Courtesy of Samantha Shih
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Samantha Shih, a 43-year-old chief brand officer from Boston. It's been edited for length and clarity.
After graduating from Brown University in 2003, I worked as a consultant at Deloitte for three years before spending a year in China. There, I started making custom clothing, which inspired me to open a custom suiting and shirting company. I founded 9Tailors in Boston in 2008.
Launching a business was challenging because I had little experience in retail and fashion and had to learn everything from scratch. I had some business strategy knowledge from working at Deloitte but didn't have operational knowledge.
I learned and grew the company for 14 years. In 2022, I sold 9Tailors and jumped ship to work for a startup.
I had a lot of friends who were getting laid off, but I was optimistic. You can only go up from the bottom, so I thought it was an excellent time to start a business.
The company started online, keeping no inventory and making everything to order. This allowed us to identify our target customer β young professional males looking to dress up for work or weddings.
We've been profitable since year two, winning awards and garnering press until the pandemic threw everything off track. Running a high-touch custom clothing company that needed in-person contact and relationships was stressful. We pivoted toward making masks and sold out immediately.
My brother told me his former boss was advising LookSky β an Asian direct-to-consumer fashion brand looking to enter the US market β and they wanted to speak to a fashion industry expert. I had no set expectations for these calls β I enjoy helping people and sharing industry and fashion insights.
What started as one call turned into three or four calls. I met with the chairman, CEO, and the rest of the C-suite team. The company's chairman asked if I was interested in joining them.
I had to think about it. 9Tailors was never busier after the pandemic; there was so much pent-up demand for suits, shirts, and dressing up, and our revenue kept growing.
LookSky allowed me six months to transition out of my business and design my dream job description from scratch. Although I suggested the position of creative director, they offered to hire me as the chief brand officer. I was pleasantly surprised they wanted me at the C-suite level.
I loved running my own business but wanted to make more impact, so the opportunity arose at the optimal time. At LookSky, I would have the opportunity to scale a personalized experience to potentially millions of users.
Also, I had my first child in 2017 and wanted to spend more time with him instead of working crazy retail hours. I had started feeling worn down.
I accepted their offer and nearly doubled my salary at 9Tailors.
During the six-month transition, I worked about eight hours daily, six days a week on 9Tailors. Then, after my son went to bed, I dedicated time to LookSky, often for team meetings or marketing and branding projects. I thrive on being busy, so it was manageable.
LookSky asked me to sell my business, but I couldn't talk about it until we signed the papers and closed because it could destabilize my clients and team if it didn't go through.
The final sale was to my CMO. Even though several businesses expressed interest in buying, I preferred to sell to someone who knew the company, our clients, and how we operate.
My last day at 9Tailors was the same day I announced my departure and the sale of the business to the team. To help transition, my husband, who worked at the company for a good chunk of the 14 years that I did, stayed on for another six months.
Working remotely was initially a shock because I'm an extrovert who loves being around people, but one of the biggest advantages is having more control over my schedule.
Mornings and evenings are typically dedicated to team calls. Afternoons provide a window for productive personal time β I might work out, dive into a business book (I'm reading "Good to Great" by James C. Collins), or listen to a startup or tech podcast like Lenny's Podcast, Hard Fork, or How I Built This. Best of all, I can attend my son's events and activities.
After hearing of my diagnosis, my team could not have been more supportive, telling me to take as much time as needed. I like being busy and productive, and work actually allowed me some reprieve.
I've found a company that nurtures my strengths and encourages and supports me in learning new skills. I'm surrounded by bright people who motivate me to do my best work. I've grown and developed tremendously.
I don't miss running 9Tailors, though I'm incredibly grateful for the experience. While I might consider running another startup in the distant future, I'm genuinely happy with where I've landed.
Have you been poached and want to share your story? Email Lauryn Haas at [email protected].
IDREES MOHAMMED/AFP via Getty Images
Campbell Wilson has a tough job βΒ he compares his efforts turning around Air India to "drinking from a firehose."
The New Zealander was appointed CEO in June 2022 after the state-owned flag carrier was privatized in a deal with India's Tata Group conglomerate.
"It was sort of like walking down a beach with 10,000 stones, and under each one of those stones, you knew that there was a creepy crawly," Wilson told Business Insider in an interview at a Taj Hotel in London, also owned by the Tata Group.
"But progressively, you work through it, and you pick up all the stones, and you address everything that's sitting underneath," he added. "And I think now, for the most part, the beach is clean. It's just we have to erect the edifice on top."
At 2023's Paris Airshow, the new Air India set out its ambitions when it signed deals for 470 aircraft worth $70 billion at list prices.
To speed things up, the airline agreed to take six Airbus A350 jets originally destined for the Russian carrier Aeroflot. They're a much more modern upgrade from the aged jets that make up most of Air India's fleet.
For passengers, it's the most tangible evidence of the turnaround, operating on flights to New York and London.
Taylor Rains/Business Insider; Pete Syme/Business Insider
There are another 44 Airbus A350 jets on the way β 10 of which were ordered on Monday. As well as hundreds of narrow-body jets, Air India has ordered 20 Boeing 787 Dreamliners and 10 Boeing 777X jets.
The 777X has been much anticipated throughout the industry but has faced several delays in certification. First deliveries are expected in 2026, six years later than initially scheduled.
"I have full confidence in Boeing to go through whatever's necessary to get these aircraft in the air," Wilson told BI.
"There are other airlines ahead of us who are equally impatient with the delivery," he added. "We just need to let them run through that process with the [Federal Aviation Administration]."
Wilson is more concerned about delays in the supply chain, given plans to retrofit old cabins. "It's the No. 1 frustration I have, to be quite honest," he said.
Two-thirds of its widebody planes haven't been updated since deliveries dating back to 2007. For all the work on behind-the-scenes operations, Wilson says the seats are "the most visible manifestation of the old Air India."
Passengers have seen problems including missing charging outlets, malfunctioning TVs, and broken tray tables.
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"The gap between modern and what we offer is big, and so the urgency for us to refit these aircraft is probably greater than any other airline."
"Until we upgrade the aircraft, then people won't believe that the transformation has happened," he added. "And so it's frustrating, but we're working through it."
Wilson didn't find himself running an airline out of a passion for aviation but was instead first driven by opportunities to see the world.
After a season playing field hockey in England, he traveled to New York, where he stayed at a teammate's brother's high-rise apartment.
"I'm sleeping on this guy's couch, looking between my feet at the Empire State Building," Wilson recounted.
He learned the apartment was a perk of his host's job, having been posted to New York. So back home in New Zealand, Wilson was excited when he spotted an ad for Singapore Airlines' management trainee scheme β with the offer to relocate to any of the destinations to which it flew.
ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP via Getty Images
"I had to make a sufficient nuisance of myself and knuckle down, work hard, make an impression," he said. "I got sent to Auckland, Sydney, and a few other places."
After working his way up the ranks of Singapore Airlines, Wilson was in 2011 tapped to become the founding CEO of Scoot β its subsidiary budget airline.
Over a decade later, Singapore Airlines took a minority stake in the Air India deal, and Wilson was chosen to lead the turnaround.
Wilson said a turnaround requires you to "get a lot of balls up in the air being juggled at once."
"You don't have the luxury of time to do things sequentially, and so you have to do everything in parallel," he added.
He said this can lead to heavy workloads, uncertainties, and people being stretched. "But you've only got a certain window before people really want to see the outcome."
Wilson described his leadership style as contextual. "Certainly, in the early part of the transformation, it was very hands-on," he said.
But after more progress was made, he said, people would come to him with ideas of what they wanted to do and how they could achieve them.
Manish Rajput/ The India Today Group via Getty Images
"Without being glib, I think the higher you go in the organization, more and more of your job is about people," Wilson told BI. He referred to the importance of aligning people behind a common objective and ensuring they have the necessary resources.
Wilson said his favorite part of being a CEO is interacting with people. Before he was in his 40s, he said, he was more interested in his own success and progress.
"And then you get to the mid-to-late 40s, and actually you take just as much pleasure β and eventually more pleasure β from seeing other people develop," he added.
The Air India boss said he was pleased with the turnaround so far, but there's still more to come.
What is he most excited about in 2025? "Getting these damn seats installed on the aircraft."
Alexander Welscher/picture alliance via Getty Images
AirBaltic plans to be the first airline to restart flights to Ukraine in the event of a peace agreement, CEO Martin Gauss told Business Insider.
The Latvian flag carrier also has bases in Estonia and Lithuania. All three countries border Russia and are NATO and the European Union members.
"What I think is an upside now is a potential peace because that's not priced in for us," Gauss said in a Monday interview in London.
"That would be a huge upside as we were the last airline out of Ukraine and would be the first one in," he added.
Gauss told BI that the start of the war impacted airBaltic "very heavily" due to missing passenger flows from Ukraine and Russia.
However, he added that tourism to the Baltic countries was no longer suffering as fears had eased about them being invaded by Russia, too.
AirBaltic has still been hampered by airspace restrictions.
"The overflying restrictions are still there and everything which goes southeast is, for us, a detour β circumnavigating the airspace," Gauss said.
The airline has more than 70 destinations β including Cyprus, Turkey, and Dubai β where the fastest route from Latvia would involve flying over Ukraine.
Finding alternative routes isn't simple. Gauss explained how flying south from the Baltics, there's only a "small corridor" between Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
"Once that is too busy, we need to fly over Sweden into the south," Gauss added. "So there's an impact on the cost side."
Gauss started his career as a pilot in 1992 with Deutsche BA, then a low-cost subsidiary of British Airways. He then entered management training with the airline and worked his way up.
After developing a reputation for turning around airlines, he was headhunted for airBaltic in 2011. The airline had gone bankrupt, but the Latvian government agreed to invest more capital.
"I had to come up, in a couple of weeks, with suggestions of what you could do with a technically bankrupt airline," Gauss told BI.
"What makes it so special was that in 2012 [β¦] we had to make a decision for the future aircraft fleet," he added. "And we took a decision to go for an aircraft type which didn't exist at the time β an A220."
In 2016, AirBaltic became the launch operator of the Airbus A220. It's a smaller jet with a capacity of 150, but it can still fly farther than the regional aircraft it competes with, such as the Embraer E195.
Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Today, airBaltic is the largest operator of the type with 48 A220s β with plans to double that by 2030. Based on order books, Gauss said, "We are the only airline which can double in size in Europe in the next five years."
Gauss has also promoted new technologies in his time at the helm. AirBaltic accepted bitcoin as payment back in 2014 and has minted NFTs that generate airline loyalty points.
It's also set to be the first airline in Europe to use Elon Musk's Starlink internet as soon as it's certified by the continent's aviation regulators.
Gauss is pleased with the success of his business model, with preparations underway for an IPO.
"It was intended to do it earliest in the second half of this year, which we canceled because of the market situation, so we said, first opportunity is first half of 2025 for an IPO."
Courtesy of Michaella Solar-March
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Michaella Solar-March, a 40-year-old C-suite executive in New York City. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
When my husband and I met in 2011, we were in love with our careers. I worked as a marketing director in the music industry, and he was a bartender and vegetable farmer. We both worked late but always made time to see each other.
We discussed getting married and having kids but never discussed the logistics of starting a family with our work schedules. We got married in 2012, and in 2015, I got pregnant with our first child.
Now, as a family of four, I work full time, and my husband stays home to watch the kids.
My husband worked in hospitality and often got called in on nights and weekends to cover shifts. I worked at Soho House in a global role and traveled internationally for two to three weeks every month.
We hired a full-time nanny so we could both continue to work. After nine months, we realized it felt like our nanny was raising our child. While we loved our nanny, we weren't comfortable taking such a backseat role in our son, Townes', life.
My husband loved his career but found that being a present father meant more to him. He didn't grow up with his father around β his parents divorced when he was three, and a single mom raised him. He wanted to be a present and constant support for Townes.
We decided in 2017 that my husband would be a stay-at-home dad, and I'd continue to work as the family's breadwinner.
Courtesy of Michaella Solar-March
We realized my husband's salary was slightly more than what we paid our nanny. It seemed like a financially smart decision for him to leave his job. It also helped us both erase any anxiety about Townes and his care.
When we had our second child, Roma, in 2020, I was the global CMO for a commercial real estate business. Alex returned to work in 2019 as the general manager of a hospitality brand, and we thought we would hire another nanny for our daughter. Then the pandemic started.
We started interviewing nannies remotely and couldn't get comfortable with the idea, so again, Alex quit his job and resumed full-time childcare responsibilities.
When we first started dating, our identities were wrapped up in our careers. When my husband first became a stay-at-home dad and I became the breadwinner, I struggled with our new identities. I felt grateful that I could continue my career but guilty that he had to pause his.
I was also proud of his work and enjoyed the nightlife culture that came with his industry, so leaving that behind was a lifestyle shift for both of us.
My husband never felt bad about this shift. He poured everything into being the best dad, managing the household (cooking, cleaning, and handling the groceries), and constantly reassured me that he was more than OK with taking on this role.
Neither my husband nor I are independently wealthy, so the long-term stability of our family and creating financial security for our kids are solely my responsibility.
I feel a lot of pressure. I'm naturally ambitious and self-motivated, and I take pride in being good at my work. Yet, I inevitably feel I have to overdeliver and drive value for my employers to ensure job security.
While I'm lucky enough to have an incredible boss and team, that pressure is always an undercurrent. If I'm not working, we can't pay our bills.
Courtesy of Michaella Solar-March
I'm now the chief marketing officer for a Brooklyn-based real estate developer and management company. I'm fully committed at work and home but always feel I'm letting someone down.
I often miss dinner time with the family because of work commitments. Townes made a rule that I'm only allowed to be on my phone at home if I'm dealing with something for work. As my kids have become more aware and emotionally mature, they notice when I'm distracted.
I also feel societal pressure. There's an unspoken expectation that you must be an exceptional employee, mother, friend, community member, and over-performer in every area of life. Those titles are often in conflict with one another.
I have to compromise. I'm no less committed to an area of my life, but I acknowledge that sometimes I can't do it all and must make a choice.
I had a stay-at-home mom who worked from home but was hands-on in the house. This allowed my dad to go out and work long hours every day. My family is now inverted.
I'm proud that my children see me go to work daily, knowing I come home every night after doing work I love and excel at. I hope this shows them they can pursue their professional passions with commitment and ambition.
Sometimes, Roma asks, "Why can't you stay home with Dad? Why do you go to the office every day?" But I know that in 10 years, I will have shown her what a working mother looks like. I also know that when I'm with her, I focus on giving her the attention and support she needs.
While our family setup might be unusual, it works for us, and I'm not sure it would work this well if we did it any other way. Eventually, my husband wants to go back to work, but not in a full-time capacity.
Want to share your story as a female breadwinner? Email Lauryn Haas at [email protected].
Andrius Banelis for BI
This article is part of "Workforce Innovation," a series exploring the forces shaping enterprise transformation.
When Wex, a payments platform based in Portland, Maine, set an ambitious goal to double its revenue, to $5 billion, within five years, it recognized that achieving this would require changes in its operational approach and strategic focus. In 2022 it created the role of chief transformation officer and tapped Kristy Kinney, who previously led the company's pandemic response, for the job.
Kinney's mandate touched every aspect of Wex's operations, including adopting generative artificial intelligence in call centers, standardizing project-management systems, and identifying new revenue streams. Wex says Kinney's led 230 initiatives, hit 2,300 project milestones, and worked with and advised more than 100 leaders across the organization.
"We were intentional about not just delivering outcomes," Kinney said, adding that a lot of the change "was about building a culture of always-on transformation in our workforce."
As companies across the US confront complex challenges that require overhauling strategies, reimagining business models, and adapting workforce dynamics, many are appointing chief transformation officers to drive these changes. Boston Consulting Group said it found that CTO hiring surged by more than 140% from 2019 to 2021, led by companies in consumer and industrial goods and financial institutions.
Alicia Pittman, the global people team chair at Boston Consulting Group, said the trend reflected a shift in how organizations manage change. She told BI these specialized leaders are appointed to head up specific cross-functional projects and eventually integrate their work into everyday operations. The role is often transitional.
"Their job, in my opinion, is to sort of put themselves out of a job," Pittman said.
Ravin Jesuthasan, a global leader for transformation services at the consulting firm Mercer who wrote the book "The Skills-Powered Organization," said that while this position was relatively new in the array of C-suite roles, it was emerging as "one of the most pivotal for navigating the future of work."
"It used to be that an organization would do a major transformation every eight or nine years or so, but today, due to the velocity and volatility of change, companies no longer have that luxury," he said. "They now need a dedicated leader whose job it is to look around corners, stress-test existing strategies, and figure out when to pivot if necessary."
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The C-suite has expanded over the past few decades and now brims with new titles.
The core figures, including the CEO, the chief operating officer, and the chief financial officer, focus on delivering quarterly results. Other positions center on functional areas like technology, human resources, and marketing, and strategic areas like employee engagement and sustainability.
Jesuthasan said that among these newer roles, the transformation officer stands out as forward-looking. They're tasked with preparing the organization for the future. "They help see what's coming and identify potential disruptions," he said.
In addition, he said, they must deeply understand strategy and its implications for the organizational structure. They need to be adept at connecting different areas of the business. "CTOs help the organization develop a mindset of perpetual reinvention," he said. "They have the curiosity and willingness to challenge the status quo."
He added that strong people skills are also critical for CTOs. They need to have credibility with other executives, the ability to run experiments and test new ideas, and the skills to execute effective change management while bringing employees along.
Being a chief transformation officer, Jesuthasan said, is akin to "building the train while you're driving it down the tracks."
Brandon Batt, the chief transformation officer at Quadient, a company focused on digital transformation, knows this all too well. Batt, who was appointed in 2019, helped orchestrate sweeping changes at Quadient, including streamlining the company's divisions and simplifying the workflows in various departments.
"At the end of the day, my function is here to be the support, the glue, and sometimes even the driver behind change that's needed in the business," he said.
Change is a process, of course. Can a CTO's transformation efforts ever truly be complete? "In today's dynamic landscape for technology companies, I am not sure we will ever say, 'Mission accomplished,'" Batt said.
"We just announced a new plan for 2030," he said. "It's demanding, but leaning into it is where the magic happens."
The demands of managing organizational transformation are great, especially when initiatives span disciplines and address issues such as technological advancements, industry shifts, and evolving customer trends.
"Change is hard, and it can burn people out," said Chengyi Lin, an affiliate professor of strategy at Insead who studies digital transformation.
Lin believes the CTO role should be viewed as transient, ideally lasting two to five years. "I say this with empathy and sympathy for the individual as well as for the organization," Lin added.
C-suite titles have an important "signaling function," he said. Appointing a CTO sends a message to workers and stakeholders that the organization is committed to change. Making the role permanent could dilute its significance and risk suggesting the company is in a constant state of flux rather than pursuing meaningful transformation.
Lin argued that concluding the role after a finite period doesn't mean the transformation is completeΒ β "it means that it's eventually folded into business as usual."
He described this approach as critical for maintaining employee engagement. Gartner has found that the average employee experienced 10 planned enterprise changes in 2022; in 2016, that number was two. It also found that workers' enthusiasm for supporting enterprise change dropped significantly over the same period.
Kinney recently wound down her role as chief transformation officer at Wex. The company is continuing to work toward its $5 billion revenue goal; revenue was $2.55 billion at the end of December last year. And Kinney has transitioned to a new position as SVP of health & benefits growth. This role involves integrating her transformation work into Wex's daily operations, what she refers to as "operational excellence."
"I used to joke that if I was in that job after two years, I ought to be fired," she said.
