for being different and independent. In a company of independent brands, it was by far the most independent. So for me, it was a fairly easy decision. We got very fortunate that another company was really interested in luxottica, who we reached out to behind the scenes. One of my leaders did. And we got a really an excellent price for it. Even though it was a loss, $600 million versus the price per original purchase price, it was well above what anybody thought we would get for it. So it was a great price, it was a great exit, and I think it's in a great home now.

[David]

You know, you mentioned earlier that AI is impacting your business today. How is it? Bracken?

[Bracken Darrell]

We probably have, I don't think I'm exaggerating, 20 different AI activities going on in the business, ranging from financial reporting to how we create products to how we design products. So. So there's a. And how we market them. So it's really going to touch everything. Most of those are in relatively small scale right now. We've got a few things that we've scaled like customer service. But I think AI is. I don't want to minimize it because we all know how important it is, but it's another tool that we all have to use and we have to figure out how to bring it into our business appropriately. And that's what we're doing.

[David]

And for you personally, how are you using AI to make you a more effective leader? And what advice can you give to leaders on how to really be able to lead in that area? Because it's going to be so important.

[Bracken Darrell]

I have two comments on that. The first one is, I personally use AI tools a lot. So I use ChatGPT. I use lots of different tools and I use them in my personal life, my work life, for example. I get all my medical information, I put it into ChatGPT. I take my name off it, and I ask it how, you know, give me advice on what I should do. It's a good, a good second test against my doctor and I've got several doctors, so it's, it's a, that's great. And you know, I think you can just do that in every part of your life. And I'm sure many, many of your listeners are, you know, the, the second thing I'd say is I think there are two big decisions to make when it comes to any application of AI. One is am I going to give it to the, the lowest level person who might be able to use it today so they can be more productive, or am I going to give it to the highest level person who can imagine how it could be used today so they can make the whole company more productive? That might sound like an easy answer or even a little duplicative, but it's not. You know, sometimes the best application of AI is actually to remove a whole function and replace will probably generate more jobs somewhere else, but for that function it won't be the. And then the. Many other times, most other times, the best application of AI is to give it to the person who's designing something today so that they can come up with 50 designs, they can filter our 500 designs and filter it down to the two they really love. So I just think those are two things that I'm really observing about AI and how to begin to develop it. And they're not easy answers.

[David]

You know, a lot of people see AI as a big productivity driver, but very few people talk about it. On the revenue side, how do you think about that in terms of satisfying customers, driving revenue?

[Bracken Darrell]

You know, I don't know yet. You know, I think, I think it will be a revenue driver. It's certainly going to be a productivity driver. And it's hard for me to say yet, you know, because I spent so much time at Logitech. I'm connected to a lot of Silicon Valley types, you know, a lot of startups in the AI space. And I'm seeing more and more that are super interesting because they are, they're personalizing AI or they're making it part of something that can actually, I can imagine, can enable growth. And I don't want to be too detailed because then I'll point to specific startups, but I think that's the next big wave is how do you create new businesses that can improve your life using AI? And I think in healthcare and just in general as a system, you know, I think there are a lot of spaces this is beginning to happen.

[David]

You know, you mentioned earlier, earlier on that early on you. You really developed a passion for leadership. What's something that you know about leadership now that you wish you'd have known earlier in your career?

[Bracken Darrell]

You know, when I took the. When I. When I accepted the job at Logitech, I went to see a friend of mine who was a. He had been an entrepreneur for about 50 years, and he had sold his company. It was about to sell his company. And so I went to him to ask him what he thought about taking the job at Logitech. And he said, I don't know. I met him for breakfast and he said, I don't know if I'd do that. Looks like a very difficult thing to turn around to me. He goes, but I don't know anything about tech. And I said, okay, well, thanks. I've already accepted the job. So it was probably the wrong time to ask him. And then as I got up to leave, he pointed at me and he said, oh, and one more thing, Bracket. I said, yeah. I was like 10ft from the table. He said, you wash the windows, you clean the floors. And so I said, ah, thank you. You know, I kind of smiled and I walked back and I was like, wonder why he said that. And it took me probably till I got to the bottom of the stairs to start to really think about that. And the longer I lived with it, the more I thought, you know, it's about ownership. You know, it's an entrepreneur giving me that advice that you really own it. I literally, when I walked into Logitech that first day, I would. I would. I decided I'm going to feel ownership for everything. I'm going to pick stuff off the floor. I'll clean a window if it's not clean, literally. And I'll feel ownership for everything. Because I want to feel like this is my company. Just like I want everybody in this company to feel like this is VF Is their company. So I wish I'd internalized that earlier in my career because I think it's such a healthy way to think. It makes you feel better about it, and it also has a bigger impact on everybody else.

[David]

Yeah, that's a great story. And, you know, looking back, you know, what's one thing you have come to believe about leadership? Maybe that some CEOs might disagree with or is there anything like that?

[Bracken Darrell]

Look, I won't try to suggest that this is counter to what other CEOs might believe, but there is a chain of command in large companies, and it's Important because it's the way information gets passed. But I don't really like to even think about it. I just like to think everybody in the company is my partner. Everybody's got a job to do, whether it's the person who works at the front desk when you walk in the store, or me. And we all have work to do. And you can have a dramatic impact on the company from whatever chair you're in, if you want to, if you're smart and you really care about what the company's doing. And I so believe that. So I. I like having conversations with everybody at all levels of the company. I feel much more in touch that way. I had an old boss who was a smoker, and he used to say, I know whether we're having a good quarter or not, because I go into the smoking area out there. If the people in accounts receivable are nervous because accounts receivable are getting too high, I know it's because they're selling so much. And I never forgot that. I thought it's so true. It's amazing how much you pick up if you talk to people at all levels of the company, not just your director port or their direct reports. So I really try to do that.

[David]

That's great. Now, this is an odd question, and so accept it for that. Okay. I've watched a few of your interviews. Okay. I watched one interview. You're dressed in all white. Okay. I mean, I'm looking at you here. You've got this, you know, this great sweater on, you know, and obviously you are into design. How much do you think about what you wear and how you present yourself physically as it relates to driving what you want to drive inside the company?

[Bracken Darrell]

You know, this is. I'm probably more utilitarian. Yeah. I always think, okay, here's how I think about. Let's talk about art for a minute. Because it's related to design, right? I have this view that everybody is an artist, and you really are an artist whether you think about it or not, which means you're a designer whether you think about it or not. And your primary art is your life. It's all of your life. It's every day of your life, every moment of your life. Now, most of the time in your life, you make utilitarian decisions. So you wouldn't think of your life as art. So, for example, if you're at a restaurant tonight and you're going to the bathroom, you could just walk across the room to the bathroom like most people do now. You could if you Wanted to say no, I'm actually going to express something. You could dance across the room, you could waltz across the room, you could do dance hip hop across that room. There are a lot of things you could take all your clothes off and do. There are people who do that performance art. So there's a lot of things you could do to make that, that striding across that room an expression of who you are. And so, and yet most people simply walk across the room and it's utilitarian. When it comes to what I wear to work every day, I am surprisingly utilitarian. Probably because I've just made a choice that's not where my art will be or my design. I'll put my design thinking to work. Once in a while I do something special, but usually not.

[David]

I love it. You know, this has been so much fun and I want to have some more with this lightning round of questions that I always do. Are you ready for them?

[Bracken Darrell]

I'm ready.

[David]

The three words that best describe you.

[Bracken Darrell]

Basketball. Family. Design.

[David]

If you could be one person for a day besides yourself, who would it be?

[Bracken Darrell]

My kids.

[David]

Your biggest pet peeve?

[Bracken Darrell]

Injustice.

[David]

What city has had the greatest impact on you?

[Bracken Darrell]

Owensboro, Kentucky.

[David]

You've led both tech and fashion brands. Which industry has tougher critics?

[Bracken Darrell]

I would say fashion.

[David]

What's something you've been curious about lately that has nothing to do with work?

[Bracken Darrell]

Gravity.

[David]

What's the one thing you do just for you?

[Bracken Darrell]

Basketball.

[David]

Besides your family, what's your most prized possession?

[Bracken Darrell]

You know, I'm really not into possessions, so I would say use family though. So I would say my friends, if.

[David]

I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear?

[Bracken Darrell]

Npr.

[David]

What's something about you? Few people would know that I was.

[Bracken Darrell]

Exceptionally shy when I was younger.

[David]

What's one of your daily rituals? Something that you'd never miss?

[Bracken Darrell]

Working out.

[David]

We're out of the lightning round now. Just a couple more questions, we'll wrap this up.

[Bracken Darrell]

Okay.

[David]

You mentioned your family as your prized possession. You know, what have you learned about leading at home?

[Bracken Darrell]

Look, I, I think one of the things I love about, about families is that, you know, anybody who's listening as young families might not realize this, but your family just becomes deeper and richer as you get older and they never stop needing you and you never stop needing them. And so the cool thing is my kids are adults now and I've got a granddaughter and my ex wife and I are very close. All three of my kids and I are very close. My son in law and I are very close you know, we're all, it's just a super good thing and you know, it becomes more and more important to me with time, not less and less. You know, I think everything goes in cycles, but this one just seems to never stop getting more important to me.

[David]

What do you see as your unfinished business, Bracken, both for VF and you personally?

[Bracken Darrell]

Well, for vf, I want to turn this into a strong, sustainable, long term, high growth engine. And I wanted, you know, I wanted to humbly be the best company in this industry. I think it can be for me as a person. I'll never be finished, you know, I'll never stop working. I won't get to work at VF forever, but I. But I'll never stop working. I'll never stop trying to learn new things. I'm always, I pick a new topic every five years to go deep in and, and I really read everything I possibly can on it. So I'll never stop trying to learn and grow. It's just so inherent to what I'm all about. And I'll never stop trying to be that good point guard who did have handles.

[David]

What's that topic you're going deep on now?

[Bracken Darrell]

It's been, for the last few years I've been going deep on quantum mechanics and gravity and the relationship between the two and how difficult that is to figure out and why. It's a puzzle. You know, I like puzzles and there's a lot of math in it and I just think it's fascinating. The one before that was art. I really got into art history and then into what makes art and then I started going down that path. So I did art for a while. I did World War II for a while. So I just picked these topics kind of just. I'm interested in everything so it'd be easy for me to pick another topic. But I try to stay with it long enough to where I get some mastery. That's great.

[David]

Last question. What's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader?

[Bracken Darrell]

Leader? Just focus on growing everything around you, not including yourself. But if you focus on growing everything, making everything better. Everything. Every person, every process, every experience. If you're just focused all the time on trying to make everything better and growing everything, you'll de facto be a good leader. You'll have to listen more, you'll have to have more empathy, you'll have to work harder because you want to, because it's so fulfilling when you make things better, when you feel like things are growing. Growth is the big. The most important thing in life. I mean, if you think about there's growth and there's death, and you're either growing or you're on your way to death, and so you might as well choose growth. And I think that as a leader, it's amazing how inspiring and engaging growth is.

[David]

You know, Bracken, I had heard a lot about you before we had this conversation, and I knew you were a great leader. I knew you came at the world in a fresh way. And I can't tell you how impressed I am with our conversation. And having the opportunity to meet you has been a real treat. Thank you so much for being on this show.

[Bracken Darrell]

Thank you, David. And we got to get the Other day with David Cody.

[David]

All right.

[Bracken Darrell]

He's on a call together. Yeah.

[David]

And you guys were both a ge?

[Bracken Darrell]

Oh, yeah. I worked for Dave. I learned a ton from Dave.

[David]

I always wonder. I'll ask you this one question.

[Bracken Darrell]

Question.

[David]

I'll let you go. You know the GE washing machine, I. I recommend to him that you come up with a new washing machine and you call it the Sock Saver, because it seems like every washing machine, you lose your socks. And I think if you could solve that problem, wouldn't. Wouldn't that be a home run?

[Bracken Darrell]

Well, I think it could have been, David. And I tried that because I ran the washing machine business at ge, but I finally abandoned it, and I went to a company that makes socks because I figure if they're losing all those socks, we'll sell a lot more.

[David]

See, you're a smart guy.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

David. What an interview.

[David]

Yeah. Oh, fantastic. You know, what's your definition of design after hearing that interview? Cooler.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Well, it's certainly changed after hearing it. Now I think of design as anything that revolves around how a consumer engages with your product, not just the way it looks, but how they engage with your people. What it feels like to walk into your retail store, what it feels like to be on the phone with someone in customer support. I mean, everything. Design touches everything.

[David]

Yeah, but, you know, how does somebody in accounting think about their job as design?

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Okay, now you're interviewing me, David.

[David]

Yeah. Well, I want to see if you told us. I want to see if you got the. Any. Any info out of that podcast.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

One takeaway that I am pulling from this episode is that, you know, design, like I just said it, it really is the entire experience that anybody has engaging with you or your brand. So, like, for the accountant, David, if they can make something more seamless for the person on the other end of what they're delivering, someone asking for a report or auditing their books. If they can make that experience more seamless, then that is how they can apply great design to their process.

[David]

Absolutely. I love that answer. And you're right, you know, and I always said at Yum Brads, if you do your piece of yum right, it all adds up to a great customer experience. So, like, if you can be more productive in supply chain, you save money. We were able to give the customer war. And you do that by having the right design, right process and discipline to get it done. You know, that's how you can be successful. And I just love, you know, how we talked about how everybody can participate in that process of that total customer experience.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Totally. You know, one other thing I really loved that Bracken talked about. Obviously he's very focused on design, but I love the way he thinks about brands. Obviously. VF Is the parent company of several iconic brands. And one thing that really stood out with me was when he said, you know, in consumer brands, you don't really own the brand. The customer owns the brand, and you really just contribute to it. David, unpack that for me a little bit. And for the listeners, what does that really look like?

[David]

Well, you know, the customer owns the brand. The customers can really define what the brand is based on what you do. So, you know, the customer is going to position you the way how you really are. If you really have a lot of substance and you really have something that makes people feel cool when they wear it or, you know, makes people feel. Feel great when they. They drive it, you know, then, you know, man, you know, that. That only comes from the customer telling you how they feel about you. So the customer really owns. Owns the whole process.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I love in the episode when he talks about Timberland's the shoes, he says, you know, hip hop really made Timberland Timberland. They didn't do that. So I just love the fact that they are continuing to let the hip hop culture define what Tim's really are.

[David]

I think one of the great things in marketing, and I guess we can call it design now, is that when, when that customer takes over, you know, you don't really have to do much, but just watch the momentum that takes goes forward. Now it's hard to get that to begin with, and it only comes from everybody doing the job they need to do it. But. But once it starts to roll, I'm telling you, it just grows and it grows and it grows. You know, we struggled at Taco Bell for years, but man, you Know, once we figured out that this was an irreverent brand and that, you know, we needed to have a lot more fun and we needed to have products that, you know, really solve the customers issues, that the momentum has just piled on and piled on and piled on, dialed on, and that brand is just a rocket ship and just continues to have leading same store sales growth. So, you know, it only comes though, from a real understanding of the customer and then the customer loving you and talking about you. That's what happened in Timberland. It's like, hey, the customer. The word of mouth is what's driving it. When you got people talking to people about how much they love your brand and, and you give them so much value with not that much money and you know, boy, their products are really cool, man, I can't believe how good the food is. Even though it doesn't cost that much. I'm telling you, that's when you really, really have a great, great thing happening.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I'd love to give the people listening, David, just a real practical way that they can let their consumers define their brand. So what's one thing you would say to folks if they really don't have a grasp on, on what their brand is or what consumers say it is, what would you tell them to do?

[David]

Understand how the customer's defining your brand. Understand it, understand reality, see the world the way, how it really is, not the way you want it to be. And then start working with the customers. By that I mean listening to the customer, hearing what they have to say, and then start responding to what they have to say. And then sooner or later, they're going to feel the empathy you have for them, and that's going to drive performance.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Another thing that is very clear after listening to this interview with Bracken is that he's really is a master at turning brands around. I mean, he did it with Old Spice, which I think is so iconic. He did it at Logitech. And you know, with turnaround comes change management. So for people listening who might be in a place where their company is changing a lot, or they might be in the midst of, of a turnaround, how do you as a leader navigate the fatigue that might come with a bunch of changes?

[David]

Oh, I think, you know, it's that old burning platform story. You know, you're on the ship, okay? It's burning down, and the only way you're going to survive is you're going to have to jump into the water and you got to create a burning platform. And so I think the Way you do that is you paint the reality of what your customers are telling you. You paint the reality of the, of what your financial situation is telling you. You paint the reality of how your employees are thinking about you. But it all comes down to defining reality. And you got to create, in a turnaround situation, you got to create a burning platform.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

It reminds me, I feel like I always think about your interview with Alan Mulally, but he, you know, when he first got to Ford, they were about to post a 17 billion loss, and he went into one of their meetings with his leaders, and no one really talked about anything that was going wrong. So he made it a point to celebrate when leaders came to meetings reporting on things that were going wrong or things that needed fixing because they had gotten to that point because no one had defined reality, therefore no one was operating within it.

[David]

Yeah, absolutely. And he knew the only way, the only way he's going to turn that business around was to get people to understand the reality. Hey, we just lost $17 billion. How can everybody be in here presenting their project and telling me it's a green? How can we have 100% greens when we just lost $17 billion? What kind of fool do you think I am? I wasn't born yesterday. I'm from Kansas. I'm a Jayhawk fan. That's Alan Mulli. I mean, he's a common sense guy and he just told it like it is. But he constantly got people to understand what the reality was and then more importantly, do something about it.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

David, one more question here to wrap up our debrief. And this will really speak to, like, the CEO type of leader who might be listening. And the episode with Bracken, he talks about the importance of recognition, of course, and how no one ever recognizes people enough. So he tries to incorporate it into his everyday. He says that, you know, when really great things happen, you really recognize the folks that do it. But when really bad things happen, it's the job of the CEO to take responsibility for it, even if it's not your fault. So I'm curious, from your perspective as a CEO, how do you get comfortable with being the person who always takes credit for the failure?

[David]

Because it's your show, you're the leader, and if it's happening on your dime, there's something you could have done differently to make sure it wouldn't have happened. That's the mindset you have to have. And it's climbing all the way up that accountability ladder. You don't blame others when you're at the bottom of the accountability ladder. You blame others and come up with excuses. When you're at the top, you get on with it and you accept the challenge and you take accountability for it and say, now we got to move on. But, you know, I think that's so important. And once people know that you own the joint, you act like you own the joint. I don't care whether you're a frontline employee or you're the CEO. If you act like you own the joint, that means you take accountability for anything that happens on your dime.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I love it. I love it. Well, Bracken certainly has done that, and it's a big reason why he's been so successful throughout his career. And, you know, he's only been at VF For a couple years, two years, I think. But with him at the helm, I have no doubt that they're just going to continue to rise. And it's getting colder outside, which means it's time to put on my North Face puffer jacket, which I just feel like has been such a staple in the closets of people everywhere for years.

[David]

Well, that puffer jacket, you know, we talked to him about that. People need to, you know, I hope they picked up the inside insight there, too, is that, you know, that's what people want to wear. They found out how to do it in the North Face brand, and, you know, it's. It fits within their character because of the way. How they designed it. And by the way, speaking of design, I've interviewed a lot of leaders. This guy, he's one of the coolest dressers I've seen on. On. On video Ed. And he says he doesn't think about it, but that's just because he's naturally cool. I like the guy a lot. He's super.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I do, too. I do, too. I do, too. Well, David, that does it for our episode of How Leaders Lead for today. Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll see you next week.