How Williams-Sonoma’s CEO Built Her Career w/ Entrepreneurship | Ep. 11 | The Inflection Point

Laura Alber drove to San Francisco without any job prospects, and landed a job at Pottery Barn as a Senior Buyer. She created Pottery Barn Kids while pregnant with her first child — the company’s most successful launch ever. Now as CEO, she leads Williams-Sonoma, one of the largest retailers in the nation, with a digital-first (but not digital-only) business strategy that produced record profits and ensured the livelihood of all its employees through the pandemic. In episode 11 of The Inflection Point, join Monica Langley as Laura shares how her entrepreneurial spirit and obsessions with food, family, and home helped her career (and the company) thrive, and emphasizes her goal to be an industry leader in sustainability.

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0:00 - Intro
1:12 - Laura Alber’s Inflection Point & Food, family, home
4:08 - Alber’s entrepreneurial experience
8:30 - Becoming the president of Williams-Sonoma
10:08 - How Williams-Sonoma empowers women to become CEOs
13:21 - How analytics is incorporated in decision-making
17:20 - Williams-Sonoma’s sustainability goals

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The Inflection Point: Today's most influential and inspiring CEOs reveal how their personal backstories, professional influences, values -and inflection points- inform their leadership. Join Salesforce Executive Vice President Monica Langley, former longtime reporter for The Wall Street Journal, as she discovers the moments that changed everything and made these leaders who they are today.

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