2017’s Top-Performing CEO on Getting Product Right

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2017

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Pablo Isla, the CEO of Inditex, is No. 1 on Harvard Business Review’s list of “The Best-Performing CEOs in the World 2017.” He opens up about his management style and reflects on his tenure leading the Spanish clothing and accessories giant, whose brands include Zara, Massimo Dutti, and Pull&Bear. Successful fast fashion takes much more than speed, he says. Isla discusses aspects of the company’s business model: source close to headquarters, entrust store managers with product orders, and treat what’s sold in stores and online as one stock. He also forecasts the future of physical stores.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Kurt Nick is here from Ideacast. I want to tell you about the Big Take
0:05.1	podcast from Bloomberg News. Each weekday they bring you one important story
0:10.0	from their global newsroom like how AI will upend your life and why China's
0:15.4	targeting the US dollar. Check out the big take from Bloomberg wherever you
0:20.2	listen. Welcome to the HBR Ideacast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Sarah Green-Kermichael.
0:38.1	Back in 2012, Michelle Obama sauntered into a presidential award ceremony wearing a pair of $50 high heels from Zara.
0:46.3	Good enough for the First Lady of the United States and still cheap enough for the rest of us who
0:50.5	can't afford exclusive fashion labels.
0:53.0	Since Zara opened in 1975, the clothing and accessories chain has grown rapidly and globally.
1:00.0	Its parent company, Inditex, has more than 7,000 stores on five continents.
1:05.0	It's also led by the world's best performing CEO.
1:08.0	This year, Pablo Islet takes the number one spot in Harvard Business Reviews list of the
1:12.4	world's top 100 CEOs.
1:14.0	Isla has been running into tech since 2005 and as he continues to expand the company
1:20.0	he's thinking about how to do it in an environmentally sustainable way and how to make online
1:25.0	and in store shopping feel one and the same.
1:27.8	He joined us from company headquarters in Northwestern Spain and he spoke with HBR senior
1:32.0	editor Dan McGinn.
1:34.1	One of the things we notice when we look at the CEOs who make our top 100 ranking is that a
1:39.1	surprising number of them stay in the job for a very long time. We have a handful who've been in more than 20 years.
1:45.9	You've been the CEO for 12 years now. What parts the job get easier over time and are there
1:51.5	parts that actually get more difficult?
	...

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