Why proximity to the people we serve continues to shape how I think about culture, leadership, and growth.

One of the questions I think about often is how we get better at understanding what’s coming next.

We have more tools than ever to help us answer that question. Data is faster and richer. AI is expanding what we can see and analyze. Social platforms give us an almost real-time view into how culture is moving.

All of that has made us better.

But over the years, I’ve also come to appreciate the value of something much simpler: listening.

Not listening as a replacement for data, but as another form of intelligence.

At Pacsun, some of our most valuable insights have come from staying close to the young people we serve — through our stores, social channels, Youth Advisory Council, community events and the everyday conversations happening around the brand.

Sometimes those conversations reinforce what the data is telling us. Sometimes they give us context we didn’t have before. And occasionally, they surface something we weren’t looking for at all.

That has shaped how I think about co-creation.

It isn’t simply asking consumers what they want. It’s creating enough proximity and trust that they can influence the way you think, build and evolve.

And I believe that becomes even more valuable as technology advances.

AI will continue to make us better at identifying patterns and understanding behavior at scale. I’m incredibly optimistic about what that can unlock. At the same time, culture is deeply human. It’s influenced by identity, community, creativity and emotion — things that aren’t always easy to anticipate.

For me, the opportunity is in bringing those worlds together.

Better technology. Better data. And deeper relationships with the people we serve.

I recently explored this idea in more depth for Forbes, looking at what years of building alongside young consumers have taught me about listening, prediction and co-creation.

But perhaps the biggest lesson has been the simplest:

The closer we stay to our communities, the more we continue to learn.

And often, they help us see what’s next before we would have seen it on our own.

If you asked me what leadership topic has come up most often over the past year, the answer would be easy: AI.

Whether I’m speaking in boardrooms, at Cannes Lions, with students, or with fellow CEOs, the questions are remarkably consistent.

Which AI tools are you using?

How is AI changing retail?

How do you future proof?

They’re all important questions. In fact, I recently had the opportunity to contribute to a Forbes Books Authors article exploring why I believe human judgment becomes more valuable—not less—in the age of AI. That piece focused on an idea I feel deeply about: as AI becomes increasingly accessible, technology itself will become less of a differentiator. Leadership will.

But since that article was published, I’ve found myself thinking about a different question.

Not how quickly organizations adopt AI.

But whether we’re spending enough time developing the capabilities that AI will never replace.

Because the leadership conversation we’re having is largely about technology.

The leadership conversation we should be having is about judgment.

For decades, competitive advantage often came from having access to better information. Today, information is abundant. AI can summarize it, analyze it, organize it, and surface insights in seconds.

What it cannot do is decide what matters.

It cannot determine when the data is incomplete.

It cannot recognize a cultural shift before it appears in a dashboard.

It cannot build trust with a team navigating uncertainty.

It cannot distinguish between what is technically correct and what is strategically right.

Those are human decisions.

And I believe they are becoming more valuable, not less.

As CEO of Pacsun, we’ve embraced AI across our business. We see enormous opportunity in using it to improve speed, efficiency, and decision-making. Leaders who ignore AI do so at their own risk.

But we’ve also learned that technology is only as powerful as the judgment guiding it.

One of the greatest advantages we’ve built isn’t an algorithm. It’s proximity.

Proximity to our customers.

Proximity to creators.

Proximity to our Youth Advisory Council.

Proximity to culture as it’s evolving — not six months after the fact, but in real time.

AI can help identify patterns.

Community helps explain why those patterns exist.

That’s a distinction I think will matter even more over the next decade.

I’ve also been reflecting on how this changes leadership development.

For years, we rewarded expertise above almost everything else.

Today, I’m increasingly drawn to leaders who demonstrate curiosity.

Who ask better questions before rushing to answers.

Who are comfortable changing their minds when new information emerges.

Who seek perspectives that challenge their own.

Who spend time with customers instead of relying exclusively on reports.

Who understand that leadership is as much about listening as it is about deciding.

These aren’t soft skills.

They’re strategic capabilities.

In many ways, AI is raising the standard for what leadership requires.

If technology can produce answers in seconds, then leaders create value somewhere else.

In discernment. In conviction. In ethics. In creativity.

In cultural intuition.

And perhaps most importantly, in knowing when not to follow what the data suggests.

The organizations that thrive won’t simply be the ones with the most advanced AI capabilities.

They’ll be the ones that combine technological intelligence with deeply human leadership.

That’s a much harder capability to build. It’s also much harder to replicate.

The conversation about AI will continue to evolve, and it should.

But I hope we spend just as much time discussing how we cultivate judgment, empathy, curiosity, and trust inside our organizations.

Because while AI will undoubtedly transform how we work, leadership will continue to determine why we work, who we serve, and where we’re headed.

Technology will keep advancing.

Human judgment is still the advantage worth investing in.

If you haven’t yet read my recent Forbes Books Authors contribution on this topic, I’d encourage you to start there. It explores why I believe human judgment is becoming one of the defining competitive advantages of the AI era. This essay is a continuation of that conversation—and one I hope we’ll keep having together.

link to Forbes article here

Back-to-school is one of the most important moments of the year for our team at Pacsun. Months before students head back to class, our merchants, designers, creative teams, and partners are already thinking about how to deliver the right assortment for the season ahead.

This year, we’re especially excited about denim.

Our 2026 collection reflects the silhouettes and fits we’re seeing resonate most with young consumers—from relaxed and baggy styles to wide-leg and barrel fits. Denim continues to be one of the most personal categories in fashion because it’s endlessly versatile and gives people the freedom to express their own style.

One decision we made early in the creative process was to shoot on a real college campus with real friends. We wanted the imagery to reflect the energy, optimism, and connections that make this season so meaningful. Rather than creating a staged environment, we chose to capture students in a setting that felt authentic to their everyday lives.

What I love most about this collection is that it represents how we approach product at Pacsun. We listen first. We study emerging trends, spend time with our community, and work closely with our brand partners to understand where youth culture is headed—not just where it has been.

Back-to-school is always an exciting season because it represents new beginnings. Whether someone is starting college, returning to campus, or simply refreshing their wardrobe, we want to create products that help them feel confident in expressing who they are.

I’m incredibly proud of the teams that brought this collection to life and grateful to our partners who helped make it possible.

Take a look at our 2026 Back-to-School denim story.

The discussions were fascinating. New creative tools. Smarter media buying. Faster content creation. Better personalization. Every platform and every brand seemed to be asking the same question: How will AI change marketing?

It’s the wrong question.

The better question is: How will AI change what consumers expect from brands?

AI will transform how we create. It will accelerate how we analyze. It will reshape how we reach consumers.

But it won’t replace the one thing every great brand still has to earn: trust.

As AI makes it easier to create more content, consumers won’t simply reward brands for producing more. They’ll reward brands that are more relevant, more authentic, and more human.

Technology can help you generate a campaign.

It can’t generate credibility.

That’s earned.

For years, marketing has been built around broadcasting messages to consumers. Increasingly, the brands creating lasting relevance are doing something different. They’re building with their communities instead of marketing at them.

Consumers want to see themselves reflected in the brands they support. They want participation, not just promotion. They want brands that listen as much as they speak.

That’s why I believe the future belongs to organizations that treat community as a strategic advantage — not a marketing tactic.

AI should make us better listeners.

It should help us understand our customers more deeply, identify emerging cultural shifts more quickly, and remove friction so our teams can spend more time on creativity, relationships, and innovation.

Used well, AI doesn’t replace human connection.

It creates more room for it.

The brands that thrive over the next decade won’t be those with access to the best technology. That advantage won’t last.

The enduring advantage will belong to brands people trust enough to build alongside.

Because AI changes the tools.

Trust changes the outcome.

One of the conversations I’ve found most interesting through my work with Conscious Capitalism is the assumption that leaders must choose between purpose and performance.

I’ve never experienced it that way.

In business, we often create false tradeoffs.

People or profit.

Culture or results.

Long-term or short-term.

Purpose or performance.

The reality is that great organizations need both.

Performance matters.

Without it, companies can’t invest in their people, innovate, grow, or create opportunity.

But purpose matters too.

It provides context for the decisions we make and clarity about where we’re headed.

At Pacsun, purpose has never replaced execution.

It has helped inform it.

It has helped us better understand our customers, our communities, and the role we want to play in their lives.

That’s not a statement about how every company should operate.

There are many paths to building a great business.

But I’ve come to believe that when leaders treat purpose and performance as opposing forces, they miss the opportunity to benefit from both.

Performance tells us how we’re doing.

Purpose reminds us why it matters.

The strongest organizations understand they don’t have to choose.

When I stood inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art to celebrate the launch of Co-Created, I found myself reflecting less on the book itself and more on the journey that made it possible.

For most of my career, I never imagined becoming an author.

I imagined becoming a better listener.

A better leader.

A better steward of a brand, a team, and a community.

The irony is that those pursuits ultimately led me to authorship.

Standing inside one of the world’s great institutions dedicated to preserving human stories, I was reminded that every meaningful transformation begins the same way: with people.

The story of Pacsun has often been described as a turnaround story. In many ways, it is. But from the inside, it never felt like a turnaround.

It felt like a rediscovery.

A rediscovery of purpose.

A rediscovery of relevance.

A rediscovery of what happens when a company stops speaking at its community and starts creating with them.

That is the story I wanted to tell in Co-Created.

Not because it is Pacsun’s story alone, but because I believe the future belongs to organizations willing to invite others into the process.

For years, I resisted the idea of writing a book because the story never felt like mine to tell alone.

Every chapter includes voices that shaped our journey—associates in stores, leaders across our business, creators, partners, customers, and community members who challenged us to think differently.

The truth is that no meaningful transformation happens because of a single CEO.

It happens because people choose to believe in something together.

Authorship taught me that lesson all over again.

Writing requires reflection. Reflection requires honesty. And honesty forces you to recognize how many people contributed to the moments that others often attribute to an individual.

As I wrote, I found myself revisiting some of the hardest seasons of my career alongside some of the most rewarding. I revisited uncertainty, setbacks, risks, and moments when the outcome was far from guaranteed.

I also revisited the extraordinary acts of creativity, courage, and collaboration that changed the trajectory of our company.

The process reminded me that leadership is far less about having answers and far more about creating conditions where great answers can emerge.

Perhaps that’s why launching the book at the MET felt so meaningful.

Museums preserve culture.

Pacsun exists at the intersection of culture.

And Co-Created is ultimately a story about what happens when organizations learn to listen to culture rather than simply market to it.

For one evening, surrounded by partners, friends, colleagues, and community members who have been part of this journey, I was reminded that stories gain their power through shared experience.

The event was never a celebration of a book.

It was a celebration of the people behind it.

The people who helped shape the ideas.

The people who challenged them.

The people who lived them.

And the people who continue to prove every day that the best ideas are rarely created alone.

If there is one thing authorship has taught me, it is this:

A book may have one name on the cover.

But the story inside belongs to many.

That has always been true of Pacsun.

And it is certainly true of Co-Created.

As I left the MET that evening, I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude—not for having written a book, but for having been part of a story worth telling.

And for everyone who helped write it with me.

I walked into a TikTok livestream.

Inside Pacsun’s SoHo store, surrounded by our community, I spent the morning live on BookTok talking about Co-Created — not from a stage or behind a podium, but directly with an audience that has shaped so much of how I think about culture, retail, and leadership.

It was unexpected.

And that was exactly the point.

There are safer ways for a CEO to launch a book.

A traditional media circuit.
A polished fireside conversation.
An executive summit.

But Co-Created was never meant to be a traditional business book.

It’s a story about participation.
About listening.
About building with people instead of simply marketing to them.

So when we started discussing publication day, I kept coming back to one question:

If the entire thesis of this book is about meeting the next generation where they are… why would I launch it anywhere else?

Today, culture moves differently.

It moves through creators.
Through recommendation loops.
Through communities.
Through people sharing what resonates in real time.

And nowhere is that more visible than BookTok.

BookTok has reshaped publishing. Readers are no longer waiting for institutions to decide what matters. They are discovering, validating, and amplifying stories together.

That shift fascinated me — not just as an author, but as a CEO.

Because it mirrors exactly what has happened in retail.

Consumers — especially Gen Z and Gen Alpha — no longer want one-way relationships with brands. They expect participation. Dialogue. A sense that they are shaping culture alongside the brands they support.

That idea sits at the center of Pacsun’s transformation.

And it sits at the center of Co-Created.

One of the first chapters in the book is called 11,000 Astrids.

The chapter is about a realization that changed the way I think about business: consumers are not one audience anymore.

They are thousands of individual identities, aesthetics, algorithms, communities, and perspectives all existing simultaneously.

For years, brands believed mass messaging was enough.

Today, relevance is earned differently.

You have to understand where people gather, how they communicate, and why they connect.

That’s why launching on TikTok mattered to me.

Not because it was trendy.

Because it was aligned with the very argument the book makes:

Modern brands — and modern leaders — cannot operate at a distance from culture anymore.

We have to be willing to step into it.

Even when it feels uncomfortable.

And honestly, there was something vulnerable about it.

TikTok is immediate.
Fast.
Unfiltered.

Especially live.

There’s no executive distance there.

But maybe that’s the point.

Too often, leadership becomes overly polished. Every appearance refined. Every message optimized.

Yet younger audiences respond to something entirely different.

Not perfection.

Presence.

The livestream ended up becoming one of the most meaningful parts of the launch.

People asked thoughtful questions about leadership, purpose, culture, transformation, and what it actually means to build something with people instead of simply selling to them.

And I had the opportunity to do it alongside an incredible host who instinctively understood the energy of the platform and helped create something conversational instead of performative.

That distinction matters.

Because audiences today can immediately sense when something is manufactured.

What they respond to instead is participation.

Not as a marketing strategy.

As a mindset.

Years ago, the idea of a sitting retail CEO launching a book on TikTok might have seemed unconventional.

Today, I’d argue the opposite.

Ignoring where culture is actually happening is what feels out of touch.

The future belongs to leaders willing to cross the invisible line between executive leadership and cultural participation.

Who understand that relevance is no longer built from distance.

It’s built through proximity.

And sometimes, proximity looks like a livestream on BookTok at 11 a.m. on publication day.

Yesterday, I stood in a room with more than 800 women at the Women in Retail Circle Summit 2026 in Miami.

Not just leaders.
Builders. Operators. Storytellers.
Women actively shaping the future of our industry.

The theme was reimagine.
But what struck me most wasn’t what we said on stage — it was what we felt in the room.

A collective energy.
A shared momentum.
A reminder that transformation doesn’t happen in isolation.

It happens in community.

Community Is the Strategy

For years, business has treated community as an output: something you build after the product, after the marketing, after the strategy.

But that model is broken.

Community isn’t the result.
It’s the starting point.

At Pacsun, our transformation didn’t begin with a campaign or a product line.
It began with a shift in mindset:

From control → to co-creation
From audience → to participants
From brand voice → to shared voice

We stopped asking, How do we reach them?
And started asking, How do we build with them?

That shift changed everything.

Reimagining the Business Model

On stage, I shared how we’ve reimagined our business — not as a retailer, but as a platform for culture.

Grounded in four pillars:

• Music

• Art

• Fashion

• Sport

But powered by something deeper: participation.

Because Gen Z and Gen Alpha don’t want to be marketed to.
They want to shape what comes next.

When you invite your community into the process—
into product, storytelling, experience—
you don’t just gain relevance.

You build ownership.
You build loyalty.
You build something that scales beyond any single campaign.

800+ Women, One Signal

What made yesterday different wasn’t just the content.

It was the signal.

800+ women showing up — not just to listen, but to engage, to challenge, to connect.

That kind of collective presence matters.

Because community isn’t just external.
It’s internal to our industry.

When women in leadership come together at scale, it does something powerful:

• It accelerates ideas

• It creates access

• It builds confidence in places where it’s often been lacking

And most importantly—
it reminds us that we’re not building alone.

The Power of Shared Stories

I also had the opportunity to gift copies of Co-Created to attendees.

Not as a moment of promotion—
but as an extension of the conversation.

Because this book was never meant to be a solo perspective.
It’s a reflection of the many voices, creators, partners, and communities that shaped our journey.

The same principle we apply in business applies here:

The best ideas are rarely individual.
They are collective.

What We Reimagine Next

If there’s one takeaway I left with, it’s this:

The future of retail won’t be defined by who has the best product.
It will be defined by who builds the strongest communities around it.

And the leaders who will win in that future—
are the ones willing to share power, not protect it.

Yesterday was a reminder that this shift is already happening.

In rooms like this.
With leaders like these.
At a scale that’s impossible to ignore.

We’re not just reimagining our businesses.

We’re reimagining how we build them—
together.

There’s a version of leadership that assumes you can understand the future from a distance.

From reports. From briefings. From the right rooms.

And those inputs matter.

Last week, I was at the Semafor World Economy Summit — participating in conversations shaping how we think about global markets, power, and what comes next.

Hours later, I was at Coachella.

Same week. Same job. Very different signals.

Why both matter—especially if you serve the next generation

If you’re building a brand for Gen Z and Gen Alpha, you don’t get to choose one vantage point.

You need both:

• The rooms where ideas are debated, defined, and scaled

• And the environments where behavior shows up before it’s explained

Because younger generations don’t separate culture from commerce.

They move between them seamlessly.

You can’t outsource proximity

There’s a temptation in leadership to rely on interpretation.

To read the report.
To hear the summary.
To get the distilled version.

But if your customer is shaping culture in real time, secondhand insight isn’t enough.

You have to see it as it’s forming.

Not perfectly. Not neatly. But honestly.

In how people show up.
What they choose to engage with.
What they ignore completely.

Being early doesn’t look like strategy at first

Most of what becomes meaningful later doesn’t arrive clearly.

It’s fragmented.
Sometimes contradictory.
Easy to dismiss if you’re looking for certainty.

Which is why many brands wait.

They wait for validation.
For scale.
For something to “prove out.”

But by then, the opportunity isn’t the same.

The role of a CEO in this environment

Leading a brand built alongside youth isn’t just about decision-making.

It’s about pattern recognition—before patterns are obvious.

It’s about knowing when something matters
before it has language around it.

And that only happens if you’re willing to move between very different environments—and take both seriously.

Not as a contradiction.

But as a requirement.

Why this matters more now

The cycle between culture and commerce has compressed.

What resonates in one moment can move into product, partnership, or platform almost immediately.

Which means the distance between observing and acting has never been shorter.

The real work

The real work isn’t choosing where to spend time.

It’s understanding why each space matters—and how they connect.

Because if you’re building a brand meant to disrupt, not follow,
you can’t afford to show up late to either conversation.

And increasingly, the brands that stay relevant won’t be built for the next generation —
they’ll be built with them.

That’s the philosophy behind “Co-Created”, debuting May 12th.

A recent piece from Vogue Business by the brilliant Hilary Milnes probes whether AI is becoming “basic.”

For the next generation, it already is.

They don’t see AI as innovation.
They see it as infrastructure — like WiFi, like search, like the camera on their phone. Always on. Always available. Expected.

Which means the conversation we’re having about AI — whether it’s disruptive, whether it’s transformative — is already behind.

Because when everyone has access to the same tools, access stops being the advantage.

So what becomes valuable?

Not speed. Not scale. Not “good enough.”

Taste.
The ability to know what matters before the data tells you.

Perspective.
A point of view that doesn’t come from the algorithm but from lived experience.

Curation.
In a world of infinite output, knowing what to leave out becomes the signal.

Community.
Not an audience you market to, but a group you build with.

AI doesn’t eliminate creativity.
It standardizes it.

It raises the floor: dramatically.
But in doing so, it lowers the barrier to participation.

And when everything becomes easier to make, harder questions emerge:

What’s actually original?
What feels human?
What’s worth paying attention to?

This is where luxury shifts.

Not to those with access to the best tools —
but to those with access to the most distinct point of view.

Not to brands that produce the most —
but to those that create with intention.

Not to those who control the narrative —
but to those willing to co-create it.

The question isn’t whether AI is the future of luxury.

It’s what remains rare when everything becomes easy.

And increasingly, the answer is simple:

Human judgment.
Human taste.
Human connection.

PS Vintage has been building online for some time.

This week, we’re bringing it into stores.

Not as a new business.

As a new layer of the brand.

Resale is crowded.

Vintage isn’t.

Because vintage isn’t about inventory.

It’s about taste.

What to keep.

What to bring back.

What feels relevant again—now.

PS Vintage is tightly curated:

one-of-one tees, denim, hoodies, jackets.

No excess.

No noise.

Just pieces that still have something to say.

We built it with our Youth Advisory Council—because culture moves faster than any brand can predict.

And we’re bringing it into Pacsun stores because discovery is physical.

This isn’t about scaling resale.

It’s about raising the bar for how it shows up.

Festival Season Isn’t Marketing. It’s Market Formation.

Festival season used to be a campaign.

Now it’s infrastructure.

If you want to understand where consumer behavior is going, don’t look at your funnel.

Look at the desert.

Every spring, the industry treats festivals as a moment —

a spike in attention, a series of brand activations, a seasonal push.

But that framing is already outdated.

What’s happening in the desert right now isn’t a campaign.

It’s a live, functioning system for how culture is created, distributed, and monetized.

And increasingly, it’s where demand actually begins.

From Campaigns to Culture Infrastructure

For years, brands approached festivals the same way:

show up, build something eye-catching, generate content, leave.

But the role of festivals has fundamentally shifted.

They are no longer touchpoints.

They are platforms.

Platforms where:

• identity is expressed in real time

• trends are validated instantly

• communities form and reform over the course of a weekend

In other words, festivals have become infrastructure for culture.

And infrastructure behaves differently than marketing:

• You don’t “turn it on and off”

• You don’t control it

• You participate in it — or you’re irrelevant to it

Why Music Sits at the Center

In our Pacsun Youth Report powered by Global Data, one insight stood above the rest:

Music is the #1 driver of identity for Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

Not fashion.

Not social platforms.

Not even creators.

Music.

And festivals are where music becomes physical —

where it moves from something you listen to,

to something you live inside.

That shift matters.

Because once identity becomes immersive,

it changes how products, brands, and experiences are adopted.

People don’t just buy into brands anymore.

They discover themselves through them.

The Funnel Is Gone. What Replaced It Is a Loop.

The traditional model was linear:

Awareness → Consideration → Purchase

But that’s not how this works anymore.

The modern system looks more like this:

Discovery (TikTok) →

Validation (IRL experience) →

Amplification (social sharing) →

Reinforcement (community + repeat exposure)

Then back again.

Festivals sit at the center of that loop.

They compress what used to take months

into a single weekend:

• a look becomes a trend

• a creator becomes a signal

• a product becomes a symbol

And by the time brands try to “market” into it,

the moment has already passed.

What Most Brands Still Get Wrong

Most brands still show up asking:

“How do we get attention here?”

The better question is:

“How do we belong here?”

Because the difference is everything.

Attention is rented.

Belonging is compounded.

The brands that win in these environments:

• don’t over-brand the moment

• don’t force messaging

• don’t treat it like a campaign

They build with the community,

they show up consistently,

and they understand that culture isn’t something you capture —

It’s something you co-create.

What This Means for the Next 5 Years

Festival season is a preview of where everything is going:

• Physical spaces will matter more, not less

• Identity will continue to be shaped through shared experiences

• The line between creator, consumer, and brand will keep dissolving

• And the companies that grow will be the ones designed to operate inside that system

Not outside of it.

A Final Thought

We often talk about “meeting the customer where they are.”

But increasingly, the question is:

Are you present where identity is being formed?

Because that’s where demand starts now.

Not in the funnel.

In the field.

This is part of a broader system I explore in my new book Co-Created — but you can already see it unfolding in real time this weekend.

When leadership shifts, you can feel it in the room

This week, I had the opportunity to join Newsweek’s Women’s Global Impact Conference, in partnership with Harvard Business Review.

I sat on a panel titled The CEO Mindset: How Women are Shaping Corporate Strategy and Growth, alongside Catherine Clay and Christiane Pendarvis, with thoughtful moderation from Jennifer H. Cunningham.

But what stayed with me wasn’t just the conversation on stage.

It was the feeling in the room.

There was a clear shift in how leadership is being defined.

Less about control.

More about connection.

Less about hierarchy.

More about participation.

Less about having all the answers.

More about building with others.

From theory to practice

These ideas aren’t new—but they’re being taken more seriously than ever before.

In our conversation, we talked about how strategy today is no longer built in isolation.

It’s shaped in real time—by teams, by communities, by culture.

And that requires a different kind of leadership.

One that is willing to:

• Listen before deciding

• Share ownership

• Move with speed and humility

• Build systems that invite participation, not just execution

This is the operating model I’ve experienced firsthand.

And it’s the foundation of Co-Created.

Why gifting the book mattered

At the conference, we placed the first copies of Co-Created into the hands of leaders in the room.

Not as a formality.

As an extension of the conversation.

Because the ideas we discussed on stage—

about purpose, empathy, transformation, and growth

are the same ideas explored in the book.

Not as theory.

But as practice.

What it actually looks like to build brands, teams, and cultures with people—not for them.

Moments like this matter.

Not because of the book itself— but because of what it represents.

A shift that is already underway.

What comes next

Co-Created officially releases May 12.

But this week marked something important for me —

the first time it reached the leaders it was written for.

And in many ways, that’s where the real work begins.

If you’re interested, pre-orders are now open:

Amazon:

https://a.co/d/04yoCVaY

Barnes & Noble:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/co-created-brieane-olson/1149465416?ean=9798887508078

Why most organizations agree with change and still can’t execute it.

Spend enough time inside organizations and you start to notice a pattern:

Most leaders don’t lack ideas.

They lack the ability to operate differently.

Ask any leadership team and you’ll hear the same things:

Be closer to the customer.

Move faster.

Empower creators.

Take more risks.

And yet very little actually changes.

Because the challenge isn’t conceptual.

It’s operational.

Most organizations are still built for a different era —

one that rewards control, predictability, and perfectly polished outcomes.

But the environment around them has changed.

Today, brands are shaped in real time — by creators, by community, by culture moving faster than any internal process can keep up with.

And that creates a gap.

A gap between what leaders say they believe — and how their organizations are actually designed to function.

You can see it in the small things:

Who gets a voice in the room.

How many layers a decision has to pass through.

How long it takes to move from idea to execution.

What gets approved — and what quietly dies.

Most companies don’t resist change because they disagree with it.

They resist it because their systems aren’t built to support it.

This week, I’ll be in conversations with students, creators, and industry leaders.

What I’m most interested in isn’t what people say they believe — rather how they’re actually operating.

Because the future won’t be defined by the best ideas.

It will be defined by the organizations willing to operate differently.

The first 1,000 copies of Co-Created arrived at our office this week.

There’s something different about seeing work that has lived in conversations, decisions, and day-to-day operations suddenly take physical form.

Not because it’s a book.

But because it forces a different kind of reflection.

For most of my career, I’ve been focused on building—teams, product, brand, partnerships. Moving quickly. Iterating constantly. Making decisions in real time.

Writing slows that down.

It requires you to step back and ask:

What do I actually believe?

What have we learned that is repeatable?

What isn’t working anymore — even if it used to?

And the more I sat with those questions, the clearer one thing became:

The shift happening in our industry isn’t about channels, or trends, or even technology.

It’s about who holds influence.

For years, brands operated with a kind of assumed authority. We created, we distributed, we told the story.

But that model is being rewritten.

Gen Z and Gen Alpha don’t just consume culture — they shape it.

They don’t wait to be told what’s next — they participate in creating it.

And yet, most organizations are still structured as if the brand has all the answers.

That gap shows up everywhere:

In product decisions that miss the mark.

In campaigns that don’t resonate.

In timelines that move too slowly for the speed of culture.

It’s not a marketing problem.

It’s an operating model problem.

What we’ve been working toward at Pacsun — and what I tried to capture in Co-Created — is a different approach.

One where the brand isn’t the sole author.

Where community isn’t an input at the end, but part of the process from the beginning.

Where listening is built into how decisions get made, not layered on after.

That sounds simple.

It isn’t.

Because it requires letting go of a level of control that most organizations are designed to protect.

It requires speed.

Trust.

And a willingness to be shaped by the people you’re building for.

Seeing the first copies arrive this week didn’t feel like an endpoint.

If anything, it felt like the beginning of a broader conversation.

One that I think many leaders are already sensing:

The old playbook still works—until it doesn’t.

And more and more, that line is getting closer.

This week I spent several days in a recording studio narrating the audiobook for Co-Created.

I’ve spent most of my career speaking in rooms filled with people — teams, students, investors, partners. But sitting alone in a studio, reading every word of the story out loud, felt very different.

Because when you hear the story back in your own voice, you realize something quickly:

No transformation is ever written by one person.

The Experience of Recording the Audiobook

Recording the audiobook forced me to slow down in a way writing never did.

When you write a book, you move forward chapter by chapter. You revise, edit, reshape. But when you narrate it, you sit with every moment again.

Every decision.

Every challenge.

Every turning point.

Some chapters brought me back to moments that felt uncertain when we were living them — moments when Pacsun was asking bigger questions about who we were and who we wanted to become.

Transformation is rarely a straight line. It’s a long series of conversations, experiments, risks, and recalibrations.

And what became even clearer to me while recording the audiobook is that the story in Co-Created is not really about a single company.

It’s about a different model of leadership.

A Different Way to Build a Brand

For most of my career in retail, the traditional belief was simple: brands define culture.

But over the last decade, something profound shifted.

Culture started moving faster than brands.

Young people, especially Gen Z and Gen Alpha, became creators, curators, and collaborators in the brands they care about.

And the companies that are thriving today aren’t the ones trying to control culture.

They’re the ones learning how to co-create it.

That idea became the foundation for Pacsun’s transformation, but it also became the foundation for this book.

The Voices Behind the Story

As I read the book out loud this week, I kept thinking about the many voices behind the pages.

Our Pacsun teams who pushed the brand forward.

The creators and partners who helped shape our perspective.

The young people whose ideas constantly challenge how we think about culture.

The story inside Co-Created is the product of thousands of conversations, debates, risks, and experiments.

And narrating the audiobook reminded me how many people shaped those chapters along the way.

Leadership may put your name on the cover.

But the real story is always written together.

Why This Story Felt Important to Share

Writing Co-Created pushed me outside my comfort zone.

I’ve spent nearly two decades helping lead Pacsun through reinvention, but stepping back to reflect on the journey — and the lessons behind it — was something entirely different.

It made me realize how much leadership has changed.

The future will belong to leaders who listen more than they speak.

Who collaborate more than they control.

And who understand that the most powerful ideas are often created together.

Co-Created releases May 12.

Recording the audiobook this week reminded me of something simple:

The story may be told in one voice. But it was never created by just one.

Thank you for being a part of Pacsun’s journey.

Brieane

For years, the narrative around retail felt settled.

The mall was fading.

E-commerce would replace it.

The next generation would shop almost entirely online.

And yet, when you spend time observing how Gen Z actually shops, a different story emerges.

This week, The Wall Street Journal explored that shift — looking at how Gen Z is bringing new energy back to physical retail. I was honored to contribute a perspective from Pacsun at the end of the piece, but the reality is something our teams see every day.

Gen Z discovers culture online.

But they experience brands in person.

A TikTok trend might spark the idea.

A creator might introduce the aesthetic.

But the store is where the moment becomes real.

What many people misunderstand about Gen Z is that they are not choosing between digital and physical retail. They move fluidly between both.

They scroll.

They share.

They show up.

Stores today aren’t simply places to buy something. They are places to meet friends, capture content, try on identity, and participate in culture.

In many ways, the mall is becoming social again — just in a form that looks very different from the malls many of us grew up with.

For brands, this shift requires a different mindset.

You can’t design retail environments solely around transactions.

You have to design them around experience, culture, and community.

At Pacsun, we’ve seen that when young consumers feel invited into the brand — when they can shape it, participate in it, and see themselves reflected in it — the store becomes more than a place to shop.

It becomes a place to belong.

That’s the real shift happening right now in retail.

The future won’t be built for the next generation.

It will be built with them.

https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/gen-z-shopping-mall-visits-15716009?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqf6W4tKjq4YAflHmxM6JCSQ1ZR71ZdFLNJ2YqnemjLEn2d0is9v5iY_&gaa_ts=69ad81d2&gaa_sig=6-5t7_LKJJLlfIzeaHaQZP0XAQKnxHzJ2wIfcm-0VkuIxHNWARDGy1mzDn1rUHuIxAwwuLBZS9HyK_ij1c2HHQ%3D%3D

Power of (Co) Creation

Why choosing reflection over speed may be the most radical act of modern leadership

There’s something quietly radical about choosing depth right now.

We live in a moment engineered for acceleration.

Headlines over nuance.

Reaction over reflection.

Speed over stewardship.

And yet, writing a book required the opposite.

It required sitting with decisions long after the meeting ended. Revisiting seasons of leadership from the past. Examining not just what worked — but where we fell short.

Putting language to your leadership is an exposing exercise.

You see where urgency crowded out empathy.

Where conviction edged too close to control.

Where collaboration changed an outcome in ways authority alone never could.

The manuscript for (Co) Created came together in under a year. The perspective behind it was shaped over two decades.

Through reinvention.

Through rebuilding.

Through learning — often the hard way — that culture cannot be dictated. It must be invited in.

What surprised me most about writing wasn’t the time commitment.

It was the clarity.

When you slow down enough to trace the arc of your own decisions, patterns emerge. You begin to see the fingerprints — not just your own, but everyone’s.

Teammates who challenged assumptions.

Young voices who demanded we think differently.

Partners who saw around corners.

Mentors who steadied perspective when the path felt uncertain.

While my name will be on the cover, the thinking never belonged to me alone.

Depth forces humility.

And perhaps that’s the tension of modern leadership.

In an era that rewards velocity, choosing reflection can feel inefficient. Writing can feel indulgent. Slowing down can feel risky.

But if we want to build a roadmap forward for our youth — we need leaders willing to examine how they lead, not just what they produce.

My hope is that this book contributes to that conversation.

Not as a victory lap.

But as an invitation.

The next era of leadership will not be authored by a single voice.

It will be co-created.

(Co) Created will be released May 12.

If this perspective resonates, I hope you’ll consider joining the early readers already part of the journey. Preorders quietly matter more than most people realize — they shape how far an idea can travel.

I’m deeply grateful to those helping this one reach beyond my own voice.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/co-created-brieane-olson/1149465416?ean=9798887508078

What Culture Looks Like as an Operating System

At its highest level, culture as an operating system means:

1. Insight isn’t outsourced. It’s institutionalized.

Youth insight shouldn’t live inside one campaign deck. It should shape product design, tech investments, partnership selection, even hiring.

2. Community isn’t audience. It’s architecture.

When you build platforms for participation — not just consumption — loyalty becomes a byproduct, not a KPI.

3. Speed comes from proximity.

The closer leadership is to real-time consumer behavior, the less reactive the organization becomes.

4. Creativity and discipline coexist.

Cultural fluency without operational rigor is noise.

Operational rigor without cultural fluency is irrelevance.

You need both.

What Boards Should Be Asking in 2026

If I were sitting in a boardroom today, I wouldn’t ask:

• “What’s the marketing plan?”

I’d ask:

• How are we structurally capturing cultural insight?

• Where does youth intelligence inform capital allocation?

• How are AI and technology amplifying proximity to our consumer?

• Is culture measurable inside our organization — or only visible on Instagram?

Because in a volatile year — tariffs, traffic shifts, AI disruption, fragmented media — the advantage doesn’t go to the loudest brand.

It goes to the most structurally aligned one.

Culture Is a Growth Lever — If You Treat It Like One

The mistake is assuming culture is soft.

Culture drives:

• Product relevance

• Full-price sell-through

• Partnership credibility

• Talent attraction

• Margin durability

When it’s embedded systemically, it becomes defensible.

When it’s seasonal, it becomes expensive.

The Real Shift

The future belongs to organizations that stop chasing youth and start learning from them.

Not through trend reports.

Through participation.

Not through campaigns.

Through co-creation.

That’s not a slogan.

It’s a structural choice.

And in the next decade, it will separate the brands that perform culture from the ones that operationalize it.

If this resonates, I’d love to hear:

What does culture look like inside your organization — a campaign or a system?