Mindy Grossman has shown entrepreneurial spirit time and time again throughout her career. Her ability to take risks was never more evident than when she left Nike for HSNi in 2006.
Grossman led Nike’s global apparel division during the same time HSN was a struggling company with limited branding, offering generic products to the public through a 24-hour television station and hard-sell techniques.
Many people questioned and doubted Grossman’s decision to take over as HSN’s eighth CEO in 10 years. She wasn’t very familiar with the company or the show, but that didn’t stop her. After watching HSN for only a few days, she began developing ideas that would transform and revolutionize the company.
She wasted no time in her plans to reinvent the business and immediately began a cultural and talent assessment and customer-base study on the company. She found a company operating at a subpar level that had stalled and was not reaching its potential customer base nor was it differentiating itself from competition.
One of her bold moves was to sell the company’s foreign operations, which were only mildly profitable and served as a distraction to what Grossman viewed as the company’s rebranding in the U.S. She then set out to revolutionize the company’s product mix. She wanted the sales of cookware to look like watching the Food Network and selling fashion to look like Style TV. Her relaunch also included getting household names to help move the products.
Her changes reinvented every minute of television coverage HSN had done, but she wasn’t finished. She also realized the potential to use technology to reach a broader customer base. The first phase was investing in HSN.com, which is now one of the top 10 most trafficked e-commerce sites.
Grossman’s changes to the company have brought about new life and it is clear that she has found a home at HSN. The company no longer settles for medium quality and is constantly looking for the next big idea and ways to expand.
HOW TO REACH: HSN Inc., (727) 872-1000 or www.hsni.com
