Abercrombie & Fitch

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Employees say:"Love that our company offers the Carrot Fertility benefit - which I was able to use towards my doula services for my baby that I had this year! This can also be used towards adoption, or fertility treatments as well for those who need it. Additionally, I love that our company is passionate about giving back to the community and the organizations we partner with. Lastly, I love how you can make an impact here at A&amp;F, regardless of level and that we have a 'leave your title at the door' mindset."

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Employees say:"Abercrombie &amp; Fitch is a great place to work because of the people. Management has found a way to encourage diligence and balance in a retail environment that moves quickly. This combination takes care of its employees yet gives them a greater craving for success."

The Fortune 500, in its 70th year in 2024, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

Employees say: 
 
"I have loved working for Abercrombie &amp; Fitch, from being a part-time associate to a store manager. I absolutely love that I can share my experience with my peers and my team, and develop and grow my own people into future leaders of the company. The store environments have always been so fun, and I believe we are at an unmatched level of inclusivity and care for associates."

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

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Employees say: 
 
“What is unique is the relationship building that's present cross-functionally. It's truly amazing that people were so open and welcoming right off the bat and there are so many opportunities to give back to the community and meet associates in other areas of the business that normally, I would have no contact with whatsoever. An example would be ARG's: truly the best experience I've had with any kind of resource group, even compared to when I was apart of some in college. They create non-judgmental spaces that connect associates.”

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

See which retailers made this year's list.

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Employees say: 
 
“The culture is unmatched compared to other companies I interviewed with or where my friends work. From the social events, to the events around campus, to the overall inclusivity, A&amp;F really promotes an environment of teamwork and camaraderie.”

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 67th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 65th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 64th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 63rd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 62nd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 61st running of the list. Wal-Mart claims the top spot again. See who made the list.

Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

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Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Abercrombie & Fitch | Fortune

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Lots of companies promise to put ‘customers at the center.’ Abercrombie & Fitch Co. turned the buzzword into real results

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Philip Marcelo

The Associated Press

Ex-Abercrombie CEO charged with sex trafficking crimes is suffering from dementia and can’t stand trial, prosecutors and defense say

/2025/04/11/abercrombie-ceo-mike-jeffries-sex-trafficking-alzheimers-dementia-trial/

Lily Mae Lazarus

Tapestry’s CEO didn’t think she was the ‘CEO type’ until her company needed a leader

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Under Fran Horowitz, who comes in at No. 26 on this year’s MPW list, Abercrombie & Fitch has hit a record high in revenue – almost $5 billion. So, what’s next? We’ll explore the company’s global expansion plans, emerging growth opportunities, and how Horowitz has reinvented the brand’s aesthetic and values for a new generation.

Reinventing Abercrombie

Conferences

Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me and congratulations from what I understand has been an incredibly successful conference, so congratulations to all of you. Thank you so much. It's been fun. Hopefully we can agree. So as we just heard, Abercrombie has kind of gone through this bit of a reinvention, but I want to start with when you took over. Sure, you inherited a company and especially a brand that was seriously struggling. There'd been years of declining relevance and even among some a really actively negative perception of a brand that was exclusionary, overly sexual towards young people and teens. So what was your first step to turn that around? How did you approach it and what made you believe it could work? Sure. So I took a deep breath. I dove headfirst in just for a little bit of background, since I never know where people are on the story. Um, I joined the company in 2011 as um, President of Hollister, and at that point we had both brands, obviously struggling quite a bit. And the first thing that we really had to do was decide whether or not we had one brand or two. As a merchant at heart, you know, when I went on my interview process and I shopped the stores, I realized that the brands really weren't differentiated. They really were kind of the same brand, just with a different label, different quality, different price point. So that was really decision number one, and we decided to anchor Hollister as the true global teen brand, and that transformation was candidly a lot easier than Abercrombie simply because it wasn't the namesake of the company and as you mentioned, it didn't have quite the same challenging um reputation. Less baggage, less baggage, but still a very difficult business and um declining brand health. So we anchored that, and then we inspected Abercrombie. We did global consumer insights. We did a lot of research, and what we learned was a couple of things. First, that there was Affinity and love still for the brand, despite everything that it had been through. But there was an opportunity to really age up the brand and put it in the twenty-something age range and not compete with Hollister and not be a teen brand. And that was really the beginning of the success. And then, you know, the long story short is we evolved from being a jeans and t-shirt business to a lifestyle brand. We were able to invite the customer from early 20s to to almost 40 or over and expanded lots of categories and exciting new businesses that we dove into. So tell us more about that strategy. I mean, it's been to kind of lean into everything millennials who have such fondness for the brand from their youth, everything that they need today, and I think you've said everything they need for a weekend. Um, but what made millennials come back to Abercrombie to go from that kind of affinity to actually shopping? Um, I think we created a new brand that the, the millennials plus really fell back in love with for many reasons. Most importantly, we welcomed a very different customer. We were very open, very diverse. We um, we increased our sizing, we increased our categories. I mean, truly the, the, the pinnacle moment was when we created something called Curve Love. Which invited a whole new denim customer into the brand, and you know, say what you want about social media. There's good, there's bad, but we went completely viral on TikTok and what we heard from the consumer was, oh my God, Abercrombie is back. I can't believe this is Abercrombie. I can't believe I feel so good wearing this brand. And Curb Love was really the beginning of opening up a whole new consumer into the brand. Where did the idea for Curb Love come from? What gave you that insight? So we are very, very close to our customer. We spend an inordinate amount of time talking to our customer, and what they Told us was that they love the brand, they love the denim, they love the quality, but it just, they can't wear it. We've never had appealed to a curvier figure and there were so many people who wanted to be a part of the brand, so we introduced it. We, um, changed our sizing from the sense of, you know, very narrow sizing to a very broad-based consumer, and that just got the whole flywheel going and the conversation with the consumer. So there's this thing that you're really listening to your customer, and that is very different from what Abercrombie was doing in its earlier days. Exactly, yeah, the brand was telling people what was cool and so you reversed that. You went from telling to listening, but my question is, like, do you think a brand, Abercrombie or anyone else could ever be that arbiter of cool again in today's world where consumers have like such loud voices? Is that still possible? Um, you know, cool is a, it's a tough word. I mean, I think what you want to be is a brand that appreciates the values that your customers share with you, and I think we do that in in many ways by supporting all different aspects and events that are happening in their lives. I think the partners that we work through philanthropically that support their values are important to them. So I think it's more important that the brand stands for what you can relate to more so than being like the, the cool, the cool brand. So that's the thing of the past. I'm sorry, that's the thing of the past. Um, I mean, I guess it's a, it's a word in everybody's vocabulary. It's certainly out there, but um it's. Not, it's not what we're aspiring to be. We're aspiring to be a long lasting lifestyle brand that someone can wear and enjoy for many, many years. Yeah, on that point, you know, you've been describing this period of this really successful turnaround. More recently, you have seen sales growth slow a bit. Um, you know, obviously different categories within that, but what's going on from your perspective, um, is something changing with the millennial consumer? Um, what does it take to keep them passionate about Abercrombie beyond this initial excitement that you guys were back? I mean, I've been in this business for 40 years. Um, there will always be cycles within this business, and that's our job to make sure that the teams stay focused on the customer, that their assortment architecture is lined up, that they're understanding what is important and valuable to the consumer, and I'm excited about where we are. We are in our growth stage. Our Hollister business is um off the charts. We had a tremendous back to school through Hollister, and so you just have to, you have to ride the waves sometimes, but the brand is extremely healthy. I mean, I think, you know, the introduction we talked about the partnership we just formed with the NFL. That is an incredibly iconic global brand that came to us to shake hands and become the first fashion partnership, so that speaks. Spas about, you know, how, how valuable the brand is today and where we are. So they came to you, yeah. And what did they say when they came to you? Well, so it's a very authentic partnership. It started 3 or 4 years ago through licensing where we honestly started with 5 teams. We have a test and learn culture, so we do everything pretty judiciously and make sure we're ready to, we're ready to go. So we started with 55 teams in men's only and had a tremendous success. Then we added more teams and as she mentioned, we now have 32 teams men's, women's, kids, and pets as well. And I think the NFL saw the growth in the business and the reaction from the consumer because we put a product out there that was considerably different than what other people were doing. And they were looking for their first fashion partner. The demographics of their fandom and who we are are very adjacent, so you may not know, but 50% of their fandom is female, so that's very important for us, and the majority of their consumer really. Ranges from 20 to 40, so there's a ton of parallels and synergies for for the brands. Yeah, and so what role do you feel like you're playing in kind of helping the NFL capitalize on that female fan and not just have them watch but like be like a more engaged present fan? Well, I mean, I think the opportunity for us specifically is customer awareness, customer acquisition, brand awareness. I think that even though 50% of their fandom is female, perhaps they're not recognized or celebrated as much as they can be, and they haven't been served. By merch, exactly, and it's in two ways actually. One, that's not, as the team likes to say, it's not pink and sparkly and that women like to wear something that's much more sophisticated when they want to cheer for their teams. And we've also worked out an opportunity with them which is not just about um. The actual NFL logo, right, but it's about game day and perhaps how that whole head to toe outfitting works for both men and for women, how you're going to celebrate your team, and that styling piece of it is going to be very fun as we continue to evolve. Do you have any pets? Have they worn the pet merch? I have a grand pet pet, I guess you would call it. My son has a, my son has a dog, and yes, he very proudly wears his giant sweatshirt since that's we are Giants fans. That's. Maybe you can show us some photos later. Just a reminder, we'll have the opportunity for questions. If you have any, please start thinking and we'll come to you. Um, so you mentioned that you know sales growth is slowing a bit at Abercrombie. It's going really well at Hollister. What is behind that? What's working well? Is it this kind of Y2K nostalgia we're seeing? Is it something else? So the Hollister team, incredibly proud of them. Again, you know, the cycles of retail, they really dug in and got close to that customer and understood several things about that consumer and most importantly were the life moments that mattered to them. So we started a collegiate opportunity and whether you're going to go to college or not, there's a whole aspirational part of going to college. It starts very early in their high school career wearing wearing different schools that they're excited about, whether it's through sports or otherwise. And so the collegiate piece was a big win. We also created the year of a senior. And that was something that really resonated and helped us take our consumer who was leaving us around 16 or 17 and stay a few more years and realize that the brand, I'll use your word, was actually cool again and that they could continue to wear it and it wasn't just like their younger brother, younger sister's brand, but there was much more, much more to it. So again, it's staying close to that customer and really understanding and appreciating their life moments and making sure you're there for them. Yeah. Any questions for Fran? Oh, awesome, we have one up here. It's like I need my sunglasses. And please introduce yourself. Good morning. I'm Marisa Andrada. I'm the chief cultural officer at Wolf World, and I've worked at a lot of brand turnaround situations. And this is the HRO Chipotle, for example, Starbucks, and even Red Bull, and I'm listening to this brand turn around. So first of all, congratulations. I believe that the brand promise can only be true to the customer if the employees feel it on the inside. So I want to know, you know, your thoughts on what was the role of the employee and their voice and helping to reset the brand so that now it's cool again. I love your question because that actually was the key. The prior leadership to me believed in top down, and my opportunity was to really unleash this incredible, smart, optimistic, curious associate base that I encountered, and I listened to them. I mean, I'll give you a great example. One of my first buy meetings, an associate was showing us t-shirts for pride. And we were going through them and he said, you know, we're not allowed to sell these. We're just doing these for internal. And I was like, why would we not sell them? We're proud of this. This is all part of our, our value system here. And it was just like a moment for all of them to realize that life had changed, leadership had changed, and I was very open to listening bottoms up. Um, one of my favorite things to do, we have a beautiful campus is walk to the cafe for coffee, for lunch, talk to the associates, listen to them. They've led us to a lot of our philanthropic partnerships that we have. Which supports to your point, um, you know, the internal peace and the energy and excitement that's created from that. Yeah, uh, that speaks to, there was a really interesting Bloomberg story about what you and that strategy had in common with Barnes and Noble and that both of your turnarounds kind of depended on giving more of a voice to, in your case, merchants associates and Barnes and Noble's case, local booksellers who are running the stores and bringing more personality and of their own insight into that. Um. Uh, I think you know, your background is as a merchant. So a lot of retail CEOs, there's been a lot of conversation around whether that is the best background for retail. We've seen a lot of folks coming in more from a finance background. Do you think that you need to be a merchant to be a successful CEO in retail today? I think you have to love the customer. And I think that's really what it comes down to. So, I am a merchant at heart. I grew up, you know, mostly in the merchandizing world. I do have my MBA in finance, so I do have a bit of a balance between the right and the left brain for um my ability to be successful. So I think you have to love the customer and if you're a finance background, you can still love the customer, but that is keeping them at the center of everything you do is by far the most important thing to be successful. Uh, question up here from Bets Bay. I can't see. Hello there. Hello, uh, Betsy Bay Herman, head of research at Philips. Um, do you have any plans for smart textiles, so the technology for Abercrombie, uh, textiles and clothing in the future? Um, we don't have any plans at the moment, to be very candid, um, but the team is always listening and learning to what's out there. We have a, we manufacture in 17 countries around the world. We've got long standing partnerships out there, um, that we do use to help us develop innovative products and resources. So, um, nothing specific, but always listening and learning. Yeah, any other questions? OK, cool. Well, here's one for you. So, OK, you turned around a major brand very successfully. I imagine a lot of other companies might want you to do the same thing for them. So is there anything you want to do next? What would you say yes to? Um, I love what I'm doing. I consider myself incredibly lucky, um, to be where I am today and to have the experience of what I'm doing. Um, next for me is staying for this next chapter. You know, we've had 3 very specific chapters. We had to first stabilize, then we had to transform, and now we're in our growth stage, which we're approaching, you know, with some new thinking and It feels like day one for me, right? I mean, it's just now it's a whole new way to think about things. Throughout my career, reinventing businesses has been something I've been successful at. I'm excited for this growth phase. There's lots for me to learn and continue to drive at Abercrombie. So you're at day one of growth phase. Um, we start our growth days pretty much in the last, you know, 12 to 24 months, um, probably a little bit longer than that, but yes, but truly like how we're referencing this period is our, our growth stage. Um, talking about staying close to the customer and listening to them, Abercrombie has a really popular app, um, you know, compared to a lot of other retailers, it's very widely used and easy to use for consumers. What have you learned about customers from that data? So we have set up our, um, our digital team with. Odds and they are 24/7 reacting and listening to the customer behind the scenes. They're watching and seeing where there's opportunities where the customer gets stuck, where they can't move forward, where there's opportunities. Obviously AI is a big piece of that today. But the app is our most important ability to communicate with our customer, and we spend a lot of time and energy making sure to your point that it's continued to be updated and that it is as efficient as it is, and there's no finish line. I mean that's the thing, you know, it's just continuing. Yeah, what's something that you learned about your customer through the app that you might not have learned from patterns you would have seen in stores or online shopping? Um, I think what we've learned is that our most valuable customer through the app is someone who is an omnichannel customer, someone who can shop seamlessly between stores and, um, and digital, and a lot of that is demonstrated through the app. The discovery happens in the app, and then they choose, you know, where to complete the sales sometimes. Yeah. So you've really found the success by um appealing to what the millennial. wants the oldest millennials are now, you know, about 45. So what's next as they continue to grow up? Well, that's what I was going to say. So we certainly, we used to say a young millennial brand, and you're absolutely right because the the Zs are now 26 and 27, and they are very much a part of our consumer base, and they are very different shoppers than the millennials are. The most important thing to keep a brand successful though is not to chase your customers they get. Older, you have to make sure that you stay focused for your design team, your merchant team on who the customer is, and that's what we expect to do. If the customer wants to stay with us well into their 40s and 50s, we are delighted to have them stay with us, but the design, the marketing, and everything has to stay focused on the key point of who we want to be. Thank you so much, Fran. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Thanks Emma.

Syrup Tech's CEO James Theuerkauf explains how the company's AI platform is designed to help retailers like Faherty and Abercrombie & Fitch optimize their inventory, boosting sales and cutting the number of items that wind up on sale racks.

Why AI might mean fewer discounts at your favorite stores

Tech

Syrup Tech's CEO James Theuerkauf explains how the company's AI platform is designed to help retailers like Faherty and Abercrombie & Fitch optimize their inventory.

Inventory is the most expensive part of any brand that retailer's balance sheet in apparel and fashion alone. It's a $250 billion problem every year. So the cost of stock outs on the one hand and the cost of excess inventory on the other. Someone said to me, well, there's this technology coming out with A I that's supposed to help you put the right product in the right store. I'm like, oh my God, that's like that's what we need at syrup. We helped apparel and fashion brands and retailers, the likes of Abercrombie desi and verity to optimize the infantry, we help them get the right amount in the right locations at the right time. We're looking at, what's the transaction history for products? What's the trend at a hyper localized level? What can we learn from search and social media? Is it going to be raining in the next week or not? Is New York fashion week happening? And we use all of these data points to make a much more granular, much more sophisticated demand forecast. Someone coming into a store and wanting to buy what they're looking for is probably like the number one piece of customer satisfaction and someone walks into a store and they don't have it. It is so hard. You're focusing on tens of thousands of skews in fashion. Imagine it's a style, a color, a size and for all of those, you're optimizing them, not just across your warehouse, but also across your physical stores and getting that inventory right, as the core driver of profitability, as well as of sustainability for our customers. So what the technology is allowing us to do is to figure out what would have been the outcome if there was better inventory so that we can better plan demand. The rise of A I over the last few years has been so fast that it's only now that we have the ability to make our work. Mhm.

Fran Horowitz says of her six years as CEO "we've come a long way from when I first walked in the door."

Abercrombie CEO on retailer’s turnaround: "We did it. We’re back."

Leadership

Abercrombie CEO on retailer’s turnaround: "We did it."

Fran, so good to see you again and to talk about all the changes going on at Abercrombie, you transformed the company, the brands, the image, how would you describe how Abercrombie is today, it has been an amazing, amazing journey, you know, I've been in this industry for 35 plus years and I have to say the last eight years have been truly the most rewarding, incredible. I walked in in 2014 to 2 brands to iconic global brands that were really in decline and we have done exactly what you said, we have gotten that brand health back, we have a very engaged consumer base, our associates are really thriving and we, we did it, you know, no one thought particularly with Abercrombie brand that it was possible and our favorite thing to say right now is we're back. One of the things that you did was to rebuild the brands, you separated out Abercrombie and Fitch Hollister and Gilly Hicks, why was it so important for you to do that as a lifelong merchant, You know when I interviewed for the original position of running Hollister, I went to the mall and I saw that essentially the brands have become one, the product was all the same, Just a different price point and what we had to really decide was is there room for both brands to live independently or do we merge it together and make one brand and through all of the research that we did in the customer insights we learned that there really was an affinity for both brands independently. So we positioned Hollister as the global teen brand and we grew up Abercrombie to really focus on this young millennial, this mid 25 mid twenties consumer and we got the response that we were hoping for and it's worked. What was the key thing that you had to do to make that happen? We had to really get close to the customer, you know, the previous management really focused on telling the consumer what they wanted and our big pivot was really making sure that we listened to the consumer and understood what they were looking for. So to become the iconic global team, we had to get close to that gen Z consumer, really understand what he and she were looking for. But the biggest unlock was an Abercrombie adult and what we figured out was that the 96 hour weekend that that consumer looks forward to every weekend, whether that's a weekend away with their friends for a wedding of that short party showers, whatever it may be or even a staycation dressing them for those 96 hours was the key unlock. They needed to have clothing for each and every one of the events that took place over 96 hours and that went from everything from Susie from Y PB, our latest franchise of your personal best which is an active wear through jeans and t shirts through getting dressed up to our BBg, our best dressed guest collection. So we really thought about 96 hours and created a collection that would support each of those activities. You also closed many stores, you remodel existing stores, you tone down that sexy, cool kids image of Abercrombie. Tell us a little bit more about how you reinvent a 130 year old iconic retailer, What's the secret sauce? You're right, that was a very big key component to our um to our journey. We like to say at Abercrombie today, it's about belonging in the past, was about fitting in and there's a very big difference to those two things. So previously it was about making sure that the consumer did what we wanted them to do today. We focus on what the consumer wants and that's about belonging. So we have really been able to make a very inclusive and diverse. Associate based, consumer based product based, we've extended our sizes are fit, we've done so many things to really evolve the brand and move it forward. And the consumer has responded incredibly well. You've also made a big push into digitizing your business? What have you learned about how shoppers want to shop? I mean now that they don't have a requirement to wear masks everywhere, do they like going more into the physical stores? Do they like doing um shopping online? I mean, which brings in the most business. We made it a tremendous hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investments. Prior to Covid and we were really leaning into our digital business, which is about a third of our business by the time we got through Covid, it's almost half of our business. It's really amazing, but very different by brand, the house, the consumer is still very social goes to the mall, loves to use that as their weekend, fun with their friends, the Abercrombie consumer who's this very busy young millennial spends their time doing something called Poppins, which is purchased online, pick up in store and they come in, they pick up their purchase, they make their returns, they use the store as much more as an opportunity as a um, a place to try on exchange, return quick and quick out and the house or consumer really uses it for social gathering. Terrific. I mean you've done amazing stuff. So what's left on your, the brands are healthy and they're moving forward. I'm so excited about our future. We had an investor day back in june and we shared our long range plan with the investor community. We have our sights in 25 on, you know, four billion plus and an 8% even margin. And we talked about our long term goals about being a global omni channel retailer. So I'm super excited about where we are and where we're going, you mentioned a moment ago you had your investor day, one of the things that you said at that gathering was that we expect macro headwinds to persist. Tell us a little bit more about your take on the economy. What worries you right now today? What I can tell you is, it's interesting to see what's happening with the consumer. He and she are actually fairly bifurcated. So Abercrombie brand had a terrific you to that consumer seems to be less touched by the challenges that are happening in in the world today. Um, yet the policy consumer, that teen consumer, that family, the demographic of that consumer, is definitely finding it much tougher. There's a lot of competition for the wallet, whether that's um gas prices or food prices and clothing. So we experienced for back to school, a much more judicious consumer, you know, really had to make choices this year. So it sounds like from what you're saying this holiday season could be a pivotal test on consumer spending. What's your strategy to make sure that Abercrombie gets a big slice of the consumers holiday shopping dollars? So our strategies have to have the right product at the right time, at the right price for our consumer. We are looking forward actually to the fourth quarter, you know, relative to last year's where we were really challenging an inventory perspective, not sure if everybody remembers, but we do a lot of production in Vietnam and Vietnam was closed at this time last year because of Covid. And then we had a big challenge getting our product here on a timely basis. In fact, a lot of it came after the holidays this year, we changed our straw strategy and we brought our inventory in early and we feel that we are ready and prepared to compete. Do you feel that you still need to offer promotions or cut prices? Listen, we made a lot of progress during Covid and we were able to really reduce our promotional activity and our goal is as we go into every single quarter is to continue on that strategy, we will obviously manage the business as it comes and we'll see how the consumers reacting. But we go in with a plan and a strategy to hold our markdowns and and promote as needed. I want to go back to something that you said or being, you know, a conversation about how good you feel about the turnaround that you created at Abercrombie. I mean you are coming up on your six year anniversary as a ceo, I mean what are you most proud of? Very simply, I'm most most proud of my team and the culture that I've created, we have created a culture where we took a talent that we had at Abercrombie and grew them and fostered them and we brought in a lot of new talent and we have blended Suzy this old team and this new team and put together one of the most winning teams in retail. It's not an easy thing to do. Um and we have a culture that really promotes inclusivity and diversity and influence and autonomy and accountability. I mean, we've come a we've come a long way from where I was when I first walked in the door. You're part of an elite group of female ceos who are running a big enterprise. What advice do you have for a young woman who has the ambition that wants to be a Ceo one day? What's the best advice on how to get there? Well, what I say to my team all the time is please make sure that you view me as a leader, not by gender. It's very important that everyone gets viewed by the experience that they bring in the success that they bring. So whether that's male or female at the same time, I do know that I am a role model and my advice is simply walk into that room, whoever is in that room and hold your head up high, be confident in what you're delivering and just go for it.

Glen, when people describe your leadership they say you are a very good listener. I'm guessing that that is deliberate on your part but what a great skill to have as a CEO? I really I really pride myself in being what they call me at Abercrombie, which is the leader of the people. I made sure, since the day I walked in, that I'm very genuine, I'm very approachable. I mean, a great example. I go to the cafe every morning. I go get my own coffee. I go get my own lunch. It's amazing what you learn from the associate, when you're just chit chatting online and then listening to what they have to say. I am a good listener, I always try to take up everything in and make sure I'm making the right decisions as we move forward. Actually I hear that you make sure that wherever you go, you create a situation that your employees are doing most of the talking and you're doing The listening I've heard about this fire side chats that you have. Every single quota with your employees. Tell us why these conversations are so important to you. One of the first things I learned about when I got to the company. Is how much the associates really needed more communication. They were very curious to understand where we were going, what we were doing. So communication and making sure the associates were educated on what was happening. Was a huge priority for me. So we introduced in the firesides live QA And trust me, the HR team was a little bit nervous about that and making sure that you know that everything was the edges were going to be appropriate and okay, but I insisted on it. And it's really turned out to be a very valuable experience for everybody. What do you get out of it? I learned what's top of mind for them what they're thinking about making sure that we're covering the issues that are that are top of mind for them today. In fact, just last week i was in Shanghai, and we did our very first Global Fireside. So we did simulcast around the world. We had all 3 of our offices online all at the same time, from Shanghai to London to Columbus, and it was fantastic. What was fantastic about it? Just that it helped everybody understand that we really truly are a global company. And that we could all be online together all at the same time even though the time zones were different. We were all speaking the same language. We were together. We were unified. We were talking about What was working in the company what the opportunities were. So it's a really special moment for everybody. So it sounds like you've created a very open and collaborative culture which is very different than the atmosphere at the company when you came five years ago. How has this helped you as you're reinventing Abercrombie? Well I think I live on the basic premise that great ideas come from everywhere. So if you're open to listen and you're making sure that you're bringing in all the great ideas, the ideas don't have to start at the top, they don't have to start at the bottom. They really do come from everywhere and from within. And that helped us really discover and open some opportunities that we may not have realized if we didn't have this open environment which people can communicate. Can you give an example of one of those great ideas? Very early on, many many years ago, when I did one of my first European trips that was in Germany, I was in the stores touring and our stores were notorious for being very dark and the sales manager said to me Can I show you what the store looks like if I turn on the stocking lights? And I kind of looked at her and I'm like, What are the stocking lights? And she said, those are the lights we use at night when we when we felt the merchandise into the store. I said, Sure, let's do it. It looks like she went running into the back. She turned the lights on and literally the customer in the stores started applauding They could see the product. They were excited they could talk and see the associates face to face. And from that day forward, we turned all the lights on throughout Europe and they've been on ever since. Sort of an aha moment. An aha moment. Absolutely. People say that your favorite word is balance. What does that mean to you? It is, You're laughing I am laughing because I'm glad that everybody knows that I made a point to make sure everybody knows it's my favorite word. Balance is the most important thing you can have in your life. That means balance, when you're setting your financial strategies and your plans. Your balance in how you set out your day, making sure that you're doing things for yourself as well as for work. Balance matters everywhere all the time, no matter what you're doing. How do you think your view on balance influence your workforce, given that more than half of your employees are women? I think it motivates them. I think it motivates them and helps them understand that your total life matters. It's not just your work life but your personal life matters as well. And that's not just for the women. That's for the men as well. I think they appreciate the fact that I keep that balance. They see me leave campus at a reasonable hour they see me going to yoga. They see me doing things with my family. They see me bringing my family to campus and helping experience what Abercrombie is all about. But yet they know I'm a hard worker. I understand that you're a big believer in mentoring. So what do you tell the women who Work at Abercrombie. What advice do you give them about getting leadership jobs and how to help them fulfill some aspirations they have maybe to be CEO one day? It's very important to be yourself, to be genuine, to ask questions, to be thorough in what you do, to be strategic. I mean it takes lots of things balanced out through what you're doing but you have to have good strategy, you have to be Curious, you have to be optimistic you have to look forward into the future to see what's happening. So really striking a balance between all of those things .>> What about you, friend, you've had a very successful career. You've worked at many retailers, and Taylor Bloomingdale's. I'm sure you had a lot of mentors along the way. What's the best leadership advice that you ever received? And how did it shape your style of leadership? I would say the best leadership advice I ever got came early in my career. At that point I was at Bloomingdale's and I would say it came from Mike Gould, he was the CEO at the time. He was also a leader of the people. He was very genuine. He said, " Make sure that you stay close to your people. Understand who they are, what is important to them both inside and outside of work. Make sure you're approachable. Make sure that you can communicate with them ." I would say that has resonated with me and has really stayed with me along my whole career. Career. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Abercrombie  & Fitch CEO leadership tip: be yourself and ask lots of questions

Fran Horowitz says open communication generates great ideas.

Abercrombie  & Fitch CEO: be yourself and ask questions

Fran Horowitz says open communication has generated great ideas.

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