Mastering the Corporate Tango: Lessons Learned in Retail Branding

Through my career, I had the opportunity to live in multiple cities and really create brands for large retail stores and came to Miami to do a startup for sunglass hut called WatchStation. Before that, I was at the limited stores, and at that time in the 90s, to be part of a limited division, it meant that you were like, really on top of your game in fashion. And they said something to me, which I will never forget, and I was sitting in the interview and they said, here we do the tango. Now you might want to do the rumba. The rumba is a great dance, but. But we do the tango here, so if you can get on board with the tango, we're good. But if you want to do the rumba, then that's fine, but you're not going to do it here. And it was like a defining moment in terms of really understanding, like really embracing what is and not trying to do something that they would not accept. And I just have always remembered it throughout, because in any corporate environment, people are doing a tango, and you might want to do the rumba, but to be successful, you will have to embrace the tango.