Transcript by Descript:

 Welcome to a special series called Lead Like Her Talks From the top where we’re gonna delve into the inspiring journeys of women who are shaping the future of retail. I’m Shelly Cohan, a retail warrior who literally eats drinks and sleeps retail. My mission for this series is really to help women succeed in retail by sharing stories of female leaders who’ve been successful in the industry.

I hope these stories will inspire students embarking on a new career in retail, or even women who wanna change their destiny. Let’s get started by empowering women everywhere and dive into today’s episode.  Maria, welcome to the podcast, Shelly. I’m so excited to have you here. I  think I thank you. Excited to.

I think I’ve literally known you since I was 18. How crazy is that? I think we’ve known each other a very long time, but I had a long career in retail and uh, I’m getting old, so.  Well, I met you when I was fresh outta high school. We worked together in the industry, which is where we met. And I have to say before I get into your, uh, questions that you, I have admired you from the day I met you.

Literally, we met at Bloomingdale’s. I was a very young sales associate, first day in retail on the selling floor in the junior shop. And, uh, you were already on your way of becoming one of the most influential executives at the company at that time. You didn’t know it then, but wow. You were a real trailblazer in my opinion.

And I have to say,  you have a very interesting story because you became the operating vice president of operations. At Bloomingdale’s, and back in the day, most people in operations were male. So you were an excellent role model and others should hear how you advanced your career in a primarily male dominated field.

So my first question, thank, thank you. I’m very excited to be here.  Oh, so my first question is, how did you end up in operations? So first of all, let me thank you for allowing me to participate. I think this is really exciting.  I now have a niece at FIT, so I’m particularly invested in, in you, your programs, your school, your students,  and uh, in my current life, I really believe  the youth today are the leaders of tomorrow.

So I’m, I’m very into this. This is a great place to spend our time and, and our, our efforts. So how did I get into retail and operations? Operations in particular? I kind of naturally fell into it. I was working. At Bloomingdale’s 59th Street in the HR division, part-time during college,  I went to NYU here in the city.

And when I, uh, finished school, um,  my, my superiors, I guess my supervisors recognizes, uh, my talents, my interests, and, uh, offered me the executive training program from our operations. I don’t believe I even had to interview for it, so it kind of just. It just happened. I like to say to people, I kind of fell into it.

I loved it and it loved me. So it, it worked, but it was not strategic. It just happens.  I was very fortunate. Wow, that,  that’s great. So being in operations here we are this young female executive, and in most meetings that you attended in the operations area, you’re surrounded by men. So women are underrepresented in the field of operations.

And even throughout most of my career, we’ve always been kind of underrepresented in operations. How did you get a seat at the table and how did you get your voice heard? So to be honest with you, Shelly, and I’m sure you don’t expect this answer, but I don’t think I ever fully realized or acknowledged, and I’m not quite sure which is the right one, that sexism was even rampant in the world or in retail, and I was a little oblivious to it.

But that’s a positive thing.  I fully expected a seat at the table and I was comfortable taking that seat and I was comfortable taking, using my voice. I had the pleasure of growing up in a very  woke  family, uh, on the upper west side of Manhattan.  My parents were supportive. My father was, you know, I was my father’s daughter.

Um,  and uh, I had two brothers who helped make me tough  and I was used to interacting with. Men and boys, and I never quite frankly expected  or allowed myself to be treated differently. I was always good at communicating with men,  so it worked for me. However, in retrospect, now that I’m 62 and have a different perspective, when I look back, there were clearly situations that were inappropriate and where I was stereotype.

Not treated the way I would expect to be treated or for a young person to be treated today. So I think I just had a little bit of, uh, blinders on, but forged ahead.  Then a little bit later in the questioning, I will share one story with you where, you know, the blinders had to come off, but I think the important messages I expected to see and I took the seat.

Great. I love that answer. And  you advanced very quickly in operations so. What advice would you give to others about moving up the corporate ladder? So, at the very beginning, quite frankly, when I first joined the executive training program, uh, right out of college, I didn’t actually move quickly at first,  but that’s a blessing.

In retrospect, I fully mastered each of the positions I had and the fact that I learned those jobs in a detailed way  so that I really had the strongest foundation.  That really helped me as I got more senior because as issues came up, I was able to speak to them with real experience and read real detail, and that gave me a level of credibility and authority that most didn’t have at the time.

A lot of people were kind of cycled in and out of operations as a training ground, and I  was a really good support for them, and I was leaned on heavily and took  full advantage of that. So. I think it was really kind of a slow start that gave me a foundation that I just was then able to gain momentum and build them.

Well, I remember anytime I had a meeting with you, boy, I did. I did all my research and I had to get prepared. So Maria, you advanced very quickly in operations, you know, what advice would you give others on moving up the corporate ladder?

So you must have faced some significant challenges on your path to leadership. So how did you overcome some of those challenges? So I have, I thought about this question a great deal, and I have.  Two answers. One is a, a personal situation, um, that I referred to earlier. So I had a really inappropriate experience where a male boss of mine  actually showed up at my apartment  while I was at home,  back when we used to do expense plans with a green analysis pad and a short pencil for 20.

I stayed at home for like two or three days every season to do expense plans and he showed up at my apartment, um, a little drunk and I mean, just.  The fact that he did that blew me away.  But I was in a really fortunate position that I wasn’t hesitant to address it at all. My dad, who I mentioned earlier, is an attorney.

I immediately reached out to him. Also because I had worked in human resources during college. I knew all the senior executives. So I showed up in, uh, what was called executive placement the following morning with my dad in tow, and the situation was taken care of. Incredibly efficiently, um, and to my, to my benefit.

The reason I share this story is because I would encourage anybody as hard as it is and as difficult it is, and  I grant that most people wouldn’t have such a clear path forward as I did. People need to speak up. There’s no reason for a woman to tolerate anything inappropriate. And I would say if it even makes you feel uncomfortable, speak up.

Management today is so well-trained and so  kind of ears open and eyes open to this kind of thing that I would encourage young women in particular to speak up and really address whatever’s making them feel inappropriate. Feel uncomfortable.  In my day, there was no such thing as sexual harassment training.

That’s right. So you didn’t even know what you were looking for.  It’s 20. So speak up the second  D topic shift. My other challenge was, quite frankly, my own, um,  ability or not to overcome my innate bossiness.  And the reason I mentioned this today is because that is such a stereotypical female quality  that I fell into that trap a lot, you know, the bossy, bossy bitch at work.

So that was my own personal challenge  and I, you know, sometimes was successful and sometimes wasn’t. Sometimes it worked for me. Sometime wasn’t, but it is  a female cliche that I had to continually warn myself against. So that would be my challenge. Those are both great points.  You probably, uh oh.

Vanessa’s back,  uh.

So.

Okay, great. So Maria, you probably aren’t gonna remember this, but we were in a meeting one time and we were discussing a project, and you made a statement that actually has stuck with me for life.  I use this phrase with my students. I use it at work. Here’s what you said. Diverse inputs provide a richer outcome.

Do you remember saying that? I don’t.  I must have sounded pretty smart. That’s a pretty great quote.  I wish I had reminded myself of that quote or that feeling  often,  but I do think it actually fits with the answer to the earlier question I gave you about how I was able to advance. So I was on the selling floor for years and years in management.

So I interacted with a huge number of customers and staff. And because I was literally, you know, on the floor or on the receiving dock or in the rap department or wherever I was at the moment, I was. Seeing what the staff needed to, you know, make it a, a rewarding and enriching, uh, and efficient place to work.

And I saw what customers wanted, so  I was able to keep the listening open  because I was there. Right. So the flip side of that is though, when you’re in a boardroom or an office conference room, it’s much harder to keep the listening open. ’cause you’re, quite frankly, we are all natural.  Human nature, we want to say things and not necessarily listen to things.

So it was much harder to do once I kind of  ascended to the office environment. But while on the floor, because you’re not always involved in conversations, you do a lot of observing management, by wandering around,  you’re able to get a lot of input without necessarily having to ask for it or request it.

You just kind of take it.  So I could see why I would say that. Absolutely. I think you just developed a new management theory called Management by Observation. I think we should like, uh, do some research on that.  Well, so I think the first management book I ever read, Shelly was Search for Excellence, which  I read that like a bible, A Bible at the time.

And that was all about management by wandering around, which I used to quote from all the time.  That’s great. So lemme ask you a question. What changes would you like to see in the retail landscape or any business landscape in terms of female leadership in the future or in the years to come? So, that’s a great question.

For me, in my six years since retirement,  I have been involved in politics and a bit of a. A self-assigned political activist. So this question is right up my alley. So retail is a female business. The vast majority of our customers are female, and the vast majority of our employees are female.  And yet most of the senior positions are still held by men.

And retail in particular because of its scheduling challenges and hours of operation, poses particular challenges to women,  moms with younger kids. Moms that are taking care of elderly moms and elder caretakers, both.  Scheduling flexibility becomes important. Medical benefits are critically important. The whole issue of part-time versus short time becomes critically important,  and I think that more moms in decision making or more women in decision making positions on executive committee will help move those issues forward.

In my experience, there are women certainly represented in what we now call the C-Suite. Another expression that didn’t exist  when I was younger,  but those women, and I’m not  disrespecting these fields at all, it was mostly in the arena of human resources or public relations,  women’s roles, again, when I was younger, and it mattered to me were pretty limited, which is one of the reasons that I loved being in operations.

I think, you know, there’s a lot of women’s issues and who, um, who better than retail,  which is a women’s business  to move these issues forward.  So, yeah, I agree. That’s a really good point.  Thank you. Can you share an example of a difficult decision that you had to make and kind of your thought process behind that decision?

So,  I.  And this is kind of a longer, more than just one single decision, but my last few years of retail  were not our glory days, and I was saddled with seasonally having to make expense management decisions  that would no doubt, uh, result in layoffs.  And those are difficult decisions for anyone to make.

And although I wasn’t the sole decision maker. I realized that the information I provided would be the foundation for the decision making process. So initially I thought that I could approach it entirely as a mathematics exercise.  Um, you know, it’s just math. How many people do we need for this? How do we, people need for that?

But then I realized that wasn’t possible once I started thinking through what was the outcome or the impact to the business of those, of those layoffs of the workforce reduction. So I, in addition to running the numbers, which is the expression we used to use, also took it upon myself to lay out what the potential impact to the businesses would be.

And no one had approached it in that way before. So I think that I was able, through that exercise, um, you know, that I had a whole team work on.  We were able to more informed decisions,  not just numbers, not just math

Decisions based on facts and figures and a more cerebral discussion, rather than just the emotion of, I don’t wanna do that ’cause that’s gonna impact Susie.  Right. So I think that was kind of a whole decision making process that I was able to influence.  That’s great. So what’s the most valuable lesson you learned as a leader that you’d like to share with aspiring female leaders?

So, um, it’s interesting. As I said, I’ve been working.  In a completely different field the last three years. And at this point I work almost entirely with volunteers and I’m involved with several organizations  and I manage, um, the head of organizations  that are  driven. The engine is volunteers. And what I’ve learned is that you can’t manage volunteers the same way you manage employees.

Some of the lessons I’ve learned from managing volunteers, I wish I could go back and apply to employees. The first is that all people are not equal in their talents and their interests and their likes. And quite frankly, you know, from where I sat at Bloomingdale’s and the number of people that I was involved with, you know, developing performance indicators and so on, we treated everyone alike, and I wish that.

Now that I know with managing volunteers, you need to help people find their sweet spot and then optimize that. I wish that there had been a way to find space for people to excel in that way  when I had been working. So it’s a really different approach. Interesting. I love that. Have you had any mentors or role models who’ve influenced your leadership journey?

Um, oh, for sure.  I was, again, I feel like I had this blessed life.  I had a lot of you call ’em mentors or role models. In my family, we called them my rabbis, and you can’t exceed without having others  help you.  You need to invest your time in others and others, you know, you need to allow people to invest their time in you.

I was never hesitant to look out to request help,  and I was never hesitant to,  quite frankly take advantage of the people I knew  and network.  You know, when I hear people even today say, I don’t wanna bother them, I’m like, bother them. People wanna be bothered. People wanna be called upon. People wanna be asked.

The second point I wanna make in this question, Shelly, is when I look back, I can’t believe how much responsibility I was given at such a young age. And I realize now that my mentors must have been watching me much more closely than I realized at the time, because the amount of. Authority and responsibility and empowerment that I had.

It’s just staggering to me. You know, when I was 26 years old, I had responsibility for the 59th Street flagship store. You know, I felt like I was doing it all and blah, blah, blah. And now in retrospect, I’m like, yeah, but my boss must have really  had this finger on the pulse and, and knew exactly what was going on.

So yes, you need mentors, but you need to be open to it and you need to invite people and ask them.  So absolutely good advice.  So our mission in doing this podcast is to provide inspiration to future leaders, but also to help any existing leaders in our industry to succeed. So first, I wanna thank you for speaking to my classes so many times.

At Fashion Institute of Technology, students love hearing.  From you, and I’m thrilled that more leaders now are going to be inspired by your journey. So I have one more question before I get into what I call my rapid fire questions. So  you mentioned you retired a few years ago. So first congratulations on that.

You were with Bloomingdale’s for over 30 years. Hope I’m allowed to say that. And it was actually  39 and half. Almost 40. Oh my God. It was wow.  Um, so tell me, what did you learn over your nearly four decades that’s really shaped and informed your work that you’re doing now, and what can you tell our future leaders about the value of experience on one’s future

So, I actually recently just said to one of my best friends who quite frankly I met when we were young executives at Bloomingdale’s.  Just a little bit of a tangential comment.  My three best friends in this world are all women that I met at Bloomingdale’s.  When we were young executives, and  I probably  cherish that more than anything else, but I recently commented to one of them that I know so much about so much.

From my almost four decades in operations. Like, I mean, we’ll have a random conversation and I’m like talking about light bulbs or I’m talking about garbage cans, or I’m talking about, I was recently talking to one of the police chiefs in my village about how to schedule his police officers more efficiently.

So those are kind of the factual things, but also.  How to manage relationships, address conflict. I mean, you learn so much and the more you learn, the more you do, the better you’ll be in life and in your job. So  I just encourage people to, to learn as much as they can about as much as they can.  That would be my advice.

And it kind of hearkens back to I was able to excel because I learned so much about those foundational positions that I had. Right. Yeah, it does go back to that for sure. It does go back to that for sure. I think that, uh, what’s interesting about what you said is, so my besties, I also met in retail. Like, isn’t that crazy?

That’s so crazy.  Okay.  Rapid fire questions. These are questions I’m gonna ask and you’re just gonna answer real quickly. Bang, bang, bang. Are you ready?  Yes, I’m ready.  What one piece of advice would you give to female leaders that are currently working now? When you know you’re right, don’t back down.  Stick to it.

Help people find the truth. The truth will eventually come out. But don’t. Don’t get pushed. Don’t get pushed back. Keep at it.  Love it. What three tips would you give students or emerging leaders? So when I met with your class, which again was such a fun experience one time. I said to them, you need to be interested and you need to be interesting.

And I now say that to all the people I know, particularly as people on the older side look into the possibility of retirement. I’m like, are you gonna be interested and are you gonna be interested? Because if you’re not, just keep slogging away at work. But that is the advice I give to everyone.  Love it.

You know, have a full life. What’s your legacy and what do you want to leave behind for the next generation? So. I thought about this. I know it’s a rapid fire question, but I thought about it. I don’t wanna sound corny, but as I mentioned the last six years I’ve been devoted to political activism and retail is a female business, so I’m gonna be a little women’s rightsy here.

Women’s rights are under attack all across our country. My parents’ generation never thought my generation and your generation would have to fight this fight, but we are fighting  and I hope to God that the next generation doesn’t have to fight this fight, but women’s rights. And I won’t go through them or are just under attack.

And the struggle needs to stop. I mean, it needs to stop once and for all.  Yep. I hope impact I can have there. I hope that that’s my legacy. Well, here’s my last question,  and this can be a fun one. It can be anything. It could be related to work or not related to work.  What is your secret power? Shelly, you’re frozen.

Shelly, you’re frozen.  You were frozen for a bit. Okay. We’ll do it one more time. Okay. You’re, you’re back. Last question, and this can be fun and it can be anything, it can be work related or not work related. What’s your secret power? I’m a really, really good cook.  I’m also as decisive as they come. I am as decisive as they come,  but I’m a really, really good cook.

I love it. Oh my gosh. Maria, thank you so much for being here today. I’m so thrilled and happy and I just can’t tell you thank you for being a role model for me and  you know, just really enjoyed our, oh my God, 40 year relationship. Thank you very much. This has been my absolute pleasure. I wish you the best of luck with the podcast and the book, the ebook, and  I can’t wait to see and hear it.

So thank you. So Vanessa will come back on now. She’ll give us some more instructions.