Her Story
About Caralyn
I'm currently a marketing consultant for about 5 different brands, but I have over 15 years of experience driving growth for fashion, luxury, and direct-to-consumer brands. My work consists of building and scaling high-performing marketing organizations, building out teams, creating processes and workflows, and developing and leading 360 go-to-market strategies - how we launch a product and what that looks like across all channels, customer touchpoints, and communication. I focus on translating brand storytelling into measurable, full business impact by working with all of the cross-functional leaders like the CEO, the CFO, e-commerce operations, to really architect full funnel marketing ecosystems and making sure that everything we do drives revenue, brand equity, and long-term growth. I worked in-house at brands up until April of 2024, when I started consulting after having a baby. I've been consulting for brands like Petite Plume, Danny Joe, Goodels (a macaroni and cheese brand), and Andre brand. Right now, it's been great embedding myself with organizations to build and scale marketing functions for brands that can't afford a CMO candidate in-house. Eventually, I will go back in-house because I really prioritize my career, but this has allowed me the flexibility I need right now.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Caralyn
01What do you attribute your success to?
I would say having really good mentors and keeping in contact with them over the years. Especially in fashion and luxury, it's a very small industry, and making sure that you always stay connected with people that you've worked with, both professionally and personally, is so important because you never know what opportunities they might be working on behind the scenes or even what their co-workers have heard of. People love referrals, and word of mouth is way more valuable than just a resume on a piece of paper. Especially now with all these crazy AI tools, anybody can create a resume, but that doesn't really show the work ethic that you have. Even in a new skill, you can teach anybody really anything, like how to send an email or how to write social copy, but you can't teach someone their work ethic and their go-get-it-done mentality and attitude. So I think having relationships and staying connected with your mentors and the people that hired you, that you worked for, is so valuable.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I think I would say don't get discouraged. Everything does happen for a reason, but if you're in a meeting and it goes south, or a presentation isn't received well, it's just an opportunity, really, to try a different approach or a different angle. A lot of the billionaires become billionaires when they're in their 40s, so if someone's young, there's so much lead time ahead of you, and the best is really yet to come. So take every challenge just as an opportunity, because it truly is.
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