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The new year is a great time to take stock and reset, but goal-setting is a year-round challenge — especially for entrepreneurs. As an individual or a business, how you set goals — and how you hold yourself accountable to them — dictates how likely you are to achieve them. Here, leading fashion and beauty executives and founders share their secrets to success.
Nina Briance: ‘Never set goals based on what you think your investors want’
Founder and CEO of Cult Mia
US-born, UK-based entrepreneur Nina Briance founded independent fashion platform Cult Mia in 2019 and has since raised $5 million in seed funding, so much of her goal-setting process is already laid out for her. “Cult Mia is now at a stage where we report on our annual performance to shareholders, and submit a detailed business plan for the upcoming year to the board,” explains Briance. “This process can be quite daunting, but it allows me to look back at successes, identify lessons learnt, highlight bright spots that can be scaled and strike that balance between reflection, celebration and forward-planning. We’re also thinking about raising our series A next year, so we’re starting to think about what those investors will want to see and how we can incorporate that into our goals now.”
Beyond this annual progress pulse-check, Briance starts setting goals from her 10-year plan and works backwards. “The long-term vision is for Cult Mia to be the largest independent luxury marketplace in the world. That’s the foundation for everything we do, so our short-term and medium-term goals have to align with that,” she says. “Annual goals might include expanding into high-growth markets, increasing partnerships with our emerging brands, or further incorporating sustainability into our operations. Then, we break these into more measurable targets with specific time frames, leaving some room for adaptability and unforeseen challenges.”
At the end of this process, Cult Mia has its long-term goals, three-year goals, 12-month objective roadmap, and quarterly objectives and key results (OKRs). “Sometimes, when you’re investor led or VC backed, you set unrealistic goals because you think that’s what your investors want to see,” says Briance. “The trickle-down effect is that you don’t achieve those goals and your team is demoralised.”
On a personal level, Briance says she writes herself a letter at the beginning of each year, as if the year has already passed and she has achieved everything she set out to. It started when she founded Cult Mia and her “very structured” career path in investment banking was blown wide open. “It was a way to remind myself why I was going on this entrepreneurial journey and giving myself the reassurance that I could do it, like a safety blanket,” she says.
Jonny Wilson: ‘Every goal needs an element of doubt’
Co-founder and CEO of Cole Buxton
When Jonny Wilson and Cole Buxton founded the cult London menswear brand Cole Buxton, they didn’t set specific goals for the business. Now, with a growing team, goal-setting has become a necessary part of their journey. “It’s so important to take your team on the journey with you and let them see what’s going on in your head,” says Wilson, who acts as co-founder and CEO. To avoid getting stuck in a bubble, Wilson regularly sense checks goals with entrepreneur friends outside of fashion, as well as industry peers such as Lexxola founder Zane Saleh and Adanola founder Hyrum Cook.
Choosing the right moment to set goals is critical. Cole Buxton does this in November, just before Black Friday, which Wilson says is the “most important” time in the brand’s sales calendar. “If you want to hit the ground running in January, you need to build your roadmap in advance, and everyone’s already downed tools in December, so we start early,” he explains. This process begins on the design side: mapping out brand collaborations, collections and pop-ups up to a year in advance. Then, in November, the senior staff and C-suite executives gather for a “post-mortem” of the year to date. Wilson presents a “manifesto” for the year ahead, and the team runs through what went wrong the year prior, what the brand did well and what it plans to prioritise moving forward.
Once the topline direction of travel has been decided, the business goals are translated into individual goals and check-ins are added throughout the year to keep the team accountable. A crucial part of this is working together in-person, says Wilson. “I think checking in with people, face to face, and having a collaborative workspace is really important. That’s been central to our hiring as we’ve grown the team this year; I want to build a team of people who want to be here.” For Wilson, setting goals is about inspiring action in your team, which means finding the right balance between aspiration and realism. “Every goal needs an element of doubt or fear. You have to believe you can do it, but also be slightly scared of it. Is it really a goal if it’s easy or inevitable?”
Maryse Mbonyumutwa: ‘Invest more in introspection’
Founder and CEO of Pink Mango and Asantii
For Maryse Mbonyumutwa, founder of Rwandan manufacturing company Pink Mango and fashion brand Asantii, personal and professional goals are one. “I’ve realised that your professional development depends on how rooted and aligned you are personally,” she says, “so my first goals are as a mother and an individual prioritising my health.”
On both counts, her goal-setting process commences with introspection. “You have to be realistic with your goals and base them on facts,” she says. “Look back at the year you’ve had and analyse what happened as objectively as possible. We tend to find a lot of excuses for goals we didn’t manage to meet, but I have found that, when I don’t meet my goals, it’s mostly because they were not aligned with the company’s mission or objectives.” Prior to founding Pink Mango, Mbonyumutwa worked in Europe. “When I first started my business in Rwanda, I was setting goals based on European timelines. I had to adapt my goals to be more realistic, patient and relevant to my new environment,” she adds.
Introspection and realism apply when holding yourself accountable to goals, too. “I meditate before going to bed, thinking about what my day was like and how well it aligned with my goals, but in a more gentle way,” she continues. With her team, Mbonyumutwa now sets goals twice a year, to keep up with the fast-paced nature of the business, and checks in weekly or monthly. “We do this to ensure the team is evolving personally and professionally with the pace of the company and our ambitions. Setting goals more regularly, and checking in on them more frequently, has proven most efficient.”
Silvia Onofri: ‘Take rest very seriously’
CEO and president of Napapijri
Silvia Onofri joined VF Corporation in January 2023 as CEO and president of Napapijri. She was tasked with turning the outdoor brand around, starting with appointing sustainability-focused designer Christopher Raeburn as global creative director. It’s a huge job that involves a lot of collaboration. But for Onofri, achieving ambitious goals starts with solitude, and is only possible if you build regular periods of rest into your routine. “I eat breakfast alone every day — this is my daily ritual,” she says. “I usually take notes on a piece of paper, in case I get unexpected ideas, and I keep all of these notes in a beautiful Japanese pochette. Once a week, I find some time for myself and lay all of my notes out on the table to make sense of my ideas. I truly believe that the best ideas come to you when you take a break from your work — when you are with your family, or on holiday with friends, or just out for a walk. I try to rest a lot.”
Where other executives are more focused on the type of goals they set and how accountability is codified, Onofri prioritises the environment in which goals have to be achieved. In a time when burnout is on the rise — especially among sustainability professionals — she is keen for her team to enjoy their time in the office, she says. This means encouraging laughter and chatting between employees, but also measuring their success by “the results they bring” rather than “the time they spend sitting in front of their computers”. To cut down on unnecessary stress and maximise the time and energy employees have for meeting their goals, Onofri asks that all meetings be kept to 50 minutes or less, and the team try to be gentle with one another. “We don’t need to scream to be listened to.”
Eshita Kabra-Davies: ‘Goal-setting is deeply personal’
Founder and CEO of By Rotation
For Eshita Kabra-Davies, founder and CEO of peer-to-peer rental platform By Rotation, goal-setting is most productive when it is “deeply personal”. Social media trends pegged to the new year — such as “in” and “out” lists — are counterintuitive, she says. “These trends add peer pressure to the new year and encourage a one-size-fits-all mindset. I find that this creates comparison and competitiveness, rather than reflection, which is not in the least bit helpful.”
Instead, Kabra-Davies takes a targeted approach. “I take stock of what happened last year versus the year before, and consider how much I’ve strayed from my plans, then decide what needs to be done next year, both professionally and personally. We are accountable to our board, but we also check in with the team periodically. My goals are on my planning tool, which is a tab that I have open at all times. You never know when the opportunity might arise to hit that goal.” For the last two years, for example, By Rotation has had an overarching goal to become profitable, which Kabra-Davies says it is on track to achieve in 2025. Under this umbrella, its main goal for 2024 was to grow organically while hitting financial targets.
Staying focused on the method that works for her, rather than trying new approaches constantly, means that Kabra-Davies compares her progress to herself and her plans, not other people and their ideas of success. “Goal-setting should not leave you feeling competitive and demotivated, but rather reflective and determined.”
Grace Beverley: ‘Every goal has to be SMART’
Founder of Tala, Shreddy and The Productivity Method, and co-founder of Retrograde
Serial entrepreneur Grace Beverley’s personal goal-setting process starts in autumn each year, but her activewear brand, Tala, starts planning much earlier. “Working in fashion means you’ve been preparing for 2025 since the end of 2023. It’s a constant cycle,” she says. After assessing the success of last year’s goals, Beverley asks herself four questions: what have I achieved this year? What ways have I enjoyed working this year? What habits have worked for me this year? What have I not achieved this year and why?
New goals cover six key areas of her life (personal development, relationships, finances, career and business, attitude and mindset, and health) and each one has to be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound). “The ‘M’ is the most important,” she flags. “If your goals aren’t measurable, there’s no way to know whether you’ve achieved them.” Beverley then breaks her annual goals down by month and week, which she then translates into daily to-do lists made up of “quick ticks” (jobs that take five minutes or less), “tasks” (which take under 30 minutes) and “projects” (blocks of work towards a longer term plan).
For each of her businesses — which now includes planner company The Productivity Method — she sets financial, operation and growth OKRs, similar to Briance. “I try to set objectives that are specific, measurable and align with our mission and vision. Then, for each of these objectives, I work out two to five key results, like achieving a specific conversion rate, growing the team to a certain number, or getting a specific return on investment on a marketing campaign.”
Sharmadean Reid: ‘I know what I’ll be doing when I’m 70’
Founder of WAH Nails, Beautystack and The Stack World, and author of New Methods for Women
A long-term view keeps entrepreneur Sharmadein Reid on track as new opportunities come to light. “When you plan your life and not just your year, you can make every second count,” she says. “That means you only accept opportunities that contribute to your long-term goals and you don’t get distracted by things that don’t fit into your life’s work.”
To help members of her women-only business network The Stack World do the same, Reid has developed a 110-question guide to goal-setting, which she coaches them through every January. She encourages them to respond to prompts in the present tense, as if goals have already come to fruition, and to meditate on the goals after setting them, visualising what it would feel like to realise them. “My favourite thing to do is record my goals on a dictaphone, set it to music, and listen to it before bed,” she adds. “It’s really powerful.”
This year, Reid is adding another method, which she has been road-testing on herself and her mentees. “If you have multiple things you want to achieve in a year, you write each goal out on a card and stick them on the wall in front of where you work,” she explains. “I lay them out like a horse race, with pictures of horses I cut out from old books. Each race horse is on a track with 10 strategic moves, which are like hurdles — each one helps me unlock the big-picture goals. It helps me keep track of my goals and focus on keeping the horses in the race.”
Reid’s biggest challenge is not setting goals, or even achieving them, but knowing when to walk away. “Life always throws you curveballs and a big one for me was the pandemic, when I shuttered my second business, Beautystack. If I’m honest, I took way too long to pivot, burning nine months of capital,” she explains. “That was a big lesson: if one of your race horses breaks its leg, it’s OK to quit.”
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