Irena Blind
Senior Advisor
Biography
Before joining TSG Consumer Partners, Irena was an investment banker, covering branded consumer goods, e-commerce and specialty retail. She was Senior Vice President at Raymond James and Vice President at Stephens Inc. Prior to Stephens, Irena worked at Industrial Renaissance, a middle market private equity fund focused on special situations, rolls ups, restructurings and operational improvement, primarily in apparel and consumer products. Irena started her career at Credit Suisse First Boston and Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, in consumer and retail investment banking groups.
Education
Irena graduated as a Regent Scholar from Walter A. Haas School of Business at University Of California at UC Berkeley, with a BS in business administration and a concentration in international business, finance and accounting.
Q&A
It all starts with great product that people want to buy, and hopefully buy again. Product is king. Know and focus on assessing your audience, don’t be all things to all people. Create crisp, concise messaging to consumers on what makes your product unique. Engage them, entice them, delight them, and make them feel that the brand speaks directly to them. Don’t lose brand authenticity as it grows.
Be humble about your position relative to theirs. We work for them and with them, no matter how much of the company we own. At the same time, deliver real value to assist with various aspects of the business they need help with. Take on a task, own it, and deliver on it beyond their expectations.
I am very organized. I function best when I judiciously put everything I have to do, big or small, into a list. It gives me great joy and sense of accomplishment to cross as many things as I can off my list every day. I also like collaboration, bouncing ideas off other people on the team. Having multiple insights, in my opinion, is the best way to get to a well thought through solution.