Pendleton CEO Jennifer Ingraffea on Leading with Curiosity and Building High Integrity Teams

Jennifer Ingraffea is a seasoned executive leader with over 25 years of experience in the retail, apparel, product merchandising, and management sectors. In July 2025, Jennifer became the CEO of Pendleton Woolen Mills; a family-owned business since its founding in the 1860s. Before joining Pendleton, she served as Chief Product & Merchandising Officer at The North Face, prior to which, she worked at Nike in a number of high-level executive leadership roles. Jennifer and Roy discuss her new role and dig into essential leadership skills like curiosity, stewardship, and much more. Highlights from our conversation include: Core beliefs, values, and principles in Jenn’s leadership playbook (2:53) Leading through cycles of massive consumer and retail evolution (5:39) Identifying areas of a business that are in need of clarification and simplification (7:36) Aligning a team towards a long term vision (11:01) Lessons learned around hiring and team building at major brands (14:58) How Jenn developed her hiring process and philosophy (17:07) What a great leader looks like to Jenn (18:36) Valuable traits that Jenn identifies when hiring direct reports (22:58) Visit HowIHire.com for transcripts and more on this episode. Follow Roy Notowitz and Noto Group Executive Search on LinkedIn for updates and featured career opportunities. Subscribe to How I Hire: Apple Spotify Amazon