‘As consumers, the most sustainable thing you can do is to keep wearing what you already have. With producers, there has to be a lot more mindfulness, accountability, when it comes to overproduction. This is actually a significant and very big problem in the industry because the industry itself, it's a system that wants to sell you more, that will convince you that you need the next item, the next dress, the next jewelry, the next bag, but that's actually false. We need to focus on alternative business models. We need to focus on quality and durability where you can repair and keep reusing what you already have. My message to producers and to companies is you need to ask yourself the question, “How much growth do you want? How much sustainable growth do I want?” I think we are at the threshold and we are not going to go back to what it was before.’
At age 11, Neri Karra Sillaman’s world was turned upside down when her Bulgarian-Turkish family was forced to flee their home country. Driven by a hunger for education and a better life, Neri grabbed an opportunity to study business management at the University of Miami, where she became interested in how businesses - in particular, businesses founded by immigrants - are created and sustained.
She has subsequently become an expert in international and ethnic entrepreneurship, researching how the unique capabilities and mindset of immigrants create businesses that last. She received her doctorate from the University of Cambridge and her own 25-year-old leather accessories company, staffed by a workforce largely made up of people from disadvantaged backgrounds, has been recognised by B Corp as a social innovator.
In this Provocateurs podcast, Neri chats with fellow immigrant Kulleni Gebreyes, the US Consulting Life Sciences and Health Care Industry Leader and US Chief Health Equity Officer at Deloitte, and Thinkers50 co-founder, Stuart Crainer. She explains how she ended up in the fashion industry almost by accident and reveals the secrets behind sustainable companies, from building a resilient workforce to “frying in your own oil.”
Neri is a member of the Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2024, a professor of practice and entrepreneurship expert at the University of Oxford, and author of Fashion Entrepreneurship.
This episode will be available on 16 April 2024.
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This podcast is part of an ongoing series of interviews with executives. The executives’ participation in these articles are solely for educational purposes based on their knowledge of the subject and the views expressed by them are solely their own. This podcast should not be deemed or construed to be for the purpose of soliciting business for any of the companies mentioned, nor does Deloitte advocate or endorse the services or products provided by these companies.