Good morning! Women buy oura rings, Trump’s cabinet pick faces scrutiny – from his own mother, and Rent the Runway celebrates its 15th anniversary. Have a productive Monday.
– Don’t stop believing. Rent the Runway turned 15 last month. CEO Jen Hyman, who co-founded the clothing rental service when she was a 27-year-old business school student, is still at the helm of the business.
Hyman lived through the height of Rent the Runway — like in the late 2010s, when unlimited subscription began to become ubiquitous in certain markets — and its lows, such as the cratering of its business during COVID, soon followed. Since then, Rent the Runway has struggled, and a true turnaround attempt is still in its infancy. Throughout it all, Hyman asked herself two questions to determine whether she should stay at the helm of the business: Is she tired? And more importantly, “Do I still believe?”
The first problem can be fixed, and while Hyman says she’s been very tired at many points along the way, that exhaustion has never been enough to make her turn her company over to someone else. “That means I have to change something in the way we work to restore energy,” she says.
To do this, Hyman started this year with a new strategy. “I joined the company in 2024 as the new CEO,” she says. “If I were the new CEO, how would I look at Rent the Runway today?” She reorganized the company to return to its roots as a collection of “cross-functional startups” and eliminate some of the red tape she said she felt she had to take on as the company matured. Instead, she embraced with all her heart”founder mode.” “The biggest thing I wanted to change was pace and agility. I was convinced that we had fallen into patterns that were slowing us down,” she says. She hired new managers, including the CMO invest in marketing after years of neglecting it in favor of business fundamentals as a result of the crisis.
Christopher Houdney/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Rent the Runway is now up against a a sea of competitors in the category he invented, from Nuuly to own rental services for retailers and brands; the share price is down more than 90% from its 2021 IPO high (which Hyman admits is “terrible” but says it has nothing to do with the health of the business itself); and consumer preferences forever changed by the pandemic.
Some changes in the business helped to remove the skepticism of investors; Rent the Runway, once a huge asset, is now a big business that has convinced brands to consider the platform as a marketing channel (the average Rent the Runway customer tries 45 brands a year and buys from those brands 80% of the time). As a result, brands now provide merchandise for free on three-quarters of their inventory, rather than requiring Rent the Runway to buy huge amounts of clothing. Hyman says the $320 million company is profitable despite all the noise surrounding its problems.
Through it all, Hyman says she’s stuck because her answer to the question “do I believe” has always been “yes.” “It’s hard to be in a business that’s going through a transformation,” she admits. But she’s staying put “while it’s fun.”
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
– What to wear. Women in their 20s are the fastest-growing customer segment for Oura, the popular wearables brand. Oura’s CEO says his products could be part of a “movement away from the patriarchy,” an opportunity for women who feel “killed” by the medical establishment to take charge of their health. Fortune
– Emails from mom. Donald Trump’s Defense Secretary pick Pete Hegseth has been accused of sexual assault, and he has denied the allegations. New reports reveal that Hegsett’s mother sent him an email in 2018 saying he had “regularly mistreated women over the years and displayed a lack of character”. She now says she has apologized for the note and does not support the claims. New York Times
– Beige against beige. Two influencers are embroiled in a lawsuit that could change the future of the influencer industry. Both are creators who specialize in promoting products sold on Amazon with a minimalist beige home aesthetic. The lawsuit asks whether the creator’s “sentiment” can be protected. Edge
– Children’s watch. The Chinese government forces women to give birth, including through telephone interrogations. “It’s not like something that could happen in the 21st century,” one 28-year-old says of the company. Economist
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
Vanessa Lau will become COO Hong Kong Stock Exchange HKEX. Her role also includes the position of CEO of SEHK and HKFE, entities within the HKEX.
Director of Marketing at Bumble Selby Drummond and CFO Anu Subramanian are leaving.
ON MY RADAR
Let’s be honest with ourselves: Cormac McCarthy was grooming a teenage girl Guardian
How our broken dating culture is leading to loneliness, anger and Donald Trump New York Times
Why are women less likely to use AI? Bloomberg
FAREWELL WORDS
“We’re both seen as strong, but we’re actually very vulnerable and human.”
— Actor Angelina Jolie on in the main role as the legendary opera singer Maria Kalas in the new film Maria
