The woman behind Chico’s
“Officials are on scene of a plane crash in Fort Myers. Keep watching. You can see the plane crashing there, into a building at Chico’s,” reported NBC2 News on June 24, 2017 as a video of the crash played on the screen.
That morning, pilot Anthony Greco got in the private plane at Page Field Airport with a friend. The plane faltered during takeoff, and failed while flying over Metro Parkway. The plane crashed into Building 9 of Chico’s Headquarters, the building dedicated to child-care.
Shelley Broader, CEO of women’s clothing company, Chico’s, recalls the day of the crash. She was at home when the Chico’s brand president, Diane Ellis, called her.
Ellis said that because it was a Saturday, no one was in the building, but the plane burst into flames.The passenger died and Greco was severely injured.
Five months later, Shelley Broader, CEO of Chico’s, still thinks about the crash.
“It’s a difficult situation because, while I am grateful the damage to the building was minimal, the pilot and the passengers’ families will always see our brand and think about the accident,” Broader said.
Broader said that the company has recovered from the crash and is back to business, working on the success of the company.
She starts her day early, checking emails and messages that may have come in over the weekend. Then she has a meeting to discuss numbers and how the company is doing locally and across the country.
“Media outlets reported a negative quarter for the company, but the results were what we expected,” Broader said. “We’ve been making a lot of changes and with that comes varied results, but right now we’re pleased with those results.”
The company, which deals specifically in women’s business attire, is currently working to expand their range of sizes and improve their advertising methods. Broader does a lot of walking, moving from building to building, checking on each sector of the business. She said she likes to be involved in every aspect of the company and is working closely with the PR manager, Julie Lorigan, to find the best ways to advertise.
“We’ve been working on appealing to the younger generation of working-class women by incorporating more work-appropriate prints, fun colors and details like zippers and buttons,” Lorigan said. “Our design team is figuring out new ways to use those basic details to add flair to the clothing.”
Broader also occasionally assists the design team by bringing ideas of her own to them. Lorigan said they try to utilize social media as much as possible to determine trends before they become trends.
“It’s pretty cool walking around with a journalism major for a day,” Broader said to me. “I majored in journalism in college.”
Broader continued by describing her upbringing and how disappointed by her life she used to be.
“I didn’t really enjoy journalism, so I got a job at Raymond James Financial,” Broader said. “I got really good at my job and eventually dealt with multimillion dollar deals. I had good relationships with the people I managed, but I wasn’t happy.”
In 1991, she resigned and moved on to work at a grocery store as a cashier. She explained an encounter she had with a former Raymond James customer while she was working at Hannaford Supermarket.
The man made small talk, catching up since their last encounter. Then he realized that she was wearing the Hannaford uniform and asked, with a hint of disgust, if she was working there.
“I had never felt so embarrassed,” she said. “I went from the high paying job to working at a grocery store, but it didn’t seem like a big deal until I saw someone else’s reaction to the change.”
She went home to her husband in tears, and he said something to her that she said she would never forget.
“If you’re happy with your new job, why would anyone else’s opinion matter?” he asked her.
After a lot of self-reflection, Broader decided to stick with Hannaford. She began moving up in management until she became the Senior Vice President of Business Strategy. She gained a lot of marketing experience and moved from Hannaford to Sweetbay to Walmart management.
In 2015, Shelley Broader decided to resign from Walmart to become the CEO of Chico’s, where she has worked for nearly two years. Within those two years, she has managed to improve sales and change their image.
Chico’s used to be known as “clothing for older women,” but Broader has actively worked to target a younger demographic. She said that they have worked on the style of clothing they put out, including textiles, colors, and silhouettes. They’ve also improved their advertising methods and have continued to spread the brand across the country and into Mexico.
“As we move into the future, I can see this company expanding even further,” she said. “I’d love to see our company be recognized world-wide.”
Broader has high hopes for the company and is excited for the future. In the short amount of time she’s been the CEO, they’ve already seen massive changes. But Broader is also cautious about every change she makes.
She said that it’s important to not rush into anything because it can be easy to accidentally cause the failure of a company. Large changes are risky and don’t always translate well.
“If you don’t do enough research in a specific area in a target country before opening a store, you risk immense failure,” she said. “If you’re unfamiliar with a country’s culture, you risk unintentionally offending the people there. It’s happened before, with other companies.”
According to BBC news, Starbucks attempted to expand to Australia in 2000, but 61 Australian locations were closed by 2008, resulting in a $143 million loss. Starbucks failed in Australia because the company didn’t do enough research about the people who lived there. Australians found the coffee too hot and too expensive, but instead of adjusting their products, Starbucks closed the majority of their stores.
While Broader wants to expand the company, she doesn’t want to cause the company to lose money. She said that plans for expansion are in the works, but they aren’t sure what their next target country is yet. They only recently expanded to Mexico, so they want to see how that store does first.
Broader said she had a strong, steady job with Hannaford and made a lot of impact there, but she wanted to keep learning and growing.
“The best way to learn more about yourself is to quit your job and move away,” Broader said. “It’s scary, but it forces you to remove yourself from your comfortable lifestyle and challenge yourself.”
She said that she loves where Chico’s is right now, but like with any company, there are always setbacks. The two biggest setbacks on the company this year have been the plane crash and Hurricane Irma.
She said it’s difficult to work around things like that because there’s no one way to handle them. She said because of the hurricane, they were out of power for over a week, with no way to contact the stores that weren’t affected.
With the plane crash, she said that the only thing they could really do was minimize the amount of shock by assuring the media that very little damage occurred and that no one was in the building.
Overall, Broader believes that Chico’s is moving forward as a whole, and has large goals for the company, including international expansion.
“I don’t see myself at this company forever, but it’s something that I enjoy right now,” Broader said. “I’m happy where the company is.”
