Delia Bennett is our community growth manager. Her passion is knowing the lovely Depop community inside and out, to try and make it better for all of our users. She’s out of New Orleans but now works in the Depop’s London office. Delia’s into powerful women, the literary world, and Hawaiian pizza.
So how did you first hear about Depop?
A former Depop employee, Jamie Ortega, who worked in the New York team. She posted something on Facebook about it two years ago.
How did you know Jamie Ortega?
We worked together at Opening Ceremony, a store/brand in New York and L.A.
When did you first join Depop?
January of 2015.
What do you do at Depop?
I am a Community Growth Manager. *laughs* But what does that even mean? I guess I love Depop’s community and I like understanding how it’s growing, why it’s growing, and what we can do to make it grow faster. So, on a daily basis I speak to users and see if we can move users who are selling between five and thirty items a month to selling between thirty and sixty items a month, and push them up the pyramid of Depop. I make sure that if our users aren’t happy, that we understand why they’re not happy, and that can feed into the Community Support Team. I just joined the Growth Team three months ago, so I do different things every day. Growth related projects and whatnot.
What do you like about Depop?
I really like our users. This is gonna sound like the cheesiest interview ever but, it’s just a really great community. And I love shopping, I’ve bought a lot on Depop. Before Zoe joined I was the reining champion of people who had spent the most on Depop. I think I’ve spent like £3000. Zoe’s spent more, thank god.
Where do you see Depop going in five years?
I would like Depop to be as big as platforms like Instagram and Facebook. That’s where I want to see us going. I want Depop to be the go-to buying and selling social experience for anyone. I want Depop to be the new way that people buy and sell things, rather than eBay, which is just so cold. I used to use eBay and I’d be like, ugh, I guess I should list this on eBay. I was never excited about it. But whenever I’m going to list something on Depop, I’m excited to take a good picture of it and see all the likes roll in and to get popped on the explore page.
What is the weirdest, coolest thing you’ve bought on Depop?
Okay so a few things. I bought a Hotline Bling phone flask from Shop Jeen, which I brought out with me last year for my 24th birthday because I’m a mature adult. I have purchased a ‘It’s not easy being a sex symbol’ pin from BESOS Vintage, which I then gave to Meg Rowland in our US office. I spent a $100 on a tie-dye t-shirt from Baddiewinkle that says ‘Will commit sins for Chipotle’, because it spoke to me…
Where are from, what’s your background?
I am from New Orleans, Louisiana. I grew up in New Orleans, spent the first 13 years of my life there, then Hurricane Katrina happened and I moved forty-five minutes up north. I went to boarding school from when I was thirteen to when I was eighteen. When I was eighteen, I moved to New York and I lived in New York until I was almost twenty-four, so five years in New York. Then I moved here!
Where’d you go to boarding school?
The Academy of the Sacred Heart in Louisiana. I didn’t go anywhere cool. Actually, when I was in high school my parents really wanted to send me off to boarding school in, like, Switzerland or Virginia, or anywhere, and I was such a momma’s girl. I was like, ‘You wanna ship me off?! No. I want to stay here.’ Now looking back I wish I had gone to boarding school in Switzerland or Virginia or somewhere really cool, because my high school wasn’t that cool, and it was super religious. Hindsight is 20/20 on that one. I’d probably be, like, friends with people who could give me their private yacht for the weekend for free. If I ever have children, it’ll be a non-negotiable subject.
What do you do in your spare time?
So I just finished a master’s degree. I was doing that in all my free time outside of Depop, so this is going to be a really sad and boring answer because my life has just been Depop and my masters for the past year. Now I just moved to Clapham, and my days are spent cleaning my backyard and I’m almost there. In New York I just used to hang out with friends, go to exhibits, wander, go shopping. So I’m looking forward to doing those things now.
What did you do for your master?
I did a masters in publishing at UCL, so nothing to do with Depop.
Do you ever want to pursue something around publishing?
I thought I did because I had a really, really amazing internship at a literary agency prior to starting as an intern at Depop. It was a literary agent for J.K. Rowling, for Madeline Albright, for a bunch of really amazing people. I don’t know if anyone’s read the book by Bill Clegg on Confessions of the Addict or something. He was one of their famous literary agents. He had a really horrible drug problem and almost destroyed their entire company. He was a name we never talked about. But it was a really famous literary agency, and I got to work for theme for six months and I loved it, and that’s why I decided to do publishing. Then I had six other internships in publishing since then what have been absolutely horrible and I want absolutely nothing to do with the industry whatsoever…so that led me here, I guess.
What have you always wanted and have you gotten it?
Everyone has such a hard time with this question! I really want to be that kind of person who has a lot of luck. You know, there’s people you know who are so lucky and that incredible things happen to all the time. I’m one of those people that’s like a series of unfortunate events, where it’s like, life is kind of like a cartoon and the anvil falls from the sky. I would like an abundance of luck to come my way.
Do you do anything to bring you luck?
When I was in Ireland I jokingly bought a four-leafed clover and kept it in my wallet, but that didn’t help because then my wallet got stolen… at a Depop event! And, it was a wallet that I never even used because it was my grandmother’s vintage wallet and I switched it out that day after a year and half, and it got stolen that day. I’m yet to buy one of Azealia Banks’s crazy luck-giving candles that she sells on Depop.
What was the happiest moment in your life?
I feel like it’s yet to happen. Well, maybe getting my Visa sponsored to stay in England was a really happy moment. My masters? Nah, I don’t get really happy if I work really hard for something so hard that it absorbs my life, and then it happens… I’m not that excited about that, I’m like, well naturally, great, my hard work paid off.
What is your favourite pizza?
Hawaiian pizza with barbecue sauce.
What is your favourite book?
There are so many. My favourite books actually tend to be commercial successes, which I used to be really self-conscious about. In a book nerd sphere, everyone’s talking about their favourite book and it’s kind of like pissing in a sandbox where people are trying to think of the most obscure book they can name that nobody’s heard of. Mine were never like that. I like ‘All The Light We Can Never See’, which was the Pulitzer Prize winner of 2015. It’s set in World War Two and is about three people, it’s stories running alongside each other and it’s about how their lives comes together. It’s really beautifully written. Because I read it, I really wanted to visit the city of Saint-Malo, where part of it is set, and wander through the city in the steps of one of the main characters. I did that last year, which was a really cool experience. Saint-Malo is a beautiful city. Then there’s ‘The Secret History’ and ‘The Goldfinch’ by Donna Tartt. Also Pulitzer winners. And Anderson Cooper’s dialog with his mother, who’s ninety-four, that just came out is really good and really beautiful.
What is the weirdest prank you’ve ever done?
I have done some weird things, not a prank, but I have set dog poop on fire at a guy’s doorstep that broke my friend’s heart. That wasn’t necessarily a prank though, it was just a really mean thing to do. It smelled horrific. It was my idea, but he really was a big shit so…
So what was your undergraduate degree? Was it journalism?
I did literary studies. But I worked for ten different magazine while I was an undergrad, so I interviewed a lot of people over the years.
What cheers you up?
Food. I love Thanksgiving. Everything that is served at Thanksgiving is my favourite food. Sweet potatoes, chicken, turkey, ham, stuffing, even though it’s horrible for me.
Who is your hero?
Right now my personal hero would be Hillary Clinton and all of the people close to her who are still fighting for Hillary Clinton, and not just her as a person but for what she wanted to bring to the White House, and who are, in the wake of such a shocking election, trying to make the point that it doesn’t really matter who the President is. America is a country built out of people. It’s the people who make the change, so if we continue to fight this fight, there’s very little that Donald Trump to do to fight that. So Hillz & Co. are my personal heroes.
Who’s your professional hero?
Angela Ahrendts is the former CEO of Burberry and now she’s the Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Stores at Apple. She’s basically responsible for all the revamped Apple Stories and making the stores a luxury experience. She came from a really small town in Indiana and she’s just a self-made woman. She’s worked really hard to change the way women work. She’s got great hair too, great style. She looks incredible in a pantsuit.
