Pendleton CEO Jennifer Ingraffea on Leading with Curiosity and Building High Integrity Teams
How I Hire
<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-ingraffea-4495517/" rel="nofollow">Jennifer Ingraffea</a> is a seasoned executive leader with over 25 years of experience in the retail, apparel, product merchandising, and management sectors. In July 2025, Jennifer became the CEO of Pendleton Woolen Mills; a family-owned business since its founding in the 1860s. Before joining Pendleton, she served as Chief Product & Merchandising Officer at The North Face, prior to which, she worked at Nike in a number of high-level executive leadership roles. Jennifer and Roy discuss her new role and dig into essential leadership skills like curiosity, stewardship, and much more.</p>
<p>Highlights from our conversation include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Core beliefs, values, and principles in Jenn’s leadership playbook (2:53)</li>
<li>Leading through cycles of massive consumer and retail evolution (5:39)</li>
<li>Identifying areas of a business that are in need of clarification and simplification (7:36)</li>
<li>Aligning a team towards a long term vision (11:01)</li>
<li>Lessons learned around hiring and team building at major brands (14:58)</li>
<li>How Jenn developed her hiring process and philosophy (17:07)</li>
<li>What a great leader looks like to Jenn (18:36)</li>
<li>Valuable traits that Jenn identifies when hiring direct reports (22:58)</li>
</ul>
<p>Visit <a href="https://howihire.com/" rel="nofollow">HowIHire.com</a> for transcripts and more on this episode.</p>
<p>Follow Roy Notowitz and Noto Group Executive Search on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/notogroup/" rel="nofollow">LinkedIn</a> for updates and featured career opportunities.</p>
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