Jennifer Gootman, Vice President, Social Consciousness & Innovation, West Elm
West Elm is a part of the Williams-Sonoma, Inc. family. The company is focused on the intersection of modern design, affordability and community. Everything they sell – from sofas and tables to bedding and vases – is made with one goal in mind: to help their customers express their personal style at home and in the world.
West Elm designs over 90% of their products in-house, which has allowed their design team to steadily increase their selection of organic, handcrafted, sustainably sourced and Fair Trade Certified products since they were founded in 2002.
West Elm is committed to making a difference, both locally and globally. This means carrying products from local makers, empowering store managers to tailor their own inventory, and improving the lives of the handcrafted artisans they work with.
The company has set some ambitious public goals for 2020 including 40% of products will be Fair Trade Certified, 100% of all cotton in bedding will be organic, 20% of all products will be handcrafted, and 50% of the wood they use will be sustainably sourced.
What do you actually do all day?
I lead West Elm’s Social Consciousness and Innovation program which is multifaceted, so each day is unique. I could be talking about organic cotton one moment, vision services for factory workers the next, and then have a meeting with a local maker all in the same day. There’s an incredible variety to my day to day.
One of my areas of focus is identifying and partnering with US and global artisans to curate our craft assortment in stores. I also lead our Fair Trade program and our partnership with Fair Trade USA. Right now, most products that are Fair Trade Certified are coffee or chocolate and we’re working to bring more Fair Trade products into the home sector. Another initiative we are working on is how to look more closely at the product lifecycle to incorporate more sustainable raw materials. We’ve partnered with the Global Forest Trade Network and Rainforest Alliance to develop a responsible wood sourcing process, with Textile Exchange and the Sustainable Apparel Coalition on textiles, and even with our packaging engineers to reduce waste in our stores and distribution centers.
West Elm is part of the William Sonoma, Inc. (WSI) family and I work on corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects for all of WSI as well. Specifically, we strive for social compliance beyond simply “compliance” for our global partners. That includes not only our factory audit program, but also our partnerships with our vendor base to try to improve the conditions and lives of workers in our supply chain. For example, we partner with Visonspring to bring vision services to factory workers, Women’s World Banking to help workers with their financial needs, and Nest which helps bring home artisanal workers’ products into the supply chain.
I think of what I do as very entrepreneurial even though it is within a large company. My manager runs the West Elm sourcing program and initially hired me to work exclusively on developing the craft program, but I have been lucky to be able to grow this role into much more. It’s a very collaborative company and I’ve had great opportunities to collaborate with our designers and engineers and external nonprofits to develop these programs.
What are some of the key skills for success in this role?
Definitely problem solving; if this were easy work then everyone would be doing it. You’re often working against technical and systemic issues, and you need to be able to work around those to solve problems. You also need persistence. If you back down every time you’re told “no” then you won’t be successful in this work. You need to know that you can’t force change, it often comes slowly in fits and starts, but you need to be committed to a vision and see the long-term potential while you’re doing the work in intermediary steps. As part of my WSI leadership role I manage a global team in Singapore, China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam, so you need to be open to different styles of working and communicating as well as being open to other cultures and what you can learn from them. All of this comes together to help an organization create their global footprint.
What is your favorite part of your job?
I love connecting with the many people that I get to work with. I’m really the most energized when I’m able to bridge the work that I do with improving the lives of a specific person or group. That human connection is what it’s all about.
What is the hardest part of your job?
Persistence. Ensuring that you stay current and valuable to the business in a fast-paced environment is a challenge. It can be difficult to figure out how to present the work that I do as core to the business and providing business value. I’m lucky to work for a company that embraces the value of my work, but I never want it to be seen as a side philanthropic effort instead of as generating direct business value. That’s where the presentation and analytical skills I developed during my MBA have really helped. It’s important to measure the success of these programs in the same terms as our retail business metrics so that I can clearly demonstrate how the programs directly support our company goals. It’s really important to show how these programs contribute to the company in both social and business ways.
What is your proudest professional achievement?
Getting this job! This is my first job in a corporate environment. My background is in the nonprofit sector, but I was able to pitch this job and create the position. From that vantage point I’ve been able to lead the industry in working with Nest to improve transparency in artisan supply chains which is now being championed by Eileen Fisher and Patagonia. I’ve also had the opportunity to lead and prove the case for the Visionspring project which is also being adopted by other retailers. I’ve used this position as a platform to create broader industry change and I’m really proud of what I’ve built here.
What are the game changers in your world?
A lot of people in the social compliance space are talking about labor convergence. That’ the process of developing unified standards across the industry for social compliance instead of each brand having its own standards that they audit to. Factories often go through many different audits to satisfy their many different clients, which leads to audit fatigue. That’s a lot of resources spent for auditing and if we could audit a factory only once and then spend those resources on capacity building or improving conditions it would be a huge win for the factories.
On the consumer side it would be great if people started to ask more about how their products are made from a social perspective and have a willingness to accept the cost of a fully integrated supply chain.
What was your path to this role?
After graduating from college, I lived abroad for two years which really broadened my cultural horizons and my ability to negotiate cultures. Next, I worked in communications for a nonprofit art gallery. I loved supporting creative culture, but I wanted to reconnect with ideological issues, so I started working for a think tank in New York. There, I focused on the artisanal workforce and economic issues such as how do we quantify the impact of the creative sector to get the government to invest the way they do in traditional business sectors. It was a great experience, but I thought I’d have a bigger impact if I had formal business training. I decided to get my MBA and spent my summer with Agora in Nicaragua consulting to a nonprofit that offers youth after-school programming like jewelry making, which allows them to stay in school and earn a living. It was the perfect combination of business and ideology for me.
When I was graduating from my MBA most of my peers had jobs, but I knew that the kinds of companies I was interested in wouldn’t be hiring until later in the year. This was really tough since I wasn’t able to take advantage of the formal recruiting program on campus, but my patience was rewarded, and I found Global Goods Partners (GGP). They’re a company that connects women artisans all over the world with the international craft market and they were looking for someone to take them to the next level. I was there for three years and we managed to triple sales. I got to do everything from design and development to importing and ecommerce, so I got a micro version of running a retail business, it was the perfect foundation for my current role.
I met my manager at West Elm when I was working for GGP. At the time West Elm was getting ready to make a big public commitment to global artisanal craft, and I was the perfect person to help them uphold that commitment. It took about six to seven months to develop the role and finalize the hiring process, but the risk and waiting were worth it.
What’s your advice to someone interested in a role like this?
People ask me about what it’s like to work in sustainability, but that’s such a broad term. There are so many sides to it – social, environmental, different industries such as home, apparel, agriculture, food, etc. The more specific you can be, the more likely you are to find the right role. I came to West Elm because of my experience in craft and artisan work and was able to expand the role. Try to find a company working on specifically what you’re good at or passionate about before becoming broader in your search.
What are your favorite resources?
Anthropocene covers the innovation that will help us create a sustainable, livable world
Reconsidered has a newsletter that’s a great recap of what’s happening in the space
Next Billion is a great resource for the intersection of business and social impact
Ecotextile rounds up the latest in the sustainable textiles industry
Made Out of What’s Instagram brings a design eye to waste
Business of Fashion Social Goods column covers the intersection of fashion and impact
Sustainable Brands and Sustainable Apparel Coalition are great networks in this space offering new updates and events
Intertek’s Ethical Sourcing Forum hosts great supply chain conferences
The Fair Labor Association is has excellent labor resources
I read CSR Wire often
Who (or what) is your sustainability hero?
Eileen Fisher. Sustainability is really important to her and she has truly integrated that into the fundamentals of the brand. She’s taken a stand and is really leading the way with the work that they’re doing.
