Karley Waters

Karley Waters is a retail management leader with 15 years of experience in sales and service across a range of customer-facing environments. She currently serves as Department Manager at H&M, where she oversees team building and recruitment, while driving store operations and sales. Over the course of her career, spanning roles in performing arts, wellness retail, and field marketing, Waters has built a reputation as a hands-on leader who develops teams and drives operational results in fast-paced, high-volume settings. Waters's path to retail leadership was shaped long before she entered the industry. Raised in the performing arts, she spent much of her childhood as a actress and songwriter, and she carried that creative foundation into her studies at San José State University, where she initially pursued music composition before ultimately earning her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Having grown up in a family marked by addiction and abuse, she developed an early sensitivity to the importance of emotional steadiness and self-awareness — qualities that would later become central to how she leads. That grounding shows up directly in how Waters describes her professional success, which she attributes to nervous system regulation cultivated through yoga, movement, and mindfulness; she has practiced yoga for more than a decade and is a certified instructor. She credits the discipline of pausing to breathe, and releasing what lies outside her control, as the practice that has carried her through her most defining career moments. To young women entering her field, she offers a simple philosophy: extend yourself as much grace as you do discipline. Recognize that some challenging environments are worth staying in once you realize you are a primary force in shaping the team and culture around you.