Linda Larsen German: A Tribute to an Industry Icon, a Tribute to a Friend

Linda Larsen German passed from this world on November 9, 2021, after a noble battle with a health-related issue. She was the president of Liz Claiborne Retail where we both served under her prior to our launch of Olson-Ng Retail Consulting Group.?She is one of those rare people in our careers that left an indelible mark, a positive mark, a mark of strength and support and understanding and ultimately, of friendship.?We could not allow this moment to pass without paying tribute to her.?Ed Jankowski, a friend, colleague and former VP of Stores for Liz Retail who also reported to Linda recently posted a wonderful tribute to her on Facebook.?Among Ed’s words and responses to it were descriptors of Linda that included “wonderful inspirational and aspirational woman,” “warmth, intelligence and pure sparkle who enriched all of our lives,” “we loved and respected working with her,” and “Her patience, willingness to listen and learn, calm and rational demeanor and sheer intelligence are forever etched into my memory”.?

These and more only begin to describe Linda, an incredible woman, an incredible leader, an incredible amount of talent, kindness, intelligence, calmness, ?reasonableness and yes, sparkle, wrapped into one human being.

When Linda joined us at Liz Retail, she inherited an established and accomplished team of senior level executives assembled by our previous president.?By then, we had catapulted the store base from 22 to 110, tripling volume from $50 million to $175 million by converting the First Issue stores (a former division of Liz Claiborne) to Liz Claiborne, Elisabeth and Claiborne for Men stores.?In this conversion process, we pushed to liquidate the inventories of the former First Issue stores on our own, rather than use a liquidator.?In the end, we saved $13 million in expenses by not using a third-party liquidator.?We had opened the first Liz Claiborne flagship store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, a multi-level store which showcased all that the Liz Claiborne brand was known for, and a store adorned with the incredible glass artwork of Dale Chihuly.?We were surprised to have Liza Minnelli show up early one morning during a best-seller meeting there, asking us to help her before the store opened.?She needed a dress to wear for a televised event that night.?With her appearance in the dress, it went on to become a best seller.?

With Ed as VP for Stores, we had Robin Scheer Ettinger as VP for Marketing, creating messaging, customer and brand reach which consistently resonated with our diverse customer base of working, casual and sporty women, all crossing petites and plus sizes, and men.?We had Linda Lombardi in Visual Merchandising deftly connecting our product offerings visually with our customers, creating compelling and exciting displays, windows and floor sets.?We had Steve McCarthy as our Financial Controller, with a laser-sharp focus on budgets and expenses and Kim Ng as our Merchandise Controller, with laser-sharp focus on merchandise budgets, promotional budgets and inventory.?

Maria Leo was the General Merchandise Director of all of Liz product and all Men’s product, exploiting key items and business drivers and transforming a “department-store” approach to merchandising to the critical “specialty-store” approach.?She kept a keen and constant focus on product performance as it related to our customers while working magic in floor sets with the visual team. ?Always one to rely on the analysis of her Planning partners, Maria wasn’t afraid to take calculated risks, and once for holiday sales, she ordered 20,000 silk knit tops, given the style’s recent sales history.?She had a little pushback from corporate as this was the largest order ever received by them from one client for one item.?The knit tops were delivered and almost sold out to the piece, the last of which sold with a planned 25% off promotion.?

And, we had Olivia Ziegler Roberts, whose mother was an icon in the retail industry, often taking Olivia in her early childhood on store visits and selling floor and stock room reviews.?Olivia, as the General Merchandise Director for the Elisabeth stores, had the good fortune of aligning her superb retail knowledge with Linda Larsen’s product knowledge as founder of the Elisabeth line to work yet, another type of magic.?Olivia, together with Ed, opened one of the first full-line specialty store chains for plus-size, career-focused women, offering both apparel and accessories in a comfortable environment.?At a time when the Elisabeth line and other plus-size brands were relegated to obscure locations in department stores, Olivia, together with Linda Lombardi, brought the Elisabeth line unabashedly front and center, showcasing the Elisabeth apparel and accessories in store windows on beautiful plus-size mannequins, often for the first time in some malls and street locations.?And, Olivia spent generous time in her stores, acting incognito as a Sales Associate, wardrobing and selling to her customers first hand to learn of their comments, complaints and wishes about the product.?

With Rod serving as VP for Planning and Allocation, he set in motion each brand’s first pre-season planning process at the category level, key item unit planning process and Monthly Business Review and Forecasting process.?His organization started analyzing store performance, creating ranking and indexing by product category to ensure the right product was in the right stores at the right time, and clustering stores into segments based on demographics and customer responses.?Clara Rivera as the Director of Allocation ran a tight ship, insisting on extensive analysis each week from her Allocation Team on item sales, adjusting allocations and partnering with the Merchants and Store Teams for re-orders when product was selling out.

All this happened over the course of about 1.5 years.?Yep, it did.

In looking back, it was a daunting task we all accepted and it was heroic to say the least.?And, it was all done while actively running three businesses, hiring and training new teams, implementing a new planning system, converting our systems to the NRF Retail Fiscal Calendar, and migrating to a new Merchandise Hierarchy.?

And then, we all came to work one day to find our then president no longer with the company.

We were stunned.?No, shocked.? But there is always a new door that opens….

In walked Linda Larsen.

She was an immediate calming voice and presence among a bewildered group of executives.?Her demeanor was soothing.?She spoke softly but with direction, was inquisitive but not judgmental.?It quickly became evident that she wanted to learn us, her team, who we were, what we had done.?She made it clear without stating it overtly that she wasn’t there to radically change the process or successes we had worked so hard to put into place.?She wanted to learn how we operated the businesses, taking much time to learn the details of specialty retailing, managing inventories, operating stores, being on the front line of satisfying customers.?We quickly came to recognize her as confident, skilled, professional, warm, personable, smart and savvy.

Linda “Had us at hello”.?It never changed.?

Linda’s credentials were quite impressive at Liz Claiborne:?EVP, Corporate Merchandising Design; President of Liz Claiborne Joint Sportswear Divisions (volume responsibility greater than $1 Billion); VP of Sales for Petite Sportswear; Member of Corporate Executive Council; Founder and Head of the Design Union; Corporate Involvement for Mergers, Acquisitions, and Start-Ups; and of course, Founder and President of the ?Elisabeth Division, growing revenues to $150 million in less than 3 years.?Yes, not just “President” of the Elisabeth line, but “Founder” of the Elisabeth concept and division.?

We all knew her from her position in Corporate; Olivia knew her a little better than the rest of us.?As is the thought of everyone when these situations occur, was she there to “clean house” of us??The business was doing well and certainly, Elisabeth was double-digit comping while experiencing every retailer’s dream of running on 8 weeks of supply and presenting challenges of staying in stock due to escalating customer demand.?

The first week was filled with nervous energy.?Later, Linda told us she felt the same.?Linda met with each of us, spending extended periods of time learning the business and learning our roles and responsibilities.?There was no “big bang” change as is often the case with a new president.?She listened.?She took notes.?She asked questions.?She asked them again.?She wanted to know the history and evolution of the business during our tenures.?With Rod, she spent time learning the pre-season planning processes and all the metrics used to support a solid, profitable plan.?She wanted to understand how inventories were controlled in a specialty store, since they are designed to fluctuate in response to sales.?She was amazed at the level of detail that we discussed in a Monthly Business Review and the level of detail in unit planning.?She asked what a Merchandise Controller does and when learning their responsibilities for the single largest investment of a retailer – the inventory – she simply said, “That sounds important”.???

Together with Maria, Olivia and Rod, she was further amazed that each item purchased was purchased with an intended life, with an estimated ROI, and was bought knowing beforehand where it would reside in the stores.?She listened intently as we explained that product on the entrance tables to the stores were bought to produce X amount of sales and margin while drawing the customers into the stores.?She came to understand how customers tend to look to the right when entering a store, learning the importance of always having exciting, new product there to attract them over to it.

Meetings with her were easy discussions.?Always collaborative.?Always friendly.?Always a little fun thrown in.?When business was good, Linda was excitedly calm; when business wasn’t achieving plan, she calmly worked on the solutions to course correct it with us.?She took responsibility.?She was a forward thinker and amazingly right about trends.?She was involved in the details but had her eyes on the big picture.?She got her hands dirty, side by side with us.?She wasn’t afraid to personally move product in stores if she felt it needed a stronger location, or refold a sweater that was on a display table.?She laughed, she giggled, she sat down in front of us at our desks to talk and discuss business.?She asked about our personal lives without prying.?It was clear that she cared about us and our successes as much as she cared about the success of the business.?Her approach, in whatever direction she took, was always toward the positive.

Linda assimilated herself into the company.?She was never perceived as “sitting at the head of the table”; she sat with us at the table.?Yet, her impact evolved and was felt both within our division and in Corporate.?Maria suddenly had no further problems with her product selections or deliveries of the Liz Claiborne lines; Olivia suddenly was having product made specifically for her Elisabeth stores.?Linda very early recognized the evolution of casual dressing for career women and established a test store in which the entire product offering was casual dressing for office wear.?Converting an existing Liz store format, she set up the casual store herself… hands on… together with Maria, Clara and Linda Lombardi.?Our Strategic Meetings with Corporate were real discussions on the business, business opportunities and forecasts.?And yes, as Ed had related in his Facebook post, “The best story was Linda always wore her preppy sweaters over her shoulders and at one of our first board meetings with CEO Paul Charon, we all showed up with sweaters over our shoulders . She was hysterical but smiled because she knew we loved and respected working with her.”?

Ed went on to post, “Linda challenged her executive team to think out of the box, and brought a fresh, new perspective to our retail divisions.?We worked hard, had much fun and would do anything for Linda.”?She was the consummate professional, the consummate leader, always with a smile.?She was real.?She was genuine.?She was kind and pleasant and mesmerizing in her conversations and could “call it like it is” in the most congenial manner.?

Yet too, she was humble.?She never spoke of her accomplishments.?Most of us didn’t know until we read her obituary that In 1994, The New York Times chose Linda as one of the “125 Top Achieving Women in America.”?She worked her way up the corporate ladder, helping to grow Liz Claiborne into a Fortune 500 company.

Well, there were two areas Linda wasn’t modest about:?Her loving husband David German and her daughter Emily.?There aren’t enough words to describe the delight on her face and in her voice when she spoke of them.

Her leadership team has all often wondered what would have happened, given the trajectory we were on with Linda, if our Xanadu could have continued with her at the helm.?But, a board decision decided otherwise for the Liz Retail division.?After our Liz days were over, Linda, Ed, Robin, Maria, Olivia, Rod and Steve all stayed in touch.?For many years we arranged “Liz Dinners” to meet, dine, laugh and reminisce.?We were all fortunate to remain friends with her after the Liz days were over. That in itself speaks volumes about her... much loved by all of us for the person she was in addition to the president she was.?Our personal friendships with Linda, continued over many lunches with her as well as assisting her in some of her later consulting work while sitting at her kitchen table.?

Linda has earned a special place in history next to Liz Claiborne herself, and co-founders Jerry Chazen and Liz’s husband, Arthur Ortenberg: All Icons in the Industry, now joined by Linda.?

She was a giant in her field and a giant in the hearts of her former executive team of Ed, Robin, Maria, Olivia, Steve, Linda Lombardi, Clara, Kim and Rod.

Rod Olson and Kim Ng

Olson-Ng Retail Consulting Group

www.olsonng.com