Massively successful designer Tory Burch recently said,“There’s always a stigma attached to the word ‘ambition’ and women. I’ve embraced it. Ambition is not a four-letter word and women have to embrace that.” Though she runs a company with $700 million in annual sales and stores across the world, she says at every step of the way something has been eating away at her accomplishments and that this is something all ambitious women need to persevere through.
“Well, there’s been a stigma to women in business, and I think the women traditionally in business that are successful are not married and do not have kids. That has got to change, and if I can help change that in any way, that would be a big, big feat for me. I feel that women are tremendously successful and add incredible value to the economy of our country, and for me that’s very important.
I think that women in the past haven’t been able to have successful marriages and children and do it all. It’s a stereotype and it’s one that I would really like to get rid of. It’s very important to have successful women that have successful marriages and who are incredible moms. That’s a big, big part of who I am and what my company is about.”
And Tory is certainly ambitious. After working for designers including Ralph Lauren and Vera Wang, Tory decided to venture out on her own. She worked out of her apartment for the first two years which was quite difficult considering there were six kids running around. It paid off as within a few years she had about 1,000 employees, 65 retail stores around the world, and revenues topping $500 million, according to the Wall Street Journal and in June 2008, she won the CFDA award for Accessory Designer of the Year. A certain 2005 Oprah appearance didn't hurt either in which the Queen of Television dubbed Tory the next big thing in fashion.
“There’s always a stigma attached to the word ‘ambition’ and women,” she said at Fast Company’s Innovation Uncensored event in New York City recently. “I’ve embraced it. Ambition is not a four-letter word and women have to embrace that.” When Tory first started out, many critics said she was only able to get the company off the ground because her rich financier husband funded her as well as contributions from family and friends. And there is no doubt that Tory is from a very privileged background and does mingle in New York socialite circles, but she has proven the naysayers wrong. Sally Singer, Editor of The New York Times Style Magazine, said she is not a socialite designer. She is a gorgeous woman and from a well-to-do background but, “if you know her you see how good she is at what she does.” In a 2008 interview with CNBC Tory said:
“Well, there’s been a stigma to women in business, and I think the women traditionally in business that are successful are not married and do not have kids. That has got to change, and if I can help change that in any way, that would be a big, big feat for me. I feel that women are tremendously successful and add incredible value to the economy of our country, and for me that’s very important.
I think that women in the past haven’t been able to have successful marriages and children and do it all. It’s a stereotype and it’s one that I would really like to get rid of. It’s very important to have successful women that have successful marriages and who are incredible moms. That’s a big, big part of who I am and what my company is about.”
And Tory is certainly ambitious. After working for designers including Ralph Lauren and Vera Wang, Tory decided to venture out on her own. She worked out of her apartment for the first two years which was quite difficult considering there were six kids running around. It paid off as within a few years she had about 1,000 employees, 65 retail stores around the world, and revenues topping $500 million, according to the Wall Street Journal and in June 2008, she won the CFDA award for Accessory Designer of the Year. A certain 2005 Oprah appearance didn't hurt either in which the Queen of Television dubbed Tory the next big thing in fashion.
And she is also giving back. Burch feels so passionately about helping women in business in particular that she started the Tory Burch Foundation in 2009 to assist women by providing microloans to them in various fields. According to the foundations web site, “micro-entrepreneurs – so called because of the smaller, or micro, size of their businesses – support their families and are the front line investors in their communities. They are more likely to be denied a loan by a traditional bank and face higher levels of financial discrimination.” According to the US Small Business Administration, small businesses employ more than half of all workers in the private sector, and make up more than 90 percent of the nation’s employers. .“We realize that women are great at helping each other, and there’s synergy,” said Burch in an interview. “I went to Haiti before the earthquake,and women there helped each other. If one woman was behind on her loan, the others would pitch in and help.”
Tory Burch is obviously no socialite as she is the one putting her heart and soul to every product on her expanding line. She said in a recent interview, “If there is a product out there with my name on it, it’s me! So I want it to be good.”
Tory Burch is obviously no socialite as she is the one putting her heart and soul to every product on her expanding line. She said in a recent interview, “If there is a product out there with my name on it, it’s me! So I want it to be good.”