421. How Nuuly is shaping the future of fashion rental
Kim Gallagher, Executive Director of Marketing and Customer Success at Nuuly, discusses her career journey from waitressing to leading a fashion rental startup, her leadership philosophy emphasizing speed and decisiveness, and her vision for the future of retail centered on rental, resale, and customer-first approaches.
Summary
Kim Gallagher shares her unconventional path to retail leadership, beginning with summer jobs as a waitress at the Jersey Shore, which she credits with teaching her multitasking and hustle mentality. After studying American Studies at Georgetown, she worked in PR and direct marketing before earning an MBA from Wharton, where she developed a focus on customer analytics and data-driven decision-making. Her retail career began at Urban Outfitters' Anthropologie brand in 2011, where she eventually moved into a digital strategy role around 2017. During this period, she observed retail disruption from e-commerce and DTC brands, leading her and colleagues Dave Hain and Joe Stratter to propose a new venture within URBN. This evolved into Nuuly, launched around 2018-2019 as a fashion rental and subscription service. Kim describes her decision to move from a management role to an individual contributor strategy position as a pivotal career risk that brought her closer to technology and the broader retail landscape. At Nuuly, she intentionally combined marketing with customer success, recognizing that rental's relationship-dependent business model required customer success to be a strategic cornerstone rather than a cost center. Her leadership philosophy emphasizes moving fast and being decisive at 70% certainty rather than pursuing perfection, as slow deliberation creates stale offerings. She advocates for consensus-building, collaboration with peers, and sharing ideas before meetings to improve decision-making. Regarding retail's future, Kim argues that rental and resale represent fundamental shifts in how consumers access fashion, particularly among Gen Z and Gen Alpha who will not approach ownership as previous generations did. She emphasizes that retailers must adopt customer-first thinking rather than product-first approaches, focusing first on understanding customer events, activities, and needs before building assortment. She stays current on industry trends through social media, newsletters like After School and LinkinBio, and real-world observation of customer behavior. Being recognized in the NRF Foundation's 2027 class of retail leaders moving forward is deeply meaningful to her, though she credits her success to her team, boss, and peers.
About this episode
<p>Fashion rental is changing how consumers think about their closets, and Nuuly has been helping shape that shift since launching in 2019. Kim Gallagher, executive director of marketing and customer success at Nuuly, discusses the origins of the rental business, the importance of staying close to customers, and why moving quickly and decisively matters in retail. She also shares her approach to leadership and what changing consumer behaviors could mean for the future of the industry.</p><p></p><p>(00:00:00) From the service industry to retail</p><p>(00:05:35) Building Nuuly around the customer</p><p>(00:13:25) Taking risks and leading through change</p><p>(00:23:20) Keeping up with changing customer behavior</p><p></p><p>The National Retail Federation is the world’s largest retail trade association.</p><p>Every day, we passionately stand up for the people, policies and ideas that help retail succeed.</p><p></p><p>Resources:</p><p>• Get ready for NRF 2027: <a href="https://nrfbigshow.nrf.com/?utm_source=NRF.com&utm_medium=Home_CTA&utm_term=Save%2B300&utm_content=MK_AN25_nrfcom_RegDL_092424&utm_campaign=MK_AN25" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Retail’s Big Show in NYC</a></p><p>• <a href="https://nrf.com/membership/nrf-membership" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Become an NRF member</a> and join the world’s largest retail trade association</p><p>• Learn about the NRF Foundation at <a href="https://nrffoundation.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">nrffoundation.org</a></p><p>• Learn about retail advocacy at <a href="https://nrf.com/advocacy" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">nrf.com/advocacy</a></p><p>• Find more episodes at <a href="https://retailgetsreal.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">retailgetsreal.com</a></p><p></p><p>Related:</p><p>• <a href="https://nrf.com/podcast/how-brieane-olson-is-shaping-the-future-of-youth-retail-at-pacsun" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">412: How Brieane Olson is shaping the future of youth retail at Pacsun</a></p><p>• <a href="https://nrf.com/podcast/leading-carhartt-through-growth-culture-and-change" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">413: Leading Carhartt through growth, culture and change</a></p><p>• <a href="https://nrf.com/podcast/building-a-people-first-culture-in-modern-retail-with-ulta-beauty" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">403: Building a people-first culture in modern retail with Ulta Beauty</a></p>
Key Insights
- Gallagher argues that adopting a 70% certainty threshold for decisions allows organizations to move fast enough to remain relevant, whereas pursuing perfection causes offerings to feel late and stale.
- She claims that Nuuly's success stems from intentionally combining marketing with customer success, treating customer success as a strategic business driver for retention rather than just a cost center.
- Gallagher contends that rental adoption among everyday consumers (not just for special occasions) indicates a fundamental shift in ownership attitudes, particularly among younger generations who will not approach wardrobe ownership the same way previous generations did.
- She argues that moving from a management role back to an individual contributor strategy position, though feeling risky at the time, was crucial to her career success because it gave her space to think strategically about retail evolution and provided access to technology expertise.
- Gallagher states that retailers need more customer-first mindsets that begin by understanding customer activities and events before building assortment, rather than adopting a 'build it and they will come' product-first approach.
Topics
Transcript
My leadership philosophy, I think one of the key things, how I try to lead and how I try to impart on the team as well. You need to move pretty fast and be decisive. And that means that you don't always get it right. So you need to be like 70 percent sure and then you need to commit and you need to take accountability for it. Because when you move too slow and you try to get it perfect, you miss the boat. Like what you create feels too late, too stale. Welcome to Retail Gets Real, where we talk with retail's most fascinating leaders about the industry that impacts everyone, everywhere, every day. Today, we're visiting with…
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