Paige Thomas on Serving Customers

Paige Thomas has more than 25 years experience in the retail industry with an extensive off-price background and her passion for ecommerce. Paige most recently served as President & CEO of Saks OFF 5TH, leading the business from February 2020 through February 2023. Under Paige’s leadership, Saks OFF 5TH has evolved the business operating model and strategy to focus on the digital experience. In 2021, Saks OFF 5TH’s ecommerce business was established as a separate entity with a $200 million equity investment led by Insight Partners. Paige was named President and CEO of SaksOFF5TH.com to continue to build on its momentum and growth trajectory. Prior to Saks OFF 5TH, Paige spent eight years at Nordstrom where she launched NordstromRack.com and led the integration of HauteLook. Earlier in her career, Ms. Thomas held merchandising leadership positions at Kohl’s and Fred Meyer. Paige had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include: “One of the things I’ve really been working on is my pitch of who I am and what I can contribute” (6:40). “Who I am is this really diverse retailer that loves to drive growth and has an incredible proven track record” (7:35). “What I love is the idea of impact, and growth, and agility” (8:00). “The global pandemic gave the opportunity to actually really think about the customer and how you were going to drive change that was sustainable” (10:50). “[The pandemic] gave the opportunity to test and react, to maybe make bolder decisions than you normally would” (11:10). “What tends to happen in life is people fear the downside and therefore minimize the risk or opportunities that they’re going to chase” (11:25). “The way I think about retail today, is it absolutely critical that you have a unique differentiation” (15:10). “I’ve been really looking at leaders and what their career path was and what has defined them, in particular female leaders” (22:40). “Confidence in yourself and validation for my agility and experiences is actually really valuable” (23:45). “What I think is a continued opportunity, particularly for female leaders, is to lift one another up” (24:00). “I think of my career as the art of winning” (24:50). “Five years ago, I don’t know that I recognized some of my capabilities and impact that I brought to organizations. I undervalued my experience” (35:20). “The way that I think of myself from a core value perspective is I am a really authentic, loyal, leader” (40:40). “I’m an authentic coach every single day” (43:45). “Loyalty doesn’t translate to ‘you’re nice.’ Loyalty, to me, is the opportunity to be the leader, be transparent, give people the opportunity for success, but it’s theirs to own” (44:00). “In every organization I’ve worked for, I’m the first to raise my hand and say I want to be on [the DEI] committee” (48:00). “How do you support and represent the communities that you serve?” (49:05). “I believe that if you chase your passion, you will inherently be successful at it” (49:50). “The customer is my passion” (55:50). “I have so much more reward today out of leading than I ever thought was possible” (56:45). “That’s how I think about the art of winning: it’s not just a playbook, it’s not just X’s and O’s, it takes a team, it’s a marathon. And when those things come together, that builds a winning formula” (1:05:25). “For me, the art of winning is where I’m at” (1:09:10). “The future for me is how do I bring my core values, my proven track record, my leadership skills, to have impact” (1:09:25). Additionally, you can connect with Paige on LinkedIn. Thank you so much to Paige for coming on the podcast! I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers. Thanks for listening.