How we’re onboarding more Black-owned brands
At Zalando, we’re working on onboarding more Black-owned brands to our fashion platform, and have already onboarded more than 63 Black-owned brands across beauty, jewelry, and fashion.
Jemma Garner, Principal Business Developer, has been leading the initiative since its inception in 2020 and walks us through her work with the objective of empowering Black-owned brands by embracing them as partners, supporting them to become successful, amplifying their voices, and driving business for them.
The initiative is a part of our D&I commitment to diversify our partner portfolio with brands and retailers that serve or stem from underrepresented groups.
You can read much more about this and our other D&I commitments in our do.BETTER — Diversity & Inclusion Report 2022.
Hi Jemma, what do you do at Zalando?
I moved from England to Berlin in 2017 to continue my career in buying and eventually transitioned into my current role as Diversity & Inclusion Business Developer. Since 2020, I’ve worked on projects that support and drive our brand partners to onboard assortment that is in line with our D&I principles.
I find it quite unique and fantastic that Zalando encourages employees to develop and move into different roles within the organization to find myself in my current position.
How did you get involved in the Black-owned Brands project?
Honestly, it was a matter of the timing of events. I started as a business developer in June 2020, while the Black Lives Matter movement was rising in mainstream awareness following the death of George Floyd and the related protests across the world. Many organizations used this time to reflect on how they could contribute to improving the societal conditions of Black people and people of color, and in Zalando, that meant reflecting on how we support black empowerment and increase social justice through the fashion industry.
Our Black Employee Connection (BEC), the employee resource group for Black employees, pointed out different ways the company could do more to support Black communities, including reviewing how we find, onboard, and display more diverse brand partners. And our Category Management teams continue to support the Black community by onboarding more Black-owned brands onto our platform and onboard product assortment that specifically serves the Black community, e.g. beauty products.
Looking back on the work that has been done, what are you the proudest of?
I’m personally very proud of the work ethic of the people I collaborated with in terms of wanting to change the norms and understanding from the get-go why we started the project and its importance.
Zalando is a huge organization with many teams and so many different processes to navigate. So when we needed to challenge the way we do things or create unique processes to support brands that may be smaller than our average partners, it could’ve been difficult to go against the standard automated flow. But with this project, everyone’s attitude is always ‘yes let’s see how we can make it work.’
What do you find to be the most challenging about the project?
The most challenging aspect is the internal work of creating new and unique processes to support smaller Black-owned brands, as our processes are set up to manage bigger brand partners.
Not because people or the business don’t want to find ways to support, but because it takes time to implement change, whether it be technical or about our ways of working. We need every buyer and every sales manager to find their personal connection to the project so that onboarding Black-owned brands and other underrepresented brand owners is not just a project but a continuous part of everyone’s role.
What do you hope that people take away from this initiative?
I hope that we become aware of all underrepresented groups and consider how we can drive awareness to them in and through fashion. We mustn’t lose momentum in discovering brands that stem from or serve underrepresented groups.
What advice would you give to someone starting a similar project?
Speak to and listen to as many people as possible who are in the community that you are working with. Understand the challenges from all perspectives so that you can implement new processes that drive feasible solutions and can have a positive impact for all parties involved.
How can someone in a similar role as you be more inclusive in their daily work?
I would encourage anyone that is driving the onboarding of brands and the curation of assortment to review their unit portfolio and the partners on their outreach list. Are you representing the community by discovering and supporting Black-owned brands in the onboarding process? Do you know which products are missing from your assortment areas that serve the Black community? I believe that being inclusive is a continuous effort of self-education and understanding. Be open to listening to other people’s experiences and don’t be afraid to ask questions if it is appropriate so that we can better understand how to be an advocate for change.
Read more about how Zalando extends offering for and from underrepresented communities.
For more information about our work with diversifying our partner portfolio and increasing inclusive assortment, check out our do.BETTER — Diversity & Inclusion Report 2022.
And if you’re interested in helping us reach our goals, check out the open positions in our Buying and Merchandise Planning teams here.
