S7E8: James Rhee

James Rhee is executive chair and CEO Ashley Stewart as well as the founder and president of FirePine Group.

Rhee took over Ashley Stewart, a 22-year-old clothing chain that had declared bankruptcy once and was spiraling toward liquidation, in 2013. He saw a company with limited resources, tremendous loyalty, and great potential — and need to persuade both doubters and supporters:

The hardest thing to do was with my own employee base and customer base saying, “No, no, I’m not here to save you. I’m here because I back people and causes with merit that just could maybe use one little helping hand.”

And so capitalism, it is effective, but it depends on who’s wielding the weapon.

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Special thanks to Starfish Media Group for use of excerpts from their documentary-in-progress about Ashley Stewart.

And a big thanks to our sponsor, Mailchimp.

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By Jessica Helfand & Ellen McGirt

Jessica Helfand, a founding editor of Design Observer, is an award-winning graphic designer and writer and a former contributing editor and columnist for Print, Communications Arts and Eye magazines. A member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale and a recent laureate of the Art Director’s Hall of Fame, Helfand received her B.A. and her M.F.A. from Yale University where she has taught since 1994.

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Ellen McGirt is an author, podcaster, speaker, community builder, and award-winning business journalist. She is the editor-in-chief of Design Observer, a media company that has maintained the same clear vision for more than two decades: to expand the definition of design in service of a better world. Ellen established the inclusive leadership beat at Fortune in 2016 with raceAhead, an award-winning newsletter on race, culture, and business. The Fortune, Time, Money, and Fast Company alumna has published over twenty magazine cover stories throughout her twenty-year career, exploring the people and ideas changing business for good. Ask her about fly fishing if you get the chance.

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