Stronger Together: When One Pioneer Meets Another

To celebrate International Women’s Day 2022, we sat down (virtually) with the founders of Kno Global and Anews Studios, Marianne Hughes and Sharon Tsang, to learn more about their collaboration and what motivates them to continue transforming the fashion supply chain one impactful step at a time.

How did you two meet?

Marianne: We connected over Instagram in Fall 2021, realising we had common connections and mutual interests. We shared the same goal of meeting more factories directly and shifting the focus away from brands. With Sharon’s expertise and knowledge of working with factories, it was an obvious match!?

Sharon: A coffee date in Central then grew out of our Instagram conversations. As a fellow female entrepreneur in Hong Kong, I wanted to see if there were synergies between our respective companies. It was quite serendipitous as it was the right time to join forces to do more good in fashion based on where Kno Global was going.

What brought Anew Studios and Kno Global together and what’s on the horizon?

Sharon: I love that Kno Global is focused on humanising the supply chain, empowering workers to voice their perspectives in a safe, anonymous way to encourage more honest and transparent conversations with factory management. This is something that is often overlooked in annual audits, where answers may be rehearsed or reflective of the best answer workers should say rather than saying what is really on their minds. By introducing the Kno Global platform and its technology to more manufacturers, we can facilitate true transparency in the supply chain. I want to empower manufacturers and give them the proactive tools in preparing themselves rather than being inactive, waiting for brands to ask them to tick the boxes.?

A lot of times in our industry, most don’t feel comfortable with sharing contacts, but to me, contacts come down to relationships. I can give away any name, but it takes time to build relationships, so I don’t have the resistance of sharing my contacts with collaborators because it is up to them how they build that relationship. I already know if certain people are going to value that sharing of the contact or they are just going to take it and go. With Marianne, it’s been very mutual and respectful. We’ve had several calls in the past couple of months since we officially collaborated, pitching to manufacturers and brands.

Marianne: Collaboration speeds up the pace of change, particularly with social and sustainability goals. By working together, we can reach more factories quicker and ultimately the people involved in the production cycle, whether it is the workers or consumers.?

Sharon facilitated an introduction to a brand she was already working with, setting up a meeting in which we shared a proposal of what it would look like to use the Kno Global platform. Looking to the future, hopefully we can have more calls with pioneering factories that recognise the business value of doing sustainability and ethics right—seeing it as an opportunity to grow their business whilst also reducing cost on the labour turnover side. It’s been a good partnership so far, because it helps us both to grow and meet new people together, which has a direct benefit on our own businesses. This can lead us to so many more opportunities that we haven’t thought of before, especially on the consumer side.

What motivates you to make an impact in the fashion industry? How did you start?

Sharon: I had always wanted to be a fashion designer, but I did a degree in business instead before getting a diploma in fashion merchandising. I worked my way up from an inventory allocation position, then got transferred to the import department. I learned from this mentor who had worked at Li & Fung and taught me everything about supply chains. Then, I went to work for a women’s fashion retailer in Vancouver, where I learned all about clothing types, materials, product development stages and sourcing for a decade. I was always really good at negotiation and vendor relations, because I could communicate with vendors in Cantonese while understanding what designers and brands had wanted, so I have always been this middleman bridge.?

I moved to Hong Kong in 2013 to help a clothing brand build their sourcing office in Asia, but they had to close everything down in 2017 because they grew too quickly, having gone from zero to 65 stores in two years. I was standing in a warehouse at Lau Fau Shan, selling rolls of fabric to whoever would take it by the truck load—they were nice cashmere fabrics too! We had over-projected and kept buying, because you always planned one year in advance. I knew I couldn't do this again. The industry is so cyclical and something has to change, it’s just so wasteful. You can’t unsee that. I don’t even know where all those beautiful fabrics ended up, probably got shredded and gone into the landfill.?

After that I took six months off, during which I met Christina Dean, founder of Redress, and was in awe of her knowledge on sustainability and conscious fashion. I thought that if someone who was not from the industry could do that, I should be able to do more, knowing what I know in the supply chain. I took on consulting projects with start-up brands through word-of-mouth and wore many hats. I realised that I thrive in the start-up environment, where you get to see projects from start to finish. This is what I really enjoy doing—making small, impactful changes by project.?

By starting Anew Studios, I hope to engage and mentor new brands by helping them navigate the sourcing of materials and production, so they can be more mindful of how design impacts the product’s end of life, moving towards a circular economy. I also want to help factories, who are so used to the buyers being always right. I want to change that power dynamic, now that I am in Asia and having worked on the brand side.?

Marianne: I was a regular consumer on the high street around eight years ago, when Rana Plaza in Bangladesh collapsed in 2018, killing over 1,000 workers at a factory. Then, I wanted to find out more about where my clothes had come from and who had made them. I started out with a blog and interviewed people in the field, trying to find out more but still couldn’t get the answers that I wanted. I went out to China and spent about two years living close by some factories, eventually getting employed at a factory in northern China. I got to experience life from the line and understand what it was like to be a factory worker. Along my journey, I worked with a couple of fashion pioneers, like Christina Dean and Rakhee Shah, founder of Maisha Concept, which is an African fashion brand based in Hong Kong that sources ethically made fabrics from Kenya. I’ve also met key people in the fashion industry through my journalistic work, such as former Editor of Vogue International Suzy Menkes, getting to hear from big people about what the industry needs to change.

What motivates me is definitely topics related to the workers, like how we can reach more women particularly in supply chains, because over 80% of workers are female in the garment industry. It genuinely is a motivation because I have experienced this myself and want to help some of these women who literally have no options, nowhere to go and no awareness. I want to drive awareness across the supply chain of the gender-based violence and issues that women experience.

What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced in transforming existing fashion industry practices??

Sharon: It is always a challenge to be the pioneer. The model that Anew Studios has set up is a new concept for Asia, as the conventional practice here is to set up as a trading company between brands and manufacturers, rather than working with or on behalf of the client as an extension of their team. The biggest challenge has been changing people’s mindsets, mostly getting manufacturers to understand how I work and the value that we can add.

Marianne: I agree people’s mindsets are the number one thing that is hard to change on so many levels, on the brand side and the factory side. For the brand side, it’s about managing the expectations of the pace of change, especially when some of them haven’t had a lot of experience with the factory side. It’s hard for them to grasp how long it takes to tackle gender-based issues like harassment; that’s not going to be fixed overnight. For factory managers, I definitely do see a similar challenge, but they are more motivated to change. They face more direct impact if things go wrong, whereas for brands, they can always switch suppliers and mitigate their risks.?

For many factories, they are not in control of all their risk factors, so it can be really threatening to their business. This is particularly the case with the brand side’s local teams, especially in China or Southeast Asia. Getting them to shift their mindsets away from audit and control, and towards collaboration and openness is really challenging, because it changes the whole supplier-brand relationship dynamics, so the brands are no longer in control and policing them when issues come up but supporting, encouraging and tracking improvements instead. That’s where we are trying to get people to anyway, it’s a massive step change. It’s important to work with pioneers like Sharon, and brands and factories that get it, so we can demonstrate to others how it could be done.

What have been the most pleasant surprises in your journeys so far?

Sharon: The interconnectedness of the network. Five degrees of separation is so real and I have experienced it as I build my business. My motto is always to treat others as I would like to be treated. This has helped to build the ecosystem that I rely on when facing new challenges.

Marianne: I’ve had pleasant surprises in our journey together as well. The openness to collaborate that I’ve experienced with Sharon, in terms of the willingness to introduce us to your contacts. A lot of people would have hesitated, but you haven’t done that. You’ve been open and willing, and I know it takes trust, so I really appreciate that. This links back to my journey in general: the number of mentors I’ve found along the way and people I have learned from. I am still relatively young to be what I’m doing, especially when I started out. I really appreciate it when those who are more experienced are willing to give me their time to share their lessons and expertise. I’m even learning from the conversations we’ve had in the pitches!

Why are partnerships important to entrepreneurs? How are you better together?

Marianne: When you are starting a business as a pioneer, you can feel isolated and alone. But by coming together as pioneers, you feel less alone on the journey—you can support and encourage each other. What makes our partnership so valuable is that pioneers attract other pioneers. So by knowing you I get to meet more people like you who are also pioneers, and you know they are going to get it, and that is gold. Otherwise, we are constantly trying to figure out if these people are going to get it or not and you can waste so much time, whereas now through you we can reach other pioneers too.??

Sharon: As a small enterprise, especially a female-led business, it’s important to support each other, and to learn and grow together. Each business has its own focus, but when you zoom out and frame it as a wider mission for this industry, joining forces as two companies can bring new, fresh perspectives that help our companies grow. If something is great for the industry, why not share it with more stakeholders?

I have worked for brands for most of my career, but I have also travelled to factories and seen what’s actually happening there versus what buyers usually hear of. On the other hand, you have worked at a factory and seen it first hand: the reality is not as peachy as how brands have marketed it to be. I think that’s what clicked when we first met. What makes us better is that I can help filter vendors who are ready for Kno Global, then you don’t have to go through various meetings, tweak and re-edit what you’re trying to do to convince them.

How do you redefine collaboration?

Sharon: When we talked about working together, it wasn’t motivated by monetary considerations but about creating change. Doing the work first and seeing what comes out of it, then defining the monetary part. Sometimes things cannot be easily measured initially and you need trust to collaborate. You try it out and see if you can work together. There are times when you just have a gut instinct about people, their missions and values. I’ve operated in that sense. In first meetings, I always have this gut instinct about people and I know if I want to continue working with them and build the relationship or not. I have trusted it throughout my career and it has paid back in so many ways.?

Marianne: It’s like a give and take. You assess whether you want to build the relationship, as it does take time and a conscious effort. My frustration is that sometimes these collaborations get stuck at the meeting stage for months on end, constantly trying to get the right people involved. Perhaps because we are both proactive and decision makers, running our businesses, we quickly were willing to take risks, jump in and be open to learning new things. It’s this openness that is missing, a willingness to actually collaborate that makes a difference. That’s what we have proven by just getting started, because with collaboration you can’t just talk about it like a theory—you have to act on it.?

Can you each tell us something you admire about the other person?

Sharon: I give kudos to Marianne for working at a factory in China sewing trousers as part of her journey, going from being a customer to creating the platform for Kno Global! This is really an app built by a former worker for workers at a grassroots level, rather than having a bird’s eye view of the situation from a remote brand’s headquarters.

Marianne: I respect and admire the fact that you have jumped from working on the brand side to taking the initiative to change the system. That’s the similar thing between us, trying to change the system for the brands so they don’t have to go down the same unsustainable route. It requires stepping out of the company in order to create those systems. You could’ve easily stayed where you were and continued complaining—I meet a lot of people who do that and are unwilling to jump out and create change. It takes so much bravery to strike out alone, start your own business and get the right people.?

We need role models like yourself, and more examples of businesses like ours partnering together to show that even though it is scary doing that alone, you don’t have to be completely doing it alone, and there are others like you. It’s quite rare that we’ve met, but hopefully it will happen more often, and more people can meet and realise they share so much in common, and it is okay to collaborate. It’s kind of demystifying how collaborations can happen on the ground, because we’ve both had experiences of being on the ground. We know what it takes—the blood, sweat and tears that go into it—but we are willing to do it.

This is the first full interview for Anew Studios’s ongoing series of ‘In Good Company’, which features our strategic supply chain partners (Instagram account: @anew.studios).

About Marianne Hughes

Marianne is the Founder and CEO of KNO Global, with a vision to humanise the supply chain and reach 10m factory workers globally.

KNO Global is used by brands such as Target, Decathlon and Marks and Spencer to track worker well-being across their supply chain. The approach starts by building community in the factory, before launching their app and analysing real-time data.?

Marianne started out as a regular consumer when a factory famously collapsed in Bangladesh. She set out to discover who made her clothes, and ended up working on the line at a factory in China. Along the journey she has become a thought leader on ethical fashion.?

She recently won She Loves Tech Hong Kong, part of the largest competition for female founders globally. She has raised angel, government and VC funding and regularly speaks on the topic of women in business.

About Sharon Tsang

Born in Hong Kong and raised between Hong Kong and Vancouver, Sharon has always wanted to work in the fashion industry, and pursued a commerce degree from University of British Columbia and further studies in fashion merchandising.

Fast forward to now, she has accumulated over 16 years of experience in business operations, manufacturing, buying, merchandising and material innovation. Sharon has grown fashion and accessories brands through her network of suppliers all over Asia, Europe, and North America, and has a collaborative vendor approach when navigating the cultural nuances across a global supply chain.

Having seen firsthand the textile waste generated by the fashion industry, Sharon founded Anew Studios in 2020 as a commitment to be a part of the circular fashion solution after working independently as an in-house consultant for various startup brands. Her vision is to work from the ground up with entrepreneurs and founders to scale their brands in a sustainable way, and to encourage manufacturers to explore more people and planet-friendly business models.

Images Credit: '2013 Savar Building Collapse' By Sharat Chowdhury - Sharat Chowdhury's facebook album, permission given by email, CC BY 2.5)