What it takes to be a top retail leader today at companies like Oura, E.l.f. Beauty and Amazon

Tariffs, of course, were one of the biggest themes that defined retail this year. Mandy Fields, chief financial officer at E.l.f. Beauty, had to help her company navigate not only price hikes this year, but also a high-stakes $1 billion acquisition of Rhode. Meanwhile, every retailer is trying to figure out how to connect with the Gen-Z consumer, and that’s been the big focus for Shea Jensen, president of North America at Urban Outfitters, who, for the past two years, has focused on reinvigorating a brand that was once a staple of young millennials’ closets. 

In these profiles, a few themes came up again and again. The industry is changing faster than ever, and today’s leaders are expected to adapt quickly, avoid being too beholden to the way things have historically been done, and keep their teams focused on solving near-term challenges while staying true to their long-term vision.  

Here are the three biggest leadership lessons exemplified by this year’s People Who Shaped Retail: 

Today’s executives need to be willing to get into the weeds of a problem 

What makes Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt a great leader, according to the company’s senior director of book strategy Shannon DeVito, is his willingness to challenge longstanding ways of doing business. 

“A lot of times, he’ll poke and ask questions so that you think more critically about what you’re doing, and not just do it because you’ve always done it that way, or because that’s how you think you should do it.” DeVito said. “He’s always open to debate. It’s not his way or the highway.” 

That was a sentiment echoed by the colleagues of many of the top executives we profiled. Today’s retail executives are expected not only to come up with a high-level strategy, but also to get hands-on and really into the weeds of the problem. Stephanie Landry, a retail veteran who spent two decades at Amazon, described  the company’s newly named vip of Amazon Worldwide Grocery Stores, Jason Buechel, as someone who is “hard-working, focused, hands-on and not someone who shies away from getting into the details of a problem.” 

When Shea Jensen took over as president of North America at Urban Outfitters, the company had finished its 2024 fiscal year with comp sales down nearly 14%. She got to work figuring out why the brand’s target shoppers were or were not shopping at Urban Outfitters. 

She tried to attack the problem from a million different angles and gather as much data as possible. Her team held focus groups, and chatted with shoppers at malls, on college campuses and at stores. They asked all sorts of questions: How do you like to shop? How do you discover new brands? How would you describe your style? They scoured product reviews and even tapped its group of close-knit UO Insiders for surveys and closet raids. 

A focus on people, not just outcomes 

Today’s shoppers have more brands to choose from than ever before. And one of the most important factors to get them to stick with a brand is not just what the brand’s prices are and how effective its products are, but also whether or not they feel seen by the particular brand. 

Dorothy Kilroy, chief commercial officer at Oura, praised her colleague, chief marketing officer Doug Sweeny, for his “uncanny ability to turn [the conversation] to stories and not just outcomes — and we’re not just talking about the health systems, but actually human stories.” Oura, which is known for its smart ring, has a ton of data on how its product can improve people’s sleep and overall health. 

And while the company does feature that in its marketing, it has also found that shedding a light on the people who use Oura can help it be most effective in reaching a mass-market audience. One of Sweeny’s most splashy campaigns was this summer’s “Give us the Finger” campaign that highlighted longevity as a wellness trend, and aimed to help Oura connect with older users. 

E.l.f. Beauty, which has reported 27 consecutive quarters of growth, has made headlines this year for its decision to stand its ground on programs like DEI. Fields, E.l.f’s CFO, said the company’s mission has always been to have its boardroom reflect its community’s diversity while bringing accessible beauty to the masses. 

“People will say, ‘How can you be for everybody?’ We value the perspectives of everyone who wants to participate in this category,” she said. “And we’re just doing what we’ve done for 21 years.” 

Making people feel seen also extends to the lower levels of a business. One of the changes Daunt made when he took over Barnes & Noble, for example, was to reinvent the store structure, which now has 10 levels of promotion at the local level, each with significant pay raises, to retain store employees.

Juggling near-term challenges without losing sight of the long-term vision 

Every year, it seems like there’s a new challenge that comes out of nowhere that retail leaders have to juggle, whether it’s a pandemic or unprecedented tariff rates. In turn, today’s retail executives are increasingly tasked with keeping their teams cool, calm and collected while navigating short-term challenges, without losing focus on longer-term goals or bigger visions. 

Fields said that E.l.f.’s ability to execute the Rhode acquisition, even while dealing with tariffs and other industry challenges, “helped send a message to Wall Street about the long-term opportunity we see to build this different kind of beauty company.” That includes acquiring and growing brands, Fields said, “that disrupt norms and shape culture and connect communities, which sets us apart from others in beauty.” 

Daunt, for his part, has been very focused on re-establishing some retail fundamentals at Barnes & Noble since he was named CEO in 2019. But it’s taken a few years for some of those initiatives to really bear fruit. Still, while its financial figures are private, Daunt appears to have been successful. After a decade of falling sales and store closures, Barnes & Noble is expanding again. The chain opened about 60 stores in 2025 and expects to do the same in 2026. 

“All the good decisions I make today will probably pay me back in three, four, five years’ time, just as I’m now being rewarded in the business by the decisions made three to five years ago,” Daunt said.