Many of Hyman's supporters are deeply protective when talking about her.
"Don't bet against Jenn Hyman," said the employee from 2010. "She is ruthless. I am bullish on her as someone who can find ways to win. That's not necessarily a compliment." Sipping on an iced coffee and slouched slightly in her chair, Hyman gave off a surprisingly casual vibe, more in line with Mark Zuckerberg than the freshly blown-out, high-heeled fashion influencer she sometimes plays in the press.
"We believe as an organization that the world that we're going to enter into is going to be fundamentally different than the world that we've just left," Hyman told me. "Consumer values are going to change. And interestingly, we're even more bullish on the circular economy than we've ever been." Hyman is at her most open when discussing the burdens of being a female CEO, and the challenge gender brings to routine managerial tasks.
Chondita Dayton joined Rent the Runway in 2010 to launch a wedding product that ultimately got nixed. She worked at the company through the flooding and chaos of both hurricanes, and what she called "promageddon," the very first prom season at the company, in which the influx of orders caught everyone by surprise.
Voluntary attrition at RTR averaged 6% to 9% per year between 2015 and 2020, the company said. The average across US-based software companies was 16% in 2019 and 14.8% in the first two quarters of 2020, according to the "Radford Salary Increase and Turnover Study."Hyman's performance under pressure was on display in September 2019 as the CEO travelled south in an Uber through the night, determined to arrive at a New Jersey warehouse before 5 a.m.
"Her leadership was taking charge and making sure everyone knew what they needed to do," said Anushka Salinas, president and chief operating officer of the company. "And as a result, within 36 hours, we had a concrete plan." Hyman could be direct, a trait frequently cited as a defining quality of her leadership, which some of her employees said they loved about working for her.
That person said that they recalled Hyman saying that she hired college kids because they "work day and night," and described their time with Hyman as an "emotionally bizarre experience." In the months leading up to this piece, several well-funded female founders stepped down from their companies, including Outdoor Voices CEO Tyler Haney, The Wing CEO Audrey Gelman, and Away CEO Steph Korey, who stepped down in December, came back, and then announced in July that she would again leave her role by the end of the year.
A description about Hyman as a smart and visionary leader "does not give proper credit to her leadership of people" and "dehumanizes her," the company said. And comments from two Rent the Runway board members praising Hyman as the right person to manage Rent the Runway through the crisis "minimizes" the sources' feelings that Hyman is in fact "one of the best leaders they have encountered in their careers.
The rental market was a $1.2 billion industry in the US in 2019 but that market is expected to tank by half in 2020, and won't recover to its pre-COVID numbers until after 2024, according to the research marketing firm GlobalData. At $7.1 billion, the secondhand resale market, which includes consignment shops as well as online platforms, has much more opportunity than renting alone. The consignment market is expected to decline just 8.1% in 2020, according to GlobalData, and to rebound into growth in 2021.
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