The Nordy Pod

Recently I was invited to attend the Women's Wear Daily Beauty CEO Summit and had the great pleasure of speaking on stage with the Queen of Eyebrows, founder of Anastasia Beverly Hills, Anastasia Soare. Now, I don't personally know a whole lot about styling eyebrows, but what I do find super fascinating about Anastasia is her uncompromising entrepreneurial spirit. She found an untapped niche in th...

You guys are in for a treat because our guests for today are truly some of the most authoritative thought-leaders shaping the landscape of modern fashion. And, as you'll hear, everything tangential to it. As heads of Vogue and GQ, two of the world's leading fashion and lifestyle magazines, Anna Wintour and Will Welch are essentially gatekeepers at the intersection of art, fashion, culture, sports,...

Join me on stage at the Footwear News CEO Summit as I sit down with three of our very best stylists, Jesse James Barnholdt, Gregory Clark and Jeffrey Ola. We do our best to make it abundantly clear to our employees that their success at Nordstrom is in their hands. We give them the leeway to use their best judgment in running their business, and let me tell you, these three men have taken that fre...

For this episode we’re turning inward to discover more about how we work to sustain a legacy of great service at Nordstrom. You’ll hear directly from Nordstrom customers Paige Siemers and daughter Anna as they share their unique experience shopping in our store. You’ll hear Nordstrom board member Jim Donald discuss how his incredibly successful career, holding leadership positions at big brands li...

For this episode, we're introducing part one of a two-part series all about creating a culture of service. Now, this theme sits close to home for everyone here at Nordstrom, because it's really the defining trait we focus on to create differentiation, and frankly, a reason for being. And it's nice that we have this reputation and a legacy of great service, but our whole battle is remaining relevan...

In this episode we’re taking a special in-depth look at a segment of our business that most people don’t even know about. We call it Last Chance, and it’s exactly what the name implies. At the very end of the life cycle of our merchandise there exist two stores, one in Phoenix, Arizona and one in the suburbs of Chicago, that serve as our last chance to sell any and all unsold merchandise. They are...

You know, I usually record these conversations from my fancy podcast studio/office in downtown Seattle, but this time I actually called our guest, Joel McHale, from my home on Mercer Island—a fitting venue for our conversation because Joel also happens to hail from this very same Seattle suburb. Now, as many of you probably know, Joel has gone on to have a very successful acting career in Hollywoo...

Bob Love dreamed of playing professional basketball when he was a little kid. Listening to games over the radio he would practice his jump shot, tossing a rolled-up ball of his grandfather’s smelly old socks into a wire coat hanger he stole from his grandmother's closet. Humble beginnings for a man who would later become one of the greatest players of all time. Honing his skills through high schoo...

In this episode we're taking a special trip over to the Hawkeye State, which is Iowa for those who don’t know, to visit two different Nordstrom facilities that are crucial links in our supply chain. First, we'll head to our fulfillment center in Cedar Rapids where the folks are celebrating 25 years of service. Then we'll stop into our distribution center in Dubuque to help them celebrate 30 years....

In this episode we've got a bit of a theme going on, centered around an amazing organization that's had an enormous impact on so many lives, including mine, and that's the Seattle Children’s Hospital. Later in the show we're going to talk about a benefit show that my wife and I created called SMooCH, which stands for Seattle Musicians for Children's Hospital, and to help tell that story I've broug...

If you happened to catch the 2021 film House of Gucci starring Lady Gaga and Adam Driver, based on the dramatic real-life events of the Gucci family, then you also caught an interesting glimpse into the life of Domenico De Sole. But that's really just the tip of the iceberg. Born in a small Italian town to a General of the Royal Army, Domenico grew up knowing nothing about fashion, and says "it's...

Gucci Westman has loved makeup since she was a little girl, seeing smiles on the faces of classmates as she gave makeovers on the bus ride to school. She pursued that passion, studying cosmetics in college and later moving to Los Angeles where she became a highly sought-after makeup artist for film and fashion magazines. She worked on projects with director Spike Jonze and has done makeup for big-...

Inspired by the provocative lyrics of the influential hip-hop group NWA, an adolescent Ben Haggerty immediately fell in love with the genre, and soon became laser-focused on a career as a rap artist. Under the alias Macklemore, he slowly gained a loyal following through an emerging underground Seattle hip-hop scene and exposure through the local independent radio station KEXP. In collaboration wit...

Well folks, we’ve made it to another year, which also happens to mark the completion of one whole year of The Nordy Pod. We’ve had a lot of incredible guests on the show and heard some pretty remarkable stories from employees and customers alike. So, to celebrate the first anniversary of The Nordy Pod, we thought we’d take you on a little trip down memory lane to visit some of our favorite moments...

As part of a very special holiday edition of The Nordy Pod, we've pulled together a variety of different Nordstrom leaders, from Events to Visuals to sales floor Department Managers, to give you a 360-degree view of all the things we do to give our customers a memorable holiday experience. You'll learn a bit about each of their positions, and also hear a few fun and bizarre stories from seasons pa...

At this point you’ve undoubtedly caught wind of my side hustle as a bass player, and more generally my love for the unique community of musicians in and around Seattle. So in the spirit of that fondness, I’m super excited to share my conversation with local alt-rock legend and former lead singer for the band The Presidents of the United States of America, Chris Ballew. Chris started playing music...

If you enjoyed the last episode, you’ll be pleased to hear that we've compiled another great batch of mailbag submissions for you. Stories from job interviews to weddings and funerals, all the way to an Emmy Awards party wardrobe malfunction. And where some of these stories involve an interesting and unique problem for us to solve, others involve instances where we quite honestly just dropped the...

If you’ve been listening to The Nordy Pod for any amount of time, you’ve likely heard our speil about sending in your personal Nordstrom stories. Well, for this episode we’re finally tearing open the proverbial ‘Nordstrom Mailbag’ to share a few stories that have really stood out. You’ll hear a scent obsessed customer with an interesting business proposition, a wedding guest’s downhill battle with...

This has come up a few times on The Nordy Pod. It’s no secret that I’m a sports fan, and particularly of basketball. I played a lot growing up, I’m involved in a mentorship program for the men’s basketball team at my alma mater The University of Washington, and for a short time, I was even a part-owner of the Seattle Supersonics and the Seattle Storm. So it should come as no surprise that I jumped...

In this episode we're going to hear from a few highly influential Nordstrom leaders, each helping to strengthen our culture in their own unique way. First, you'll hear from our Executive Vice President for Designer, Men's and Women's Apparel, Sam Lobban. We've wanted to have Sam on the podcast for a very long time now, because he's a super-interesting guy with a big job, and he's had a very unique...

You likely already know Steve Madden’s name, either from the iconic "Big Head Girl" commercial from the late '90s or from seeing it printed on the side of the shoes sitting in your closet. But if it's not for the shoes, you may have heard his name mumbled through the lips of a drugged-up Jonah Hill in the big-budget Martin Scorsese film The Wolf of Wall Street. Seemingly out of nowhere, Steve Madd...

We've gathered a handful of enthusiastic young adults from our current crop of interns to learn more about their experience working at our corporate center in Seattle. Their fresh perspective reveals valuable insight into our company and a new generation of shoppers. You'll also hear from a few current employees who got their start through our internship program. It's a fascinating look at how som...

We're breaking the mold again and spending this entire episode highlighting a super exciting new store opening at The Grove in LA. We've partnered with a very successful brand based in the UK called ASOS, which is novel because, up until now, ASOS has been sold exclusively online and has never actually been showcased in a physical store. They also have a singular focus on attracting customers in t...

So, a little backstory for you on the Nordy Pod. In our earliest conversations about starting a podcast, as we brainstormed what the theme might be and what we would even talk about, a particular service story immediately rose to the top: a story that occurred over 40 years ago at a Nordstrom store in Fairbanks, Alaska, in which an employee of ours—regardless of the fact that we are purely a cloth...