Building A Post-Woke Brand: Jennifer Sey gets back to business

The Unspeakable Podcast

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.8 • 784 Ratings

🗓️ 8 July 2024

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jennifer Sey has been an elite gymnast, a high level marketing executive at Levi’s, and an outspoken critic of protracted school closures during the Covid pandemic. That last role led her to become a prominent figure in the new free speech movement, and she fulfilled that role by writing a book and starting a Substack about her conscription into the culture wars. But her real skills are as a business person, so she decided to apply those skills and start a retail brand. XX-XY Athletics, which launched in late March, is an apparel line that sells athletic clothing for men and women but is branded around the idea of standing up for women’s sports

Given the fraught politics around this issue, XX-XY may be the first “gender critical” retail business. But does it make sense to build a brand around a culture war issue? In this wide-ranging conversation, Jennifer talks about the legacy of corporate virtue signaling, the inner turmoil of wealthy executives who want to look like progressives, her attempts to get another job after being designated as problematic, and the day to day tasks of building a business. She also explains how HR departments gained massive power in corporations and why executives are so afraid of their young staffers.

GUEST BIO

Jennifer Sey is a corporate marketing executive turned author, activist, documentary filmmaker (we didn’t even talk about that) and now the founder and CEO of XX-XY Athletics.

You can find her on her Substack here.

Check out XX-XY here.

Want to hear the whole conversation? Upgrade your subscription here.

HOUSEKEEPING

✈️ 2024 Unspeakeasy Retreats — See where we’ll be in 2024! https://bit.ly/3Qnk92n

🥂 Join The Unspeakeasy, my community for freethinking women: https://bit.ly/44dnw0v

🔥 Follow my other podcast, A Special Place in Hell: https://aspecialplace.substack.com/

Transcript

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0:00.0	At Levi's for a time in the early 2000s, I think we had a picture in one of our stores with somebody with blue hair.
0:11.7	And I remember some senior person calling me and saying, that's too weird.
0:16.7	You know, we can't do that.
0:18.6	And we changed it out.
0:19.9	But now it's like, I've got to help you.
0:22.2	You can find a picture in any retail store that it's not blue hair and it's not as weird
0:27.2	as possible.
0:28.0	You know, it's just like it completely changed at a certain point.
0:34.3	Welcome to the unspeakable podcast.
0:36.2	I'm your host, Megan Dome. My guest, Jennifer Say, was here
0:40.6	just over two years ago, talking about her pivot from corporate executive to free speech
0:46.5	renegade. Jen spent more than 20 years at Levi Strausson Company, where she was chief
0:52.3	marketing officer and then global brand president.
0:56.0	She parted ways with the company, well, that's a nice way of putting it, over her outspoken
1:00.6	criticism of protracted school closures during the pandemic. That led her to enter the free speech
1:07.7	arena, a world full of podcasters and substackers and various pontificators
1:13.2	speaking out about the difficulty of speaking out. Though she carved out a niche there and also
1:19.4	began to talk about issues around gender identity in women's sports, she's a former elite gymnast,
1:25.2	her real skills were always as a business person. So she decided to
1:29.8	fight for her values by starting a company. XXXY Athletics, which launched in late March, is an apparel
1:37.3	line that sells athletic clothing for men and women, but is branded around the idea of standing
1:42.8	up for women's sports. XXXY refers to female and male
	...

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