Introducing Field Notes
Weekly strategic insights for executives building companies that will endure
In my day job, I am one of the Founders of Faculty of Change, a management consultancy that works with established market leaders to uncover new ways to grow. As part of that work, I have been thinking and writing about two ideas:
Strategic Renewal - How established companies prosper from change instead of becoming casualties of it. Reframing your capabilities, Renewing your approach, and Restarting how you communicate value.
Competing on Quality - How companies make choices that allow them to grow sustainably over time. Why price, convenience, and prestige are traps that destroy value, and how quality competition creates sustainable advantage (even in “commoditized” markets).
I’m launching a new weekly newsletter called Field Notes focused on timely analysis of business news through this lens. If you’re looking for more contemporary stories and actionable frameworks, you will like Field Notes! Below is this week’s issue.
What does that mean for Considered? I will still post here occasionally. I have a post ready to go about the wax company that hired both Frank Lloyd Wright and Norman Foster.
Victoria’s Secret & Co.’s stock is up 122% in six months after six years of decline.Not because they got cheaper. Not because they made shopping more convenient. Because they remembered what made them great in the first place.
The Trap Most Struggling Companies Fall Into
When Victoria’s Secret was struggling in 2023-2024, the playbook seemed obvious to most observers:
- Launch a digital transformation initiative
- Acquire trendy DTC brands to seem relevant
- Partner with influencers to reach younger demographics
- Diversify into adjacent categories (athleisure? wellness?)
- Cut costs and close stores
This is what every consulting firm would recommend. This is what activist investors typically demand. This is what most boards push for when growth stalls.
Hillary Super, who took over as CEO in September 2024, did almost none of this.
What Hillary Super Did Instead
Super made three decisions that seemed counterintuitive:
First, she added structure instead of “flattening” it. She appointed brand-specific presidents for Victoria’s Secret, PINK, and Beauty. This created more organizational complexity, not less. But it gave each brand clarity about its mission:
- Victoria’s Secret would reclaim “bra authority” in intimates
- PINK would laser-focus on 18-24 year olds through apparel
- Beauty would convert more existing customers (only 40% currently shop the category)
Most turnarounds consolidate. She separated. Why? Because clarity beats efficiency when you’ve lost your identity.
Second, she invested in marketing when others were cutting. The October 2025 Fashion Show wasn’t cheap. But it wasn’t traditional advertising either—it was a statement about brand positioning. The show generated massive streaming views and social impressions, but more importantly, it reestablished Victoria’s Secret as the authority in intimates.
PINK’s segment featuring TWICE sold out the Wear Everywhere bra. Not because of discounting. Because of desire.
Third, she raised prices. Average unit retail increased 6% in Q3. In a retail environment where everyone else is promoting heavily, Victoria’s Secret reduced discounting. They chose to compete on quality and brand strength rather than on price.
The results? Operating margins recovered from near-zero to 6%. Free cash flow hit $311 million. Comparable sales up 8% in Q3. Stock up 122% in six months.
The Strategic Renewal Framework at Work
This is textbook Strategic Renewal, which is why I’m spending a full newsletter on it. Let me break down each phase:
Reframe: Understanding Your Fundamental Capabilities
Victoria’s Secret didn’t ask “What business should we be in?” They asked “What are we genuinely better at than anyone else?”
The answer: Intimates. Specifically, they had decades of expertise in:
- Understanding fit and sizing across different body types
- Supply chain relationships with specialized manufacturers
- In-store fitting expertise (when done right)
- Brand permission to talk about intimate apparel
This sounds obvious now. But when you’re struggling, the temptation is to abandon your core and chase growth wherever it appears. Victoria’s Secret had been doing exactly that—diluting their expertise across too many categories, trying to be a lifestyle brand when their superpower was intimates.
The key insight: Your fundamental capabilities aren’t what you currently do. They’re what you do better than alternatives. Victoria’s Secret sold lots of beauty products, but they weren’t better at beauty than Sephora. They were better at intimates than everyone.
Renew: Aligning Capabilities with Customer Needs
Here’s where it gets interesting. The customer need wasn’t “bras” or even “intimates.” The need was confidence in how clothes fit and feel.
PINK’s success with the Wear Everywhere bra following the Fashion Show isn’t about the product specs. It’s about young women wanting to feel good in what they’re wearing—and trusting PINK to deliver that outcome.
Super’s strategy of “more emotions, less promotions” recognizes this. When you compete on price through constant discounting, you train customers to see your product as a commodity. When you compete on emotional connection and quality outcomes, you build desire that supports premium pricing.
The Fashion Show itself was renewal in action—taking Victoria’s Secret’s historical strength (aspirational fashion presentation) and applying it to modern customer needs (authentic representation, social media engagement, celebrity culture).
Restart: Communicating the New Approach
This is the phase most companies botch. They do the hard work of reframing and renewing, but they don’t tell the world about it effectively.
Victoria’s Secret’s “restart” wasn’t just the Fashion Show. It was:
- Reorganizing publicly around distinct brand missions
- Hillary Super doing media interviews explaining the strategy
- Q3 earnings that demonstrated financial proof points
- Analyst presentations that connected improved margins to strategic choices
The market responded because the narrative was coherent. This wasn’t “we’re trying some stuff and hoping it works.” It was “we understand our capabilities, we’ve aligned them to customer needs, and here are the results.”
The Hidden Pattern: Why Strategic Renewal Works When Transformation Fails
Strategic Renewal works because it’s about building on strength, while transformation is about compensating for weakness.
When companies pursue “digital transformation” or “cultural transformation,” they’re implicitly admitting they lack something essential. The subtext is: “We’re not good enough as we are, so we need to become something different.”
This creates three problems:
1. You’re competing from a position of weakness. When Victoria’s Secret was trying to be a lifestyle brand or compete with athleisure, they were entering battles where others had advantages. When they refocused on intimates, they were leveraging decades of accumulated expertise.
2. Your best people leave. Imagine you’re a merchandising expert who joined Victoria’s Secret because you love intimates. Then leadership announces a “transformation” into wellness or athleisure. You’re not excited—you’re updating your resume. Strategic Renewal retains talent because it values their existing expertise.
3. You can’t sustain premium pricing. Transformation initiatives are expensive and often margin-dilutive. You’re investing heavily in areas where you have no competitive advantage. Strategic Renewal lets you maintain margins because you’re getting better at things you’re already good at.
What This Means for Your Business
Most executives reading this aren’t in retail or intimates. So what’s the takeaway?
Ask yourself these questions:
What did we originally succeed at? Not what we currently do or what’s in our mission statement. What specific capability made customers choose us over alternatives?
Are we still leveraging that capability, or have we diluted it? Victoria’s Secret had diluted their intimates expertise across too many categories. Are you spreading resources across areas where you have no real advantage?
Could we get dramatically better at our core capability? Not incrementally better—dramatically better. Victoria’s Secret could become THE authority in intimates again. What could you become THE authority in?
Final Thought
Victoria’s Secret’s turnaround isn’t finished. They still face competition from SKIMS, Aerie, and others. Their operating margins are recovering but not yet robust.
But the direction is clear. They’ve stopped running from their strengths and started building on them. They’ve stopped trying to be everything and started being exceptional at something specific.
That’s the difference between transformation and renewal. Transformation says “we need to become something different.” Renewal says “we need to become more of what we already are—just better at it.”
Most struggling companies don’t need transformation. They need the courage to remember what made them great and the discipline to build on it.
—Jared