Hello and welcome back to the Retail Podcast.
Today I'm joined by Natalie of Hallworth, who is currently
supporting a Retrieve, which is I are there.
How, how long Natalie, how, how long has Retrieve actually been?
Are there a start up? Are they established?
Because I know that you said they're based in Rotterdam.
Yes, it's a it's a really fresh start up brand.
So like in basically it exists for a year, OK, let's say it
like that. But the the idea and the and the
so the brand idea was that already around for a couple of
years, but. Yeah.
They have the physics for you. And do they have a physical
store or are they just purely online?
No, no, it's purely B to C so far.
So far. Yeah, no worries.
So listen, it it, it, it feels like.
And obviously I met you last year at Shop Talk when you were
in your other role. So why don't we rewind and maybe
you take us through your career where you started to what you're
doing now? Yeah, no thanks, Alex.
And it's also really great to be here and, and talking to you.
I, I love, I love podcasts and it's always a pleasure to talk
about my past and of course the present and especially the
future, which I think you, you can imagine that I'm the most
excited about. But yeah, zooming back a bit to
to the past, first of all, I, I think it, it was one of the best
shop talks last year. Where, where I've been, It was,
it was such a fun event. So, so it was great.
Great to meet you there. Yeah.
So in that time I was still with the IGO.
So my career basically started in the, in the consumer goods
industry around 14 years ago, where I started with Unilever in
the local market in Hungary, which originally I'm from.
And then then basically over the years I, I've been in brand
marketing, customer marketing, e-commerce.
And I moved to the Netherlands to, to regional 1st and then
global roles, of course, different categories within
Unilever. So this is the reason why I'm
busy Rotterdam for now almost 10 years.
And it was yeah, like 3 years ago when I joined the, the
actual after Unilever as a head of customer marketing and Omni
child development of the luxury portfolio the actual on that
time. So that was the reason I've been
also at short talk with with my team and and we had a really,
really great time. Also because Barcelona is not
for super bars like the best parts in the world.
For example, Paradiso is also based in Barcelona.
Yeah. The Azure I'm sure you had to
take your product. Oh, wow, yeah, yeah.
I mean, it was really fun. Of course, I, I, I don't work
anymore for the Azure, but it was a really, really fun
experience, especially with luxury brands when you, you
know, you have to go for trade visits.
Like before I was working for categories like home care and
beauty and ice. OK, ice cream was fun, right?
But yeah, imagine still luxury drinks, alcohol beverages,
right? That you have to visit, you have
to visit bars, right? You have to go to Mykonos,
Barcelona to visit bars. I mean, it's it's really fun, of
course. But yeah, you know, I have also
family and I have a daughter, so who, who turned 8 yesterday
actually. So.
Oh well, thank you so much. So, yeah, for, for that reason,
it was also really hectic for me, of course, having a lot of
travels, having a very demanding role, which, which one of the
reasons that I that I decided, yeah, it was, it was, it was
already in the making for a while.
But I decided to put a bit of a pause on my corporate career,
let's say it like that and focus, focus a little bit more
on, on my family, some some personal and the words which I
had already on my pocket list. So, so yeah, that's, that's how,
that's how basically that's how I said.
Then just one more thing on that, that when I won last year,
this time around this time the 40 and the 40 hours from retail
touch points and that, that, that was yeah, sort of, you
know, that's where I saw that. You know what I I need to
probably pose right now. I mean, it's a great ride to,
to, to, to the industry. Yet now, now I want to give back
a little bit also too. And your personal project is
writing your book, right? Yes, correct.
So that's that's one of the biggest projects I'm focusing on
right now. And what's the book focused on?
So yeah, it's funny, Alex, because it was not, well, I
wouldn't say that it was not that long ago.
I think it was probably 3 years already in the making in my
head, sort of a framework, which I was, I think subconsciously
using in different, in different roles across different brands.
But it was sort of coming back to the same core.
And every time I started in a new brand in a new role, I was
thinking about that. Yeah, but this is sort of the
core. And then when I hit the pause
button in February, so that, you know, this is something that
that I could actually phrase as, as a framework and that this is
how the bridge framework was born.
And, and then I started to think about it, OK, how can I actually
make a, make a phone book, which is not just about, you know,
case studies and, you know, all the experience and, you know,
corporate things like that, but more like through my life as a
woman, as, as, as an Eastern European, how, how I, how I got
to, to where I am and relatively fast, let's say like that.
So, and how using this framework sort of in the, in the
subconscious was guiding me as sort of a guiding star.
And yeah, for this reason, the book's name is fast.
So, but he's focusing on this, this framework which which I've
been using for many, many years. So I, I mentioned earlier,
Natalia, that in the previous seasons, I've done this whole
sort of focus on empowering female leaders, looking at how,
you know, there, there is that sorts of allyship between female
leaders. And I know that that's a very
strong sort of part of what you're about.
And the whole, as you were talking about taking your career
gap, writing the book, passing on that wisdom.
I'm just curious, are there any other ways that you you are sort
of empowering the, the community or looking at how you empower
female, younger, younger Natalians or or people who are
your peers in the industry? Yeah.
So one of the big things which are coming up, actually, I'm
sort of fingers crossed. I don't want to talk too much
about it in that sense because of course it's a really, really
exciting one. I'm afraid to yeah, you know,
sort of Jinxy that you know, where, where does it go?
Because it's, it's a big, big thing for me personally because
this is 100% voluntary, right? You know, I don't get paid for
it. There is no, no, no, no, let's
say no money involved. It's purely to give back to, to
to women in, in our community in Rotterdam.
And that's basically that I'm organising local Ted X event.
So I will be 5 Ted talk speakers in, in this conference from
different industries only for women, I mean, only of women
speakers and really about empowering women.
The theme of the, the TEDx event, which is actually on the
5th of November in, in Rotterdam this year, which is the only
TEDx event in Rotterdam happening actually this year.
So it's a really exciting one. And the, the theme is a
resilience and renewal. So this is where I feel as well
that maybe with, with some, you know, just with, with a small
thing that the just listening to, to, to some really inspiring
speeches. I, I hope that we can have to
empower women in our local community here in here in
Rotterdam to to think about that how how they can be more
resilient. In a word where, you know, from
all over the places, you just hear the same thing, which is
like, OK, no, nothing is certain.
You know, just yeah, this is coming.
Be afraid, fear, fear, fear, right.
You know, in this kind of environment, especially for a
woman, I think she's also biologically proven that that
women are more prone to sort of being risk, risk averse and then
afraid of just the afraid of change in that sense.
How we can make sure that regardless of, of what's coming
from, from Instagram, from TikTok, from from from all the,
the, the algorithm powered social media networks, you, you,
you just have to think that no, we, we are actually really
resilient. Women are really resilient and,
and we can renew and these two comes hand in hand.
And this is where the speeches will be centred around.
So FedEx cool. Have a woman 5th of November.
That's sort of what I what, yeah.
But I would love to give back to our community.
What would be that? You know one piece of advice
that if you could go back to a younger self, what would you,
what would you tell your younger self?
Yeah, I, I love this question. I think it's, it's actually
brilliant. I, I, I use it many times when
I'm doing mentoring with, with women to also think with that
hat. That's for example, what, what
would I do if or what would I say to the younger self and what
comes to my mind. And this is, this is also, I'm
showing a book that probably just slow down because the world
is going to spin faster and faster, right?
And it's also physics slows, right?
Once the acceleration starts. It's just that we see it now
with AI, we see it with a lot of different technologies.
And we saw it in the past as well that once the acceleration
starts, it will just go on. However, what we can do, because
we cannot change the world, right?
We can only control what we can control.
And that's that's usually ourselves.
And this is where in contrast of the title of fast and actually
saying that, just try to slow down.
Try to anchor yourself into what you think that you are good at
and what you are also passionate about and try to try to really
focus on that thing. Don't spread yourself too thin.
Just try to train for yourself. The world will be keep spinning
around you very, very fast and changes will be just coming more
and more into your way, especially as you as you grow in
your career, as you grow in your personal life.
But one thing that that you have to sort of like, yeah, think
about that, that how to, how to slow down.
And I like to just to say one quote as well on this, which I
really like from Einstein, that the only reason for time is so
that everything doesn't happen at once.
And I think this is good. This is actually one of the code
that I was also using for a book.
Fantastic. So yeah, obviously, well we'll
come on to what you're the current project as in like what
what you're you're doing as Acmo right now.
But I'm just curious in terms of because the the the listenership
of the podcast sort of equally distributes between 25 to 3535
to 45 and 45 to 55. So obviously being at the
youngest end of that, what would be some sort of obviously your
younger self would be to take it slow, but specifically in in the
corporate world, what was what's the what's the secret to your
success? What has helped you?
I think my well, if, if, if there is a secret.
First of all, I think just the side, I think I was also very
lucky, you know, sometimes that because I basically I'm a person
who exposes herself to a lucky situation, let's say like that.
I mean, I'm, you know, I'm open to be here, I'm open to to write
a book, I'm open to do keynotes, etcetera.
I'm open to organise events and yeah, also do this.
So basically exposing yourself to a lot of different
situations, I think also finds luck.
And that's one of the reason that, let's just put it as a
side note that I think luck is, is, is a big thing there, right?
So coming from Eastern Europe, making a global career, I think
that's, that's you have to be also fortunate to do to do that.
But I think what actually helped me also professionally, because
that's something that I also realised actually around the
time and my daughter was born 8 years ago, is that things are
really connected, right? And I started to connect
basically the those within different functions that I've
been doing before and on that time, because I used to do brand
marketing, customer marketing, digital.
My husband is an IT engineer. So, you know, so in tech, I was
sort of, you know, just just by the fact of living for, for 14
years computer scientist, you know, you just start to, to get
get into that anyway. So basically I, I, I think I, I
started to see that, you know, how to connect these dots.
And that's where I started to, to realise, for example, how,
how early on, let's say the, the power of Omni channel and the
power of, you know, how to, to connect different channels while
still in many, in many leadership roles.
People were talking about, OK, no, we are focusing now only on
our B2B business. We are focusing only on our B2C
business. And that's, that's, you know,
just, that's just wrong. At certain level, you have to
see that, you know, how you can really connect those dots.
And I think that's where basically my yeah, I would say
that my career also accelerated when I started to, to, to say it
out loud that, hey, what about this and challenge a little bit
the status code, you know, how we can do that.
And yeah, I think that was that's really helpful.
I got you. So moving on in into your
current role as the CMO for Retrieve, tell us a little bit
more about Retrieve. What are they about?
What do they do? Yeah, so it's really funny
actually when you, when you think about like, OK, what's the
next career move and how am I going to to make my, you know,
my next career move? So normally, you know, you think
about like, yeah, who am I going to talk to from my network.
For me, it was actually starting at the gym.
So it was very funny because I, I, I was doing CrossFit now for,
for over a year and in my local gym they were organising a
fundraiser, which was basically, so I live near the canal.
It's a ski canal and the, across the canal is my gym.
So basically between my house and the gym, there is a, there
is a canal and it's full of plastic.
It's unfortunately, like in many, many canals in the
Netherlands, you see that Yeah, it's just, it's just getting
really polluted. And basically the fundraiser was
sponsored by Retrieve and the 11 of the one of the reason is
because Retrieve is a sports apparel brand made of 100%
recycled bottles. So every T-shirt and garmy what
they're making, it's made of 100% recycled bottles.
And basically while the fundraiser, because they are
collaborating with local companies, like for example, it
was a company called Clear River collaborating with with retrieve
and and my local gym to actually fish out the plastic from the
canal. Right.
Recycle it and then make T-shirts from it and then the.
Raw material. So the raw materials actually
comes from your, well in this case Rotterdam, but they are
European raw materials. OK, interesting.
Yeah, yeah. So it's so I found the concept
really, really interesting. And of course, you know, these
are this is really difficult to make right, you know, especially
at scale. So of course the the brand is
around now for around a year, but but it's really difficult to
to scale, especially when when you are sort of facing all the
geopolitical and the work economical challenges.
Everything sort of goes against circularity.
And this is where, where I'm like, seriously, no, we should
do something about it. And, you know, if I put
somewhere my knowledge into, into, really into really
purposeful and meaningful work, I thought that, you know, this
is something that I, I must do. It was sort of an inner, inner
feeling that that I said that, hey, this, this is just great.
I mean, I, I feel connected to the community.
I feel connected to sports. I feel connected to, to, to
brands and especially retail brands.
So that's basically how how we started to have a a good chat
with the founder and then, yeah, introducing the team and we
started to like, you know, just see that how can we work
together? And then in the end it came this
opportunity that, hey, what if you would join us as the CEO?
And I said, you know what, that sounds great and here we are.
We're exciting and it's interesting because I remember
part of the problem with some European companies that I've
spoken to about recycling or using plastic is they've had to
go offshore to recycling plants in other places.
But then it's really difficult to make sure that you're
actually getting true recycled material as opposed to someone
labelling it as part recycled. But in in this case it's it's
100% recycled material. Exactly 100% and this is this is
where also the challenge is exactly what you're saying the
where the challenge is coming from.
And that that's where the the team was very focused so far to
get that supply chain to to really have every single T-shirt
coming from those sources where you know, there is a sustainable
sources, which is like certified 100% recycled.
You can actually trade back from where is where is the material
coming from? And also the the other reason as
well that you see that many of the recycle because of course
there's a lot of green washing, right.
And unfortunately that's that's really a set the news for the
industry and the unfortunately, you know, when you have a big,
big supply chain, like when you work for a big company which
publishable about it's you know, it's not their fault as well
that they cannot make it just like these the switches, you
know, now we are making from from everything fully recycled
garments. It's just impossible, right?
You know, you would have to invest even just not just, but
you know, everything it would, you would have to turn around
the whole business. Whereas when you're a small
company, a small brand, you can really start from first making
sure that that supply chain is 100% transparent.
And that's what that's what the demand brand was doing.
And now when you have that, you see the demand, but you have to
be sort of you have to bridge fast, but you also have to be
slow on scaling not to get into that point that OK, now you
know, we don't have enough fabric because that also can
happen, right. Sometimes we are running out of
T-shirts because there is simply just, the process is a bit
slower than when you just harvest, yeah, you know, other
material. That's interesting.
And in terms of your the, the where the brand is positioned
tell what's those, what's your ideal sort of shopper?
What's the the profile of the ideal person that we buy and
retrieve? Yeah.
So I think the biggest, the biggest advantage of the TV is
that it's focusing on ambassadors, right.
So the slogan is lead the recovery.
And that's that's where, that's where it comes the ambassador
focus. And who are the ambassadors?
It's really people, athletes who who who can be anyone basically
who gets to a point that maybe they are injured, maybe they
have, there are other sports injuries.
So one of the reasons for example, they are collaborating
with James like CrossFit, James personal trainers,
physiotherapist, etc. And also, for example, there is
there is a really, really beautiful collaboration with the
Ryder Revel dance. Here is a local, actually a
relatively local rehabilitation organisation.
They are focusing on children rehabilitation, for example,
from different either injuries or one.
Causes that they just cannot be the same athlete but but they
are really really eager on doing sports and I think this is where
the beauty comes on that all retrieve ambassadors are
focusing on actually their community where they lead the
recovery. And this is I think what gives a
differentiation for the brand compared to just OK everyone
everyone is an athlete and everyone can can buy the
T-shirts. No, it's it's really about those
who actually make something for their the community because it
equally focus or it equally focuses on the recovery of
people and the recovery of the planet.
Got you. Understood.
And so do you feel that that's like the channels that you'll
look at in terms of whether it's social commerce and you're going
through, I don't know, Instagram and TikTok as the CMO and as a
new CMO in role, What would you, what would be the sort of your
preference in in channel, just out of curiosity?
Yeah, So one of the and that's a great question Alex actually
because that's that's usually the question I get at OK, so now
what, what channel? So is it really going to stay B
to B? Is it going to stay B to C?
Is it No, it's going to be only channel and that's even further
channel less, right. So what I want to put in
practise, which I'm talking about now for a couple of years
already doing keynotes about the same sort of topic around the
power from the channel and the and the future of channel less
marketing. I actually now putting it into
practise. So the whole team is, and, and
the whole brand is structured around interconnectedness, which
means that of course the core, the core is going to be D2C,
right? You know, we, we, we still want
to, to have direct relationships, mostly because we
want to build loyal connections with these ambassadors, right?
Who then also connect with their own communities and become make
make also their communities loyal to the brand.
However, there are obviously it cannot be focused solely on one
channel. And this is where the power of
Omni channel comes in that through the consumer journey, we
are basically connecting the different touchpoints, which are
important for example, for retrieving this case to be
really meaningfully connecting, for example, with some bigger
businesses, which is clearly B to B channel work, right.
Clearly there is the the direct to consumer with, with our own
website and and the ambassadors, but there is also, of course, a
business to consumer part when when we are talking to, for
example, gyms and personal trainers, and then they are
reaching out to their their own communities.
So this is where, where the whole interconnectedness comes.
And then social media, you know, it's, it's a bit of like how I
how I say that, yeah, you know, you can't build your whole
strategy around social media and TikTok, even though nowadays
it's very popular. No, because that's sort of the
earrings on top of your on top of your body, right?
That's something that you will you have to plan and you have to
have a clear content calendar and we are working on that.
Our team is working on that. But there is, there is really
the first thing what what we need to do is, is a core only
channel consumer journey. And then when we figure that
out, then we connect those touch points in a meaningful way.
Yeah. Well, one of the things that one
of the things that I picked up this year going to the
conferences is the fact that digital touch points, there are
so many now in terms of previously, you know, maybe
there was 5 or 6 touch points before the consumer landed on
your website. Now it's growing to 12 or 15 and
conversion takes longer online than it's ever done before.
Unless you know, you're, you're lucky and you hit a sweet
product that is doing well on TikTok or something.
I don't know. But I'm just curious when you
look at the future and you look at the future of e-commerce,
what what are the trends that you think that will be shaping
the, you know, looking into the distance?
Yeah, I think one of the one of the big trends of course and we
we hear it a lot. I'm sure I'm sure you Alex, and
also the listeners heard a lot about it that had a retail media
is back that the cookie less word is gone.
And then now and now, you know, everything is that.
And now brands who've been solely focusing on on direct to
consumer channels or like, you know, direct sales, they are now
starting to be a bit afraid. Like, OK, now what's going to
happen with me that that I'm going to to to lose basically
that the base of a consumer, a customer, sorry, who who could
choose through through retailers, for example.
That's because I'm not going to be able to to reach them, for
example. And then this is where I think a
big, yeah, let's say a big mistake, what brands usually do
is that then they start to just switch, like, OK, now I'm going
to post that. And then I'm going to start to
focus on my retailer relationships.
And then we are going to build together through their retail
media networks, our campaigns. And then my whole budget goes
there. And then you start to forget
that. Yeah.
But you know, it's it's, it's not going to work because simply
focusing on one channel, that's really the past.
And this is where I believe that, you know, especially for
e-commerce, the future comes around that how you can manage
to connect touch points instead of just, you know, building the
robust, let's say retailer focused growth strategy.
Now your growth strategy should be actually Omni channel growth
strategies which are also connecting your direct to
consumer business to to your retailer strategic retailer
partnerships and you'd rather choose less than many, but do
those few really, really well. That works.
Yeah, I'm I'm I'm looking at the time and I'm thinking there's so
much that you've just said there to to sort of unpack and go go
through, but unfortunately we we've hit the I need to let get
back to what your the your day job.
So thank you so much for giving up the time and and spending
that with us. Super insightful in terms of
the, the, the, the, the elements that we spoke to.
So I just wanted to say thank you.
I really appreciate it.