Before Christiana Bronson joined the Accent Group, she was known as ‘the girl, always in high heels’. Now she’s a sneakerhead with over 100 pairs of kicks who can decipher an Adidas Samba from a Spezial.
As the head of retail at Hype DC, The Trybe and Subtype, Bronson has landed flat on her feet after leading teams in some of Australia’s biggest women’s fashion brands from Sportsgirl to Sussan.
Her career path into retail started in-store at women’s fashion brand Bardot, before over a decade-long tenure at Sussan, where she finished as a regional sales manager, before joining Sportsgirl as national sales manager.
An exemplary proof point that retail can be a career, Bronson is passionate about changing the casual stigma around jobs in the industry.
Here, she shares the steps her career journey took.
Inside Retail: Retail appears to be in your blood, can you please walk us down the career path you’ve paved?
Cristiana Bronson: Like most people in retail leadership roles, I’m no different and fell into it,
I started in retail whilst I was in high school and got my first job at 14 and nine months, and the rest was history.
I started a law degree and was still working in retail, before I took a year off, and went full-time at Goldmark – my parents didn’t know and thought I was going to uni every day.
I was extremely afraid to tell them I’d found a new passion, which was business and leadership, which I’d found in the retail industry.
I decided to call it quits at university and started my career journey in more senior leadership retail roles – starting with store manager and working my way up.
Goldmark was my first taste of that – my career really started at the Sussan Group as a store manager. At Sussan, I quickly knew I wanted to become an area manager.
IR: How did you achieve this?
CB: I was amongst quite senior leaders in an experience sense, and I knew that the only way to progress my career was through delivering results, being consistent and developing teams.
I became one of the youngest area managers within the group in my early 20s.
In that role, I had 17 stores within my portfolio and worked closely with the national operations manager. Fast forward to just shy of three years as area manager at Sussan, I became the regional manager and was overseeing half of Australia.
I spent most of my career at Sussan Group as a regional manager before I moved to Sportsgirl, as a national sales and operations manager.
IR: Can you share your experience working at Sportsgirl and how that shaped your retail career?
CB: I joined Sportsgirl during a massive expansion phase, where we opened a significant amount of stores within two years. This involved a redesign of store fit-outs for both existing and new locations, and then Covid-19 hit. I was a part of the Sportsgirl rebrand – tapping into the nostalgia and brand heritage of Sportsgirl.
I worked under Colleen Callandar, who was the CEO at that time; she was my mentor, and has been throughout my retail career,
IR: There’s a stigma that retail can’t be a career, but you’re passionate about reaffirming that it is. How do you champion this through your journey?
CB: It’s my passion and something always at the back of my mind.
Retail absolutely can be a very successful and lucrative career if you put your mind to it, and work your way up the retail ladder.
I wish that message was talked about more, particularly in high schools and at those stages of children’s lives when they’re trying to work out what they want to do. It’s just not tapped into enough. Retail as a whole has the most touchpoints with mankind.
I hate when I hear people say, ‘I just work in retail’. It’s underappreciated and undervalued.
The skills you learn being part of the retail industry are expansive, valuable and transferable – social skills, business skills, how to prioritise and time management are just a few.
A lot of people out there don’t realise you can build a very successful career in retail. As blunt as this sometimes sounds, I have friends who went to university for six years, and I know I’m paid a hell of a lot more than they are.
I don’t do it for money, I do it because I love it, but I use that as an example, just to show retail can absolutely be a very successful career for individuals.
IR: What have you learnt during your retail career?
CB: I did a small stint at Dotti, and I realised the product being sold had to align with my passion and that’s why I’ve spent so much of my career in fashion, it inspires me.
Fashion is underrated – it can bring out who you are, your individuality, personality and working in fashion, you ultimately make people feel good.
Particularly in Sussan, we were part of the journey to having customers walk out feeling great and empowered through fashion. I love being part of that journey, it filled up my cup.
My boss said to me, ‘You could go work at Woolies,’ but merchandising fruit, I don’t think is for me. I know that sounds silly because working in a big industry would be very exciting as a career path, but currently, it’s not for me.
The product we offer and ultimately, how we’re connecting with the consumer is what drives me.
IR: When and how did you join the Accent Group and go from fashion to footwear retail?
CB: It’s quite funny, I’ll have to take you back a step.
When I joined Sportsgirl, I was known as the girl always in high heels.
I’d show up to store fit-outs in heels even though they’d tell you to wear flat shoes. I’d pivot to a heeled ankle boot.
In 2019 the athleisure trend was prevalent in the market and everyone was wearing sneakers, I stood up on stage in my heels, and the CEO next to me said, ‘We’ll get you in sneakers.’ I said, ‘Over my dead body.’
Fast forward to now, I’m the head of retail for three sneaker brands and working at Accent Group, Australia and New Zealand’s sneaker powerhouse. Very ironic.
I don’t wear heels anymore and own over 100 pairs of sneakers, which is scary.
That transition happened like most consumers with the change in their styling during the Covid-19 lockdowns. I became this athleisure enthusiast, and my sneaker collection grew during this time and has amplified, working at the Accent Group.
The decision to move on from Sportsgirl in 2021 was due to a lot of changes happening within the Sussan Group.
I’ve always said if I don’t wake up every day passionate about what I do, or the brand I work for, it’s time for me to go.
I came to that realisation shortly after Covid and all of the challenges we faced. During that time, I followed the Accent Group closely, in particular its CEO Daniel Agostinelli.
I always remember the three As: accept, adapt and accelerate. I listened to interviews and when the opportunity arose at Vans as the national retail sales manager, I wasn’t working.
It sort of just happened. I met with him [Agostinelli] and the head of retail at the time for a coffee, and the rest is history.
The only role they had available was Vans, which was probably not aligned with my experience or expertise, but I was keen to start in a new sector of fashion.
I thought, why the hell not? I’ll join.
I was able to learn by overseeing its 25 stores and about the wholesale aspect which I hadn’t been exposed to previously.
It was different again, being a publicly listed business, as I’d always worked at privately held businesses. I saw it as a good entry-level role for me to wrap my head around the sector.
That didn’t last long as the role at HypeDC became available five weeks into my tenure at Vans. Being loyal, I was hesitant to apply for the role at Hype, but I was nudged along by Daniel [Agostinelli] a little bit, and I interviewed for the role.
Liam Robson [general manager, Trend Division Accent Group] appointed me to my role at HypeDC and SubType. Quickly, we acquired Trybe, the kid’s footwear destination.
The post From fashion to footwear retail: Meet ‘the girl in heels’ from Accent Group appeared first on Inside Retail Australia.
