Leadership style and team building

When Tanya Golesic took the helm of Mackage in July 2021, she inherited a Canadian brand with extraordinary product and almost no story. "The minute you put the product on, you wouldn't want to take the product off," Golesic tells Ken. "But it was lacking a brand story. It was lacking storytelling." Four years and a record-breaking 2025 later, the former Jimmy Choo president has transformed a down-outerwear specialist into a global luxury lifestyle brand—stretching price points to $3,500, balancing the men's-women's split, and betting on the Croatia national team at the World Cup. This is a masterclass in brand building from someone who learned the craft at Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs, Canada Goose, and LVMH.

In this episode of The Retail Pilot, Ken sits down with Tanya Golesic, CEO of Mackage, to trace her journey from a Croatian immigrant family in Canada to the top of global luxury fashion, and to unpack how she's scaling Mackage beyond its outerwear roots. This is a conversation about craftsmanship, curation, building inside a private-equity-backed startup, and why fashion has more in common with sports than most people think.

In this episode you'll learn:

• How Tanya went from a Croatian immigrant family in Canada to leadership at Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs, LVMH, Canada Goose, and Jimmy Choo

• Why she turned down Mackage the first time—and how a "six-and-a-half-year interview" led her to the CEO role

• The "aesthetics that protect" brand ethos: why Mackage product must be fashionable, functional, and technical all at once

• How Mackage shifted from 50% heavyweight down to a 12-month lifestyle business spanning leather, cashmere, ready-to-wear, and rainwear

• Why 2025 was a record year with double-digit growth—and how launching a real spring collection unlocked it

• The logo strategy: segmenting between a "quiet luxury" customer and a streetwear customer with flexible branding

• How she stretched price points from $850–$1,200 up to $3,500 without raising prices across the board

• The wholesale discipline: applying the 80/20 rule and pulling back doors to focus on top-tier accounts

• Mackage's global retail expansion across Canada, the US, Paris, Japan, China, and Korea—and when to use partners vs. going in-house

Don’t forget to subscribe to The Retail Pilot podcast for more conversations with retail industry leaders and visionaries shaping the future of commerce.

If you missed our last episode, where Pete Nordstrom unpacks the eight-year journey to go private, the strategic partnership with Liverpool that made it possible, and what's actually changed since May 2025, be sure to tune in.

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