{"id":55,"date":"2014-12-08T18:22:15","date_gmt":"2014-12-08T22:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/gradstudies\/?p=55"},"modified":"2018-09-09T16:49:35","modified_gmt":"2018-09-09T20:49:35","slug":"gfm-ny-seminar-priceless-by-elka-gruenberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/gradstudies\/2014\/12\/08\/gfm-ny-seminar-priceless-by-elka-gruenberg\/","title":{"rendered":"GFM NY Seminar: Priceless"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Elka Gruenberg (Class of 2016), <\/strong>
\nNortheast Account Executive, Simone Perele\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Students<\/p>\n

If you were walking down East 55th Street one afternoon in early October, you may have happened across dozens of giddy adults pouring out onto the street; visibly elated, exhausted, chattering non-stop in half a dozen languages, and making a beeline for celebratory drinks. \u00a0What you would have seen would have been students from FIT\u2019s GFM Program – with their colleagues from IFM and HKPU \u2013 emerging from the New York Seminar after delivering case study presentations.<\/p>\n

\"Students<\/p>\n

To be fair\u2026 we were warned\u2026. multiple times\u2026by all of our professors, advisors, and older students\u2026\u201cBe prepared not to sleep\u201d and \u00a0\u201cYou\u2019re going to work harder than you\u2019ve ever worked before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Students<\/p>\n

Yet we eagerly dove into the seminar, enthusiastically meeting our new colleagues and forming our case study teams. What followed was ten days of unremitting learning. Nights were spent continuously working and re-working angles of the case study.<\/p>\n

\"Group<\/p>\n

Our days, however, were spent being lectured by some of the retail industry\u2019s most influential and accomplished players.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t lie; it felt a bit like a commercial\u2026<\/p>\n

Metro Card.\u00a0$2.50.\u00a0<\/em>
\nMorning double latte. $4.50…<\/em>
\nAsking advice from Anna Bakst, who launched Michael Kors Footwear and Accessories\u00a0and built it into a multi-billion dollar business\u2026Priceless.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Anna
Anna Bakst, President, Accessories and Footwear at Michael Kors<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While I\u2019m sure she could have easily picked twice as many speakers, Pamela Ellsworth, Chair of GFM, assembled a group of experts who covered the entire span of the retail horizon.<\/p>\n

Kevin Ryan \u2013 founder of Gilt Groupe \u2013 walked us through how he launched the luxury flash sale site. He challenged us to ask, \u201cWhy will people use this product,\u201d at every point in product development. He also reminded us that while ideas are great, \u201cThe idea is only moderately important. Execution is everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

We learned how securing private equity is like dating; how manufacturers are positioned to become direct conduits to retail; and in this day and age every company is a tech company.<\/p>\n

All of the speakers pushed us to expand our understanding of the retail experience.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s consumer is more global, more tech savvy, more environmentally conscious and more demanding than ever before. To keep up, we need to be constantly aware of what is happening around the world. Luckily, all I have to do to keep up is Skype with any of my case study teammates in Paris, Casablanca, Geneva, or Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Elka Gruenberg (Class of 2016), Northeast Account Executive, Simone Perele\u00a0 If you were walking down East 55th Street one afternoon in early October, you may have happened across dozens of giddy adults pouring out onto the street; visibly elated, exhausted, chattering non-stop in half a dozen languages, and making a beeline for celebratory drinks. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":531,"featured_media":57,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14357,1],"tags":[36903,36872,14357,36913,47515],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global-fashion-management","category-uncategorized","tag-graduatestudies","tag-gfm","tag-global-fashion-management","tag-graduate-school","tag-new-york-seminar","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/gradstudies\/files\/2014\/12\/Elkasmiles.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p521HQ-T","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/gradstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/gradstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/gradstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/gradstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/531"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/gradstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/gradstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/gradstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/gradstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/gradstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/gradstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}