Early in my career, I worked at the Gap as a merchant in women’s denim. I worked with designers to choose styles for the stores, with planners to determine how much inventory to buy, and with a sourcing team to manage production. A year into this job, I came up with what I thought was a terrific style: a stovepipe jean, with a wider leg, in a great new wash. Both research and instinct told me the product could be huge. So when our CEO—Mickey Drexler, who now runs J. Crew—called one day from a conference room and asked if I could come present to him and the head of marketing, I felt ready and pretty proud.
A version of this article appeared in the November 2008 issue of Harvard Business Review.
