The CEO Exchange with Jamie Salter

The CEO Exchange with Jamie Salter

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This show is produced and hosted by Mark Weber. The
show is sponsored by G three Apparel and is in
conjunction with Mr Magazine. The views expressed in the following
program are those of the sponsor and not necessarily the
opinion of seven to ten wor or iHeartMedia. Who is
Mark Weber. He's a self made business executive here to

(00:22):
help you find your success. From the New York City
projects to the Avenue, Monton and Paris. His global success
story in the luxury world of fashion is inspiration Off.
He's gone from clerk to CEO twice. Tonight, that CEO
brings you The CEO Exchange, a one on one interview

(00:44):
CEO to CEO, an inside conversation and perspective on how
CEOs think. This is a special edition of Always in
Fashion The CEO Exchange.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Who really runs the world. We have a CEO president
now and he's going to make an impact. A business
leader now once again the head of our country, but
the world business leader becomes extraordinarily important. We consider our
lives big companies. Small companies provide employment, which in turn
gives families in this country the ability to provide and
put food on the table, send their children to school,

(01:21):
provide life. CEO ofs have big positions and big responsibilities,
enormous undertakings to make sure that the companies that represent
flourish and provide for the owners, the shareholders, stockholders, and
all the constituents that benefit from companies well run. Tonight
is the first of an interview series that I've begun,
which will call the CEO Exchange. A CEO talking with

(01:42):
a CEO. I'm fascinated by CEOs. I've been a CEO
twice in my career in a different way. I'm a
CEO of Always in Fashion Now. The reality is I've
lived that life. I've walked the walk, I've talked to talk.
I understand what it takes and what it feels like
to be a CEO. I'm particularly pleased to I to
have the first interview in this series with a gentleman

(02:03):
named Jamie Salter, CEO of Authentic Brands Group, perhaps one
of the most important, if not the most important, in
American fashion right now, perhaps second only to Disney. Its
influence in the retail sector cannot be denied. You consider
this company that represent over thirty billion in retail sales
around the world within a ten year period. Authentic the

(02:24):
brands you recognize right away tonight when I mentioned them.
I met Jamie Salter probably twenty years ago. Wasn't the
best of meetings. We lost touch, but in the last
ten years I've gotten to know him and his company
very well. My eldest son, Jared, is a member of
that company. I've been a consultant to Jamie, so I'm
pressed with him, his sons who have joined him in
the incredible professional team that has built this brand juggernaut.

(02:48):
Over a ten year period, Authentics Brand Management licensing company
has acquired some of the most amazing properties and entertainment,
the estates of Marilyn Monroe, The King, Elvis Presley, the
Greatest Muhammad. In recent years, abg's partnered with Shakeille O'Neill
and David Beckham in his branded company in lifestyle brands Nordica,
Eddie Bauer, Vince, Judith Lieber, Classic Brands, then using Isaac Jones,

(03:12):
New York, Lucky, Juicy Couture, and now Hunter, one of
my favorite boot companies in retail. They own Forever twenty one,
J C. Penni, Aeropostyle and one of my favorites Brooks
Brothers in the sport Arena, Reebach, Prince, Spider, Billbon, Quicksilver,
and most recently Champion, and they own the sports Illustrated Empire,
huge global brands. How did one man have the vision

(03:36):
to create this global empire? Find partners to manage and
operate these companies create a financial return has seen some
of the greatest financial investment banks fund these acquisitions, support
this growth. Why is it working? Because their returns are extraordinary.
Everyone is making money. Tens of thousands of people have
jobs here in the USA and around the world. Authentic

(03:58):
Brands group and their leader, founder and c you Jamie Salter.
I'm extremely excited to have him here tonight. And now
let me introduce you to Jamie Salter. Why are you Mark?
I'm great, Thank you for being here now. Having said that,
I have to start with what really came through my
mind was they said, the sun never said on the
British Empire. I have to change it. The sun never

(04:20):
sets on the Authentic Jamie Salter company that he built. Welcome, amazing.
How'd you do that?

Speaker 3 (04:26):
Well, first of all, it's off the company that I built.
It's the company that all the people out of Phenic
Brands built together. I think that's really the special sauce
at ABG is we all know what each other are doing,
and we can all fill in for each other from
time to time what happens on a day to day basis.

(04:48):
So if you know, I'm doing something with your son
Jared Webber, or I'm doing something with Mark Rosen or
Dan den'st the minute that I'm doing something them, I
pick up the phone. If there's somebody else that needs
to know, and we tell them, you know right away.
Why is that so important? Because you know the conversation

(05:10):
that you're having with that person, you know five minutes
later they're going to call that person anyways, And we
got to make sure that the story stays straight, and
we got to make sure that there's no broken lines
in communication within our organization. We have a saying here,
tell everybody everything. There is no secrets at Ethemic Brands
talk about secrets.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
You and I had an interesting meeting. They say, there
are three sides to every story. You want to tell
the story how we met? Or should I?

Speaker 3 (05:38):
I mean, I remember it, okay, it was Izodd and
I remember you're the CEO of PVH and I came
into your office, and I wanted to license az odd
and you wanted a big GMR, a big guarantee guarantee
minimum royalty, and we want to license it for footwear.
And I believe that we actually did do that deal,

(06:02):
and I do remember it. We did sign the contract
and it wasn't going so well, and we came into
your office and I said, I want to meet this
Mark Weber guy. Okay, And I met this Smark Weber
guy and I said, I got a problem with the GMR.
And he said, I'm sorry that you are having a
problem with the GMR, but unfortunately you've signed a contract,

(06:26):
and if you want out of that GMR, I'm happy
to let you out of it, but that will cost
you some money. And I don't remember exactly what we settled,
but I think we settled on two or three years
of the minimums that we had to pay you on
a contract that we had. But I definitely wrote a
truck to get out of that deal.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Well, very smart at your time. I'm more impressed with
me that I made you do that.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
No, what I've learned is the apple doesn't fall far
from the tree. Because Jared Weber actually feels the same
way you do. And that's what I love so much
about you is Jared actually holds our licensees to the contract,
which I think is actually really really important. And you
got to look at the licensing business that is very

(07:08):
similar to the real estate business. And you know, when
they rent their spaces, they expect their tenants to pay
their rent, and if their tenants don't pay the rent,
they get evicted. And then unfortunately, you know, there's communication
of something where it's you O you know two years
of rent or you O three years of rent. But
there's always a communication and that's not a friendly conversation.

(07:32):
And thank god, you know, we have less than a
half of a percent of defaults, you know, in our company,
so we have very few defaults. But those conversations do
happen from time to time.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Well, first of all, thank you for mentioning my son.
I was going to ask you a little later on
how's he doing.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
I mean, look, there's no doubt about it that there's
some days I think he should get a haircut. Weber's
have hair know, so yeah, but no, Jared's unbelievable. He's amazing.
He's been I think he's been with us close to
ten years now and what you taught him. You know,
obviously you're a great father, but you're also a great teacher.
And I remember when we hired Jared. You promised me. Okay,

(08:12):
you said, you hire my son, You hire my son.
I want you to hire my son. I said, he's
a lawyer. Okay, he's not. He does not to run
a business. He's never run a business before. He said,
trust me, I've been teaching him. I said, you've been
teaching him how to play golf. He's too good of
a golfer. Anyways, long story short, we did hire your
sign and he's now the president, a global president of lifestyle.

(08:34):
As you know, he is running the biggest part of
our business. He runs basically eighty percent of our business
of the thirty billion dollars, and he's doing an absolute
fantastic job. He does want my job. I will tell
you that too, and I think one day he will
get it.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
You can't talk one day. You're too young to look
at you. You're in great shape. How do you stay fit?

Speaker 3 (08:54):
I stay fit because I've got a lot of energy,
and I do a lot of walking around and pacing.
I'm never sitting still. I don't believe it's sitting at
my desk and just sitting in front of the computer,
you know, on a daily basis. I'd love to tell
you that I.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
Work out regularly. I don't.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
But I also chase after my six grandkids and that also,
you know, it takes a lot of energy to do that.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
You know, during COVID, when you couldn't be with anyone,
I decided to lose weight. I don't know if you
realized I've lost fifty seven pounds started walking. I walked
four miles a day. I walked fourteen hundred miles last year.
What I'm really proud of is I kept it off.
Everyone thinks it's easy. It just comes overnight. Funny thing
about people. Everyone likes the view up there, but nobody
likes to climb the mountain. What about work ethic for you?

(09:40):
What does it mean?

Speaker 3 (09:41):
Look it's lonely at the top. I actually discuss that
with you know a lot of the people that I
work with, because you know, I have sort of five
direct reports. Work Ethic for me is everything. I wasn't smart,
you know, growing up. You know, I didn't get straight
a's in school. I was one of those students that
had to to work that much harder to actually do

(10:02):
well in school. So I always said to myself that
if I work really, really hard, I will be able
to achieve what I want to achieve. So I read
a book back in the day.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Was it was The Firm.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
I don't know if you're it was a John Grisham book.
If you remember, you know, the lawyer got in at
eight o'clock in the morning, and then his boss, you know,
decided to come in at seven fifty. And then the
lawyer came back and said, you know what, my boss
going in at seven fifty, I'm gonna come at seven
forty five. Came at seven forty five, and then the
next day his boss came in actually seven forty. So

(10:36):
this went on and on and on where he was
actually getting to work at you know, five or six
in the morning. And after I read that book, I
always said, I'm going to outwork everybody. So that was
actually a book that just you know, sort of sits
in my head, which is if you really work really hard,
you will achieve what you want to achieve. The other
thing that I learned by working hard was if I

(11:00):
surround myself with people that have sort of that same
DNA as I have, you know what, you will get
to the Promised Land that much quicker. So we have
a saying at ABG, work hard, play hard, which is
work really really hard, but make sure you really really
enjoy your life. So that's something that I push throughout

(11:22):
the entire organization. But abg's not for everybody. I'm going
to say that right up front. This is a very
type a personality firm. If you're not really a hard worker,
you probably don't want to be at this company. During
an interview process, people always say, can you tell me
how many days I need to work at the office. Now,

(11:45):
that doesn't mean that they're a bad person, That doesn't
mean that they're incapable, that doesn't mean anything. But what
it does mean is they're not going to fit in
the culture of this organization. Because this culture is twenty
four hours a day, seven days a week, get it done.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Now.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
I do have a rule. Friday night comes, you need
to be with your family and you need to be
with your kids. Okay, if you have kids and you
need to be with them on the weekend, because those
are really important days, you know, Friday night, Saturday, Sunday,
those are important days to be with your family, but
really Sunday night through sort of that Friday, you know,
early afternoon, we are work, work, work. Now, I'm also

(12:29):
going to tell you something that's kind of strange, which
is work needs to be fun. And I know people
find that sort of hard to believe, which is, yes,
work is work, and you need to work, but you
have to have fun.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Well, I believe work is work if it's work, meaning
basically what you're saying, if you enjoy what you're doing,
it's not work that correct.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
And I love what I do. Someone always says to me,
do you do it for the money?

Speaker 2 (12:54):
I don't.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
I do it because I love it. The money is
the scorecard. So I always say to people like yourself
on Jared or my kids or other people, do you
play golf? And they say to me, yeah, I play golf.
I said, do you enjoy it? Yeah, It's the greatest
sport ever.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
I said, how do you score well?

Speaker 2 (13:10):
I score you.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
Know, ninety one hundred eighty. You know, you get all
different answers, So I always say to them, well did
you score well today? No, not so well. Did you
have a good time? Yes? So I actually think work
is like that, whereas you come to work, you don't
score well every single solitary day, but as long as

(13:33):
you have a good time, then you should keep doing it.
But then you get those days where you just hit
it right out of the park and you get this
incredible score, and that is obviously the greatest feeling in
the world. So you know what, as long as we
score better most days, we're winning the war. And you

(13:53):
know what, our handicap here at authentic it's actually pretty good.
We're not quite scratch yet, but we're getting really close.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
Always in fashions.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
As one of the world's most celebrated fashion designers, Carl
Lagafeld was renowned for his aspirational and cutting edge approach
to style. His unique vision of Parisian shit comes to
America through car Lagofeld Paris. He has women's collections, men's collections,
ready to wear, accessory, shoes and bags. The fashion house
Carlagofeld also offers a range of watches, I wear and

(14:26):
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car Lagofelparis dot com. But it's more than that, I
have for one love to shop I love going around
and seeing what's happening and what catches my attention, what
would make me feel good to wear now. I don't
wear the women's wear obviously, but I can appreciate it,
and they look amazing. If you want to look right,

(14:49):
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the handbigs and the shoes. I, for one, wear men's clothes,

(15:12):
unlike my appreciation of women's clothes. I'm a modern guy.
I want to look current. I want to look the
way I want to feel. I go out at night,
I'm in black and Carl Lagafel is my buddy. Clothes
are great, they fit great, and they have little tweaks
and touches, whether it's a stripe on the sleeve or
button at the neck or on the shoulder. There's a
lot of details that go into Carlagafel because he's always been,

(15:35):
he always had been one of the world's great designers,
and this legacy and goes on and on. I can't
speak enough about it except to say to you, you
want to feel good about yourself. You want to know
that you're dressing properly. You want to clothes that fits
you well. Carl Lagafeld, Paris at Macy's Orcarl Lagafel dot
com spen a lifetime of my career building the Van

(15:57):
yusten Brand, and I am so pleased that they're back
with us now talking about suits. Men were dressing up
again and it's become cool to wear a suit. Suits
can be won on multiple occasions, in multiple ways. You
could wear a suit formally to go out at night
or to an event. You can wear a suit to
the office with or without a tie. If you look closely,

(16:19):
now fashion trends, suits are being worn with turtlenecks or
mark next. The choices are endless and every one of
them looks right. You could really really look the part.
I believe that packaging yourself is as important as the
products you package, and wearing a suit is one of
those things that make men look their best. Venuesn't invented

(16:42):
a new idea. It's called the cool flex suit. It's
been engineered with stretch technology, giving you the most comfortable
fit and mobility. Its wrinkle resistant fabric, it's cool moisture wiki.
It makes it perfect for all occasions. As we discussed
just now, this new style of looking shop while feeling
cool and comfortable is amazing and I'm so excited that

(17:05):
the van Using company is involved in this new technology
and is embracing the whole idea of dressing up. Let's
not forget van Using made it's name with dress shirts.
It's only proper that the suit business follows strongly in
its way. You can find van Using cool Flex Men's
stretch suits at jcpenny or online at jcpenny dot com. Guys,

(17:28):
they're great. You should go look at them.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
Welcome back to Always in Fashion. Here's your host, Mark Webber.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Tonight is a special edition of Always in Fashion. It's
the CEO Exchange. Tonight we're interviewing CEO to CEO. I'm
a former CEO and I'm interviewing a current CEO. Let's
continue with Always in Fashion the CEO Exchange. You know,
my first mentor and getting a job. Ask me what
I wanted to earn. I gained some crazy number and

(17:59):
he looked at me and said, let me teach you something.
You go on an interview and they ask you about money,
you tell them money doesn't matter. You tell them what
matters is to learn working for a good company and
a time, money will take care of itself. Talking money,
you're an entrepreneur, yes, sir, I grew up a corporate EXECU.
I knew I was going to get a paycheck. I
knew I was going to get stock, whatever it was.
I was secure. Weren't you ever scared about starting on

(18:21):
your own and having to figure out where the first
dollar would come from? And that, to me is the
key question with entrepreneurs.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
So the answer is no. I had a paper route
was my first job. And you're gonna laugh that I
was so good at my paper route, and I know
that's funny to say that I got big tips. So
what I did is I made a deal with my
brothers to deliver the papers for me, and I give
them the money that we got from the paper company

(18:49):
to deliver the papers, but I got to collect the tips.
So right from sort of my first you know, sort
of job, I figured out how to make pretty good money.
I can tell you that I really never had a
money problem ever in my career where I spent more

(19:10):
than I made. I didn't understand what ibita was till
very later in life. I always thought, if you made
money after you paid your taxes, that's so much money
you made. I didn't really understand leverage really until I
started ABG. So I've always been a person that lives

(19:33):
within the means. So people always ask me why does
ABG do as well as we do. We've never overlevered
the company since day one, and we have the lowest
leverage today than we've ever had in the company. Now
that doesn't always agree with private equity, because private equity
likes to take money out out out, and we could

(19:55):
lever the company almost twice where we are today. We're
levered at two point three times. You could of this
company up to five times, and you know, you know
how much money we make, which means we could take
close to three billion dollars off the table right now
if we wanted to lever the company to where most
brand management companies are levered. And we've chosen not to.

(20:17):
And I think that that's sort of my upbringing, Whereas
my father was the exact opposite my father lived above
his means. My father, you know, didn't pay his bills
on time. But what that taught me, that was a
learning moment for me, because what I learned was never
to live my life that way. So I've always been

(20:38):
a low leveraged person. I've always been that person that
if you have money, you can buy something, and if
you don't have money, you can't buy something. So I've
lived my whole life that way, and I can tell
you that I really can't think of a moment in
my life where financially I was strapped. One time, way

(21:00):
back when when I was running a company called gen X,
which I owned. We were starting to get a little
over levered, but that's because business was going through the
roof and we were just trying to finance everything. When
my CFO one day came to my office and said,
no more growth. You need to slow down, mister Salter,

(21:21):
so we can catch up. But that was really the
only time that things got a little tough, and a
year later we sold the company for a lot of money,
So that was good advice for my CFO.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
I had a father in law, shared's grandfather who used
to say make a dollar, save two let the money
work for you. Interesting perspective, if you will.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
I agree with that.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
How is it that you can find people to invest
in the company?

Speaker 3 (21:45):
That's interesting. We don't really find people to invest in ABG.
That's really the aura that no one really understands. We've
never taken money other than from Leonard Green really fifteen
years ago, which we raised two hundred and fifty million.
I put in twenty, they put into thirty. We never
drew down. The most we ever drew down from Leonard

(22:07):
Green was forty three million dollars. And all these transactions
you hear about Blackrock, GA, CBC, QIA, General Lank, and
the list goes on of some of the greatest sovereigns
and private equity firms in the world. Black Rock, they've
been just selling and buying from each other. So that's

(22:29):
interesting where these big investors have been coming in. But
they've been all coming in on secondaries, not on primaries.
So we have self financed this company since day one.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
So your investors, though they do come in and inspect
the return two years, three years, five years, how do
you contend with that?

Speaker 3 (22:47):
We're very lucky. The returns have been outstanding. I think
if you talk to any of the private equity firms,
our returns are somewhere around twenty five thirty percent per year,
and in some case is you know, in Leonard Green's case,
they're sort of infinite. The returns, you know, I've been unbelievable. Now,
can we continue to give these type of returns to

(23:11):
the investors because the numbers are getting bigger and bigger.
I think we can't. The deals are just now getting
much bigger. So to get to where we are today,
you know, we're private company, but we have public data
out there. We earn around one point three billion of
the bit per year. You know, we have a ninety
nine percent cash conversion, seventy five percent EBITA margins. The

(23:33):
question is how big can we get? I think we
can get a lot bigger. I think the tam is
just so big. So where we traditionally were buying smaller
companies than we were buying a little bit bigger. You know,
now we're buying companies two and a half billion dollars.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
Like, we're gonna ask you that question, when did you
realize that you companies who were buying for one hundred
million wasn't all that different? Or was it to buy
one for a billion dollars.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
As Michael Rubin would say, they're just zeros. It's the
same amount of work as buying a small company versus
a medium company versus a large company. I can almost
tell you that the larger companies are easier than the
smaller companies because they're more established, and they're easier to
sort of convert to our model and license them around
the world.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Where's the pressure on you?

Speaker 3 (24:19):
My wife?

Speaker 2 (24:20):
I mean, because she's always right.

Speaker 3 (24:22):
My wife is for sure, always right. But balance. Jamie
doesn't have a great balance, Jamie. Jamie is all work.
And yes, I enjoy my grandkids and my family. But sometimes,
you know, I don't put the phone down. And I'm
learning right as I get older. You're a few years

(24:43):
older than me. You know I'm on right. Jared Webber
calls me, I pick up the phone right, and I
think that I have to learn how to balance that
a little bit more.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
And I'm learning how to do that.

Speaker 3 (24:58):
It's not easy when you're a workahol, but I am
learning to put my phone down and spend more quality
time with my family. As my wife would say, Jamie,
you're in the room, but you're not really here, you're
looking at your emails, you're on the phone. Yes, you
were at Corey's house all week and long, and your
grandkids were all around you. But you're not going to

(25:21):
get these moments again. So you just you need to
be better at that, and I'm trying. So that's the
big pressure also. But look, I'm really lucky because I've
got a great management team around me that takes a
lot of the pressure, you know, off of me. From
time to time.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
Your brand marketing company, you license brands throughout the world.
I learned sixty five countries, one hundred and sixty five country.
Where did I get the idea for this from you?
I mean, pbh, Let's be honest, Okay, fifty percent of
all their profits come in from licensing.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
You are the master. You perfected licensing. What I did
different than you is I said, why don't you license
the core also?

Speaker 2 (26:01):
Right?

Speaker 3 (26:02):
So Michael Core's was great. You know, Lauren Stroll is
another fan of mine. Okay, Lauren Stroll obviously is an
early adapter to the licensing business. Tommy Hill figure, as
you know, is a very close friend of mine, early
adapter to the licensing business. And then you look at
PBH and you start looking at sort of how they
made a lot of money. They made their money and

(26:24):
license it. What they also did is they were not
licensing the core product. And I believed that if you
found the right partner, best in class partner, why couldn't
you license the core also? And people looked at me
and said, no, you won't be able to do that
because you don't control the DNA of the brand. And
I said, yeah, we do. I mean Disney, they control

(26:45):
their brands, Mickey Mouse. You can't change Mickey Mouse's years, right,
So why don't we just put a great rule book together.
We'll put it. We'll give you the you know, all
the rules of the game. We'll control what the distribution is.
We'll give you the right brand books, we'll give you
the DNA, we'll control all the marketing. We'll do everything
that Michael Cores did. We'll do everything that PVH did,

(27:06):
except we're not going to own the inventory and we're
not going to design the product. So it was really simple.
I said, while we're in the licensing business, well, how
does that work? I said, Well, we sign a contract
with someone, we license out the brand, they will How
do you control everything. We make nothing. We control everything,

(27:27):
and they go, you make nothing, but you control everything,
that's right. We control the distribution, we control what the
product looks like, we control the marketing. And they're doing
all that for you. Yeah, they're doing all that for us. Well,
why wouldn't they just do that themselves? Ah, that's a
really good question. The reason that they can't do it
all themselves is because when we buy these brands, we

(27:50):
license them out to best in class, by category, by territory.
So you may be really good in sportswear mark, but
you really, you know what, you kind of suck at choose,
so you shouldn't be in the shoe business. And you're
really you don't know anything about socks and underwear, but
actually you kind of do know a lot about socks
and underwear. But the truth of the matter is if

(28:12):
you actually look at the business and you license it
out by category, by territory, and people would go, okay,
I sort of got it, and early on we would
give up, you know, we would say, oh, you get clothing, Well,
now we don't do that, right. Everything is ala carte.
When you go to a restaurant, when you order, you
order steak, if you like French fries, you are French fries.

(28:33):
If you like green beans, you order green beans. And
if you want you order a different dessert. And there's
multiple choices, or do you just want to go and
they just serve it all up to you. Most people
don't like it that way. Most people like it all
ala carte. They get what they like. We have learned
to really go ala carte now that we're so good
at it. Okay, the business, we know all the best

(28:54):
partners around the world. When we buy a brand, we
know who's going to be really good. Would at Champion
Team Sports. We know who's gonna be really going to
Champion footwear, Champion socks. And it's different by territory all
over the world. And we built this great company where

(29:16):
you know, most companies have five people in licensing or
ten people licensing. We have five hundred and twenty five people.
Alls we think about is licensing Monday morning at seven
o'clock versus Friday afternoon at four thirty. And the most
important part is making sure the brand is cohesive all

(29:37):
over the world.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
You mentioned distribution batteries ever ready durasl. Consumers want to
buy products where they want to buy them. In apparel fashion,
it's a little more complicated. How do you navigate being
in one retailer versus the other?

Speaker 3 (29:52):
First of all, asset light is the greatest model in
the world. Because the consumer changes, we go, the consumer goes.
So you know what, TJ Max used to be a
dirty word in the apparel business, and if you sold
TJ Max, it's like, oh my god. Right early on

(30:12):
Ralph Laurana, as you know, they were a big customer, okay,
and then all of a sudden you got outlet stores
and there's all different ways that distribution was being done
twenty years ago. Distribution is getting tighter and tighter and
tighter right now. But it's changing, right there's clubs now,
there's off price retailers now. Department stores are having a

(30:33):
tougher time, the independent omni channel stores are actually some
of them are doing fairly well. There's this new company,
have you heard of it? It's called Amazon.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
Right.

Speaker 3 (30:43):
I remember when ten years ago people were scared to
sell Amazon. Now Amazon is now like, oh, you sell Amazon.
That's for the first place people go to chess exactly.
You know about something you want right to Amazon first? Right,
so you'll write to Amazon to see if it's there.
If it's not an Amazon, maybe it's not a good brand. Right,

(31:04):
So we go where the consumer goes. Yes, we respect
distribution and that's incredibly important, but we actually do follow
where the consumer goes. And I think that that is
why our model is such a good model, because we
don't have all these assets or they, as they would say,

(31:25):
boat anchors attached to us, that we can't move credibly quickly.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
Always in fashions.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
Spent a lifetime of my career building the van Usen brand,
and I am so pleased that they're back with us
now talking about suits. Men, we're dressing up again and
it's become cool to wear a suit. Suits can be
one on multiplications in multiple ways. You could wear a
suit formally to go out at night or to an event.

(31:54):
You could wear a suit to the office with or
without a tie. If you look closely, now fashion trends,
suits are being worn with turtlenecks or mark next. The
choices are endless and every one of them looks right.
You could really really look the part. I believe that
packaging yourself this is important. Does the products you package?

(32:15):
And wearing a suit is one of those things that
make men look their best. Venuesin invented a new idea.
It's called the cool Flex suit. It's been engineered with
stretched technology, giving you the most comfortable fit and mobility.
Its wrinkle resistant fabric, it's cool moisture WICKI it makes
it perfect for all occasions. As we discussed just now,

(32:37):
this new style of looking sharp while feeling cool and
comfortable is amazing, and I'm so excited that the ven
using company is involved in this new technology and is
embracing the whole idea of dressing up. Let's not forget
Venues and made its name with dress shirts. It's only
proper that the suit business follows strongly in its way.

(33:00):
You can find van Ues and cool Flex Men's stretch
suits at jcpenny or online at jcpenny dot com. Guys,
they're great. You should go look at them. I've been
shopping for fun lately, and while I'm out, I always
look at men's and I look at women's. What's going
on and I was particularly interested in Dky because of
their sponsorship of the show. I went downstairs at Macy's

(33:23):
thirty fourth Street to look around, and I saw DKY
Activewear and I promise you, ladies, it is sensational, from
the sports bras to the crop tops, to the leggings
and the sweats. It really is a great look. And
dk Y had begun as an all American brand dressing
casual clothes engines, and the stuff looks incredible and right

(33:44):
now the colors and the styles is so exciting that
I feel great about the company. I always do. I
wear the men's were all the time. I've had situations
where I've gone to big events and been interviewed and
TV or the radio, and someone comes up to me
the microphone and like they always do, who you're wearing?
And here I am, this big shot with big company

(34:05):
and they say, well, I'm wearing a DKY and they
laugh and say, no, you're not. I actually have one
on the internet where you could see me. They asked
me what suit I'm wearing, and I say, DCON why
and open it up and there's the DKY label. Great fashion,
it fits well, it looks right. It's designed to make
you comfortable in the city, goes from day and tonight.
You could wear it in the morning, you wear it

(34:25):
in the afternoon, and you look cool at night as well.
It's great for the office, it's a great for leisure.
But I'm talking about the DKY active wear. The first
time I really became aware of that, Jesse and I
were up at Sirius Radio. He was doing a job
for Serious he does Dan Abrams show, he fills in
on the Potus Network, and we were in the lobby
and this hip hop group came up with this really

(34:47):
great looking Latino singer girl Young Beautiful, and she was
wearing a DKY sports bar and I said to myself,
this is amazing. I actually went to Macy's to see it,
and I'm excited about the brand. And I tell you what, ladies,
d KY always has great fashion for work, always wonderful
dresses and things that you'd wear. Their accessories are great,

(35:09):
the shoes are always very cool. But active wear in
particular right now looks sensational. And being that everyone's ath
leisure and active where, it's a great time dkmy go
take a look.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
Welcome back to Always in Fashion. Here's your host, Mark Weber.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
Tonight is a special edition of Always in Fashion. It's
the CEO Exchange. Tonight we're interviewing CEO to CEO. I'm
a former CEO, and I'm interviewing a current CEO. Let's
continue with Always in Fashion the CEO Exchange. I'm a
big fan of marketing and advertising, and I'm a Yankee fan.
You have Reebok and Yankee Stadium. I've just seen Reebok

(35:47):
in the New York Rangers. The things you as a
company have been doing are extraordinary and it's really something
to speak of. This is how you build your brands.
To protect your brands. You want to talk a little
bit about how you feel about spending money on those
areas and what do you like spending.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
I mean spending any money I don't like doing. I
mean everyone knows that about Jamie Salter. But again, unlike
other brand management companies, we're big spenders on marketing. And
the reason we're big spenders we think if we spend,
our partners will spend two. So for every dollar we spend,
our partners spend five. So the good news is is,

(36:23):
yes we spend money, but our partners spend another five,
So we're getting five to one on every marketing dollar
that we spend. Then the other thing that we did,
you know incredibly different here is there's I think we
got about eighty five or ninety people in marketing today,
and marketing is different today.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Than when you were sort of doing what you were doing.

Speaker 3 (36:45):
Today, marketing is driven by social media and digital. Well,
you got to go way back fifteen years ago, and
we didn't have a lot of money back then, so
we built this incredible digital you know platform where we
understood social better than really anyone in my opinion in

(37:07):
the apparel, accessory and footwear space.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Why is it that when you want a brand, you're
able to get it. How do you seem to get
the prize versus all your competitors. One, we're low leverage.

Speaker 3 (37:17):
Everyone knows we have the money to pay for When
we bid for a deal, we bid with the money
ready to go back to sort of my heritage, okay,
which is if you don't have the money, don't make
the bid. So we always have the money before we
make the bid. That's number one. Number two, I think
that we have one of the best teams obviously in

(37:39):
the business, and we figure out where we can license
this brand all over the world, and we have a
very good year. And more importantly, we have a good
feeling about certain brands and we're constantly talking to our
partners around the world. We're thinking about this brand. You know,

(38:01):
what do you think of Rebok? We're thinking about it.
We may one day you know, look at it. Oh
my god, if you could get Rebok, this is what
I could do to We haven't made a bid, we
haven't even entered the process, very very early on, so
when we're actually thinking about buying something, we're already there.
We actually have a model built, and we're not doing

(38:24):
it from our gut feeling. We actually know where we
are going with that brand, eighty five percent of sort
of what the outcome is going to be. We know
that before we actually make the bid.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
What's the one that got away from you, Martha Stewart.

Speaker 3 (38:38):
But then I've had two opportunities to buy it since then,
and we passed on both. And we didn't pass because
Martha Stewart's a bad brand. We actually think Martha Stewart's
a fantastic brand, fantastic but it just didn't fit sort
of in our model of exactly what we wanted to do. Now,
we've learned a lot since those days with Sports Illustrated,

(39:01):
So I think today, you know, if somebody brought me
Martha stew we probably would do it.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
And if there was a brand that's really out there aspirational, crazy,
nobody will ever have it, but the people will have it.
What brand would you like to get that you don't currently.

Speaker 3 (39:15):
Have under Armour, I think it's one of the best
brands ever. Kevin Plank's a friend. I think it's completely undervalued.
It's a great brand. But look, I think you know,
he's back in the saddle, and you know, I'm aturelier
I want him to succeed. Uh So, you know some
people say, oh, you know, Jamie, you want that, you
want this person to fail, you know, because you'll get

(39:37):
the brand. No, that's not the way we think. We
we want everyone to succeed because at the end of
the day, you know, the more people that succeed, the better,
the better business in general is, the industry will be right. So,
but there is a lot of opportunities. Look the debt market.
You know, debt's pretty high today, right, it's a borrow

(39:58):
money and a lot of these companies, you know, board
money at low rates you know five years ago, seven
years ago, and those those bonds, and from a debt
service standpoint, they're all coming up on that over the
next couple of years and they're not going to be
able to refinance their debt at those low numbers. So

(40:19):
it's going to put an enormous amount of pressure and
we've seen it already start to unravel at VF Right
VF to sell, you know, one of their brands, Supreme.
I think that bought them some time. But I think
you're going to see, you know, some of the bigger
companies having to sell some of the brands to raise

(40:40):
capital in order to get their debt load down because
they won't be able to sustain the interest rate that
we're at today. Because when interest is sort of you know,
sofer two seventy five plus sofer, so you're talking about
seven seven and a half percent interests and when these
guys are making sort of ten percent, kind of hard
to make the math work.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
If you weren't CEO of where would you want to
be CEO Disney. I'm surprised they're not on your number
one hit list.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
Disney is h I have the most respect for mister Igor.
He's built an incredible business. When you think about it,
you know, six billion in royalties. They're a content company
that built an incredible flywheel in the licensing business. We
built an incredible flywheel in licensing. Question is you know

(41:28):
now that we're going getting more and more involved in
the content side. Contents now about twenty percent of our business.
You know, can we continue to grow that side of
the business? And I you know, people always say to me,
who do you want to be when you grow up?
And I always say, a company like Disney. Mr.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
Magazine is none of the people that are interested in
the CEO exchange that we're having today, They're very much
interested in men's retailling. What do you think about the
future of men's Where I could say to you, you
and I addressed like gentlemen today.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
How about I actually believe that we're going back to
dressing really well. You know, you sort of look at
what's going on with the kids right now. You know,
I don't know if David Beckham is sort of setting
the trend. Who you know, David.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
Beckan's one of our partners.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
But you feel good when you dress well, we had
this year of rip jeans and you know, sloppy clothes.
I think we're moving way away from that, and I
think we're getting back to dressing really really chic. I
think that men's particular. I think men's is gonna go out.
And you know what, the greatest thing about the men's businesses,
I'm listening, way less returns. They don't return goods compared

(42:39):
to women. So when you look at men's business, I
like the men's business because it's actually a little bit
more stable than the women's business as far as understanding
the customer. The other thing about the men's business incredibly loyal.
The men's customer is more loyal to brands than the
woman customer. The woman she jumps around a lot. The

(43:03):
men they don't jump around a lot, and you don't
need to change. The fashion is fast with men versus women.
I actually think that the men's business is a good business.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
I think the tailored clothing business. You go COVID, well,
right after COVID, there were no dress shirts, no suits,
and now you see the main floors filled with them again. Well,
I feel very good about where we're going.

Speaker 3 (43:25):
Dress I can tell you, I'm very proud to tell
you we like the dress shirt business. Okay, Brooks Bruthers
is really you know, we're quite strong in the dress
shirt business. And funny enough, you know, Arrow that's an
old brand from pvh Arrow is booming in the Asia
Pacific right now with the dress shirt business. I actually
think we should start to bring Arrow back here into

(43:46):
America because our Arrow shirt business.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
And Jimmy the Chills, I spend twenty five years chasing that.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
I know, but that brand is actually really working incredibly well.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
So they went a number one shirt brand in the world.

Speaker 3 (43:57):
They're number one now in Thailand.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Well until then Newson took over as number one, which
I'm very proud of my old company, which you won't,
so you have to take good care.

Speaker 3 (44:06):
Of that's correct. Just so we know. I bought those
for you for your Your son came to me says,
this would be a legacy for my father for these
brands to sit with me because we're never going to
sell them. I bought Alvis Presley for my dad, May
he rest in peace for a long time. And we
bought that in hughes In and Arrow and Izod for you. Nice.

Speaker 2 (44:26):
So appreciate it. It's great to hear it. Speaking of
what you you have a favorite brand in your stable
of fifty you out of fifty some odd brands.

Speaker 3 (44:34):
Marilyn Monroe, why is that lover? She's gonna last forever.
She's never gonna get into any more trouble. She's amazing,
she's just, she just she's the gift that just keeps
on giving. If you were alive today, I would have
a crush on her, for sure. But she she's just.
She was an amazing human and I actually think that

(44:54):
with Ai and everything that's coming back, I think we're
gonna put her back into the movie business. It's not
our biggest brand by by any means. It's one of
the first brands that we bought and it still does
incredibly well. So it's close to me. You can go
to my house at Maryland everywhere and I people always say,
why is Marilyn everywhere in the house. I said, well,
Marilyn built the house, and she really did. Our biggest brand,

(45:15):
obviously is Rebok, and that that's also sort of goes
back to my heritage because when I was growing up,
I grew up with Rebock shoes, and so I have
a huge love for that brand. And I love our
I love our our our Boord sports brands, right Quicksilver, Billabong, Roxy,
Bulkum Spider. Because I grew up in the action of

(45:37):
sports business, you know, when I owned Ride Snowboards and
so I get that business really really well. So that's
that's a little personal those brands. But I love all
my kids, right Like, at the end of the day,
I look at all fifty brands and they're all my children.
And you know, we have this discussion all the time,
which is, Jamie, why are you so passionate about smaller brands.

(46:00):
I go, I have four children, I like them all
the same, and I can't give any of them back.
So at the end of the day, you need to
love all your brands equally. So just because Rebok's our
biggest brand in the Hawaii world, guess what, I love
Van Howson as much as I love Reebok. I love,
you know, Adrian Vinadini as much as I love Reebok.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
Sure you know, when.

Speaker 3 (46:23):
It gets right down to it, I got a little
more passion obviously for Reebok than I do for Adrian Vinadini.
But Adrian Vinadini is a great brand. And then you
have brands like Judith liber Judith Lieber is like one
of my favorite brands. It's tiny and it's probably gonna
be tiny for a long time. But guess what, every
girl that I come in contact with every woman that

(46:43):
I come into contact with, every partner that I come
in contact with, their wives always say, can you ask
Jamie if you can get us a Judith liber bag?

Speaker 2 (46:53):
So you know, Swift at the Super Bowl going to
football juice. That's correct? You like that? Right? That was amazing, amazing,
And again.

Speaker 3 (47:02):
That was that was shocked. That was shaft. That was
Shaq called me up one day he goes, you know what,
we should make a Judith Lever football bag and give
it to h Taylor.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
How are you going to do that?

Speaker 3 (47:14):
He's a wee me Hi. I gotta call her up
and tell her I'm gonna give her a president. I
want to see her at Super Bowl. I said, no, no,
you got to give her the present before the super Bowl.
So she comes in with it. He goes, no problem,
I done. Sure enough, he gave her the president before
the Super Bowl. I got to meet Taylor Swift at
the Super Bowl and I go, Shack, We're in there
for fifteen minutes talking pictures this that, and she goes,

(47:37):
why don't you guys stay and watch the rest of
the game. Shack goes, no, I don't want to impose.
I go shock, we should impose anyways, we laughed, but
it was what a great experience, Uh, you know, meeting
her and what she's done really for NFL and women
and the sport and what's going on with the you know,

(47:58):
fashion in in in the this fanatics is doing an
unbelievable job now with fashion because and I think it
has a lot to do with Taylor Swift.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
Now that we're talking, you mentioned personal, you have a
favorite place to travel? You're one mis your Papa Freeman
before your next meeting.

Speaker 3 (48:17):
Okay, let's keep going.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Personal. Favorite place to travel.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
Anywhere with my children and my beautiful wife and my grandkids.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Very nice answer. Now I want to talk about you.
If you disappeared, we went to Wakefie. Where would you
be alone?

Speaker 3 (48:36):
My cottage? Where's the Muskoka?

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Where's that?

Speaker 3 (48:40):
It's in Canada about two hours away. It's in Toronto
about two hours away. Uh, it's it's it's my safe place.
It's it's it's the place I love the most. It's
hard to explain. It's in the middle of the woods,
but I have of all the all the amenities that

(49:02):
I need there and I absolutely love it. And you know,
that's where my family goes every summer and it's my
favorite place in the world. Favorite perk being CEO definitely
the airplane.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Having a good time. But you're delivery. This is amazing.
I have to say, I appreciate you being here.

Speaker 3 (49:21):
It's uh, Matt, you remember what you said, you know
when we first met, which part every way? You said,
I'm not sure, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
Well, you know it's gonna let's be here. Let's be
intellectually honest. I meet you. I came here to be
a consultant for you for a while. Do you remember that.

Speaker 3 (49:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (49:36):
I do. I waited six months to get here. You
kept telling me come, but I finally showed up. You
gave me a table outside of Gired's office to sit at,
nothing to do, nothing to do. It was hysterical, but
you know, and I.

Speaker 3 (49:51):
Also as you taught your son so well, your son
was doing it all.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
Yeah, well that didn't last long, but I appreciate it coming.
I am truly well, I'm blessed to Jared's here. I'm
glad that he met you.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
I'm blessed to have them.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
Thank you. I mean, it's it's great. If he's learned
from me, he's only getting his doctorate to agree with you.
I find what you've built is extraordinary. Being happy and
making people happy along the way and being successful is extraordinary.

Speaker 3 (50:20):
So look, I love what I do. I love the
people that I work with. I love that my four
children are here at the company. That is the greatest
dream of any father to work with their children. And
I have a great life. I mean, I really truly do.

(50:41):
I mean I post all kinds of pictures of my family.
I do it because I love them. They're like, I
love those little grandkids, and I just I'm han't I'm
having a great time. I truly am. And what I
really love most is I love the people here. You know,
I got this young generation. Okay, I think my partner

(51:05):
calls them alphus. They're they're you know, the average age
at Authentic is about thirty seven years old. They're so smart,
so smart, they're so much smarter than we are. And
I gotta tell you, God's the greatest part about this.
And everyone always says to me, you know, why do

(51:26):
you think your company's doing as well as it's doing
it because of the people. And we're not scared to
you know, put these young entrepreneurs in charge right like
you look at our or chart, and they pointed out
to me, they go, mister Salter, do you know that
your EVPs are seven years younger than your s vps

(51:52):
and in some cases ten years younger than your vps.
Why is that?

Speaker 2 (51:57):
Because you're running a good company looking to the future.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
That is correct.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
And with that, thank you, Thank you very much. Although
you're hearing this great interview tonight, we did have a
little bit of a blip today. I got an email
from the chiefest staff of my interview guest telling me
that the interview was off seven point thirty in the morning.
Got to find a new show. One of my closest
friends told me to sit down write a new show,
and I planned on doing it, and then I wrote

(52:22):
an email and the email should be a case study
at Harvard Business School. I was very disappointed, maybe not happy,
that the whole plan that we've all worked on, the interviews,
the recording, everything that we're doing needed to be put
together to get this thing done, and it was canceled
at the last moment. And I was upset, But I

(52:42):
had the presence of mind to think that a lot
of good people were trying to do the right thing,
and I had to understand that my guest, Jamie Salter,
just couldn't make it, and I was willing to, of
course give him the benefit of the doubt. And I
wrote an email this morning that I think is worth
mentioning because, as I said, it's a look into how

(53:03):
we should communicate, and because I wanted my relationship with
Jamie to go on in perpetuity. I was very careful
on how I wrote my email, and it's a lesson
to all of us, particularly if you're disappointed, on how
to write to one another. So I wrote this email, Jamie,
Sorry the timing didn't work out today. The good news

(53:26):
is your team and the iHeart team worked together to
figure out how to get this done. We could pick
up another day relatively easy. Best MW. The way that
was written, it was not contradictory, it was not off putting.
It was just saying thank you, I understand there was
a problem. Five minutes later I got an email, we'll

(53:47):
figure out how to do it today. With that as
a backdrop, I hope you enjoyed tonight. CEO Exchange a
product of Always in Fashion. Good Night,