Mindy Grossman

Mindy Grossman (born September 8, 1957) is the former CEO of WW International (formerly Weight Watchers).

Mindy Grossman was born September 8, 1957.

Her adoptive parents were Donald and Elaine Waldman, a Jewish produce dealer and homemaker on Long Island, New York, who had married young but had been unable to have children.

She attended Manhattanville College in Westchester County, New York, and transferred to George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She intended to go to law school after graduation.

However, in her senior year at George Washington University, she broke off her engagement to her high-school boyfriend and dropped her plans to attend law school, and instead moved to New York City to go into the fashion industry.

Grossman began her career in 1977 in the menswear industry.

Grossman moved to New York City in 1977, and was offered a job working for a company called Manhattan International.

It was a menswear conglomerate at the time, and she was an assistant to the president of their international division.

From 1978 to 1980, she was an account executive at Jeffrey Banks menswear.

From 1980 to 1981, she was an account executive at Ron Chereskin menswear.

From 1981 to 1985, she was a regional sales manager at Merona, and then vice-president of sales at Jeffrey Banks; both Merona and Jeffrey Banks were at the time divisions of Oxford Industries.

From 1985 to 1988, Grossman worked for WilliWear by Willi Smith.

She was in nearly on the ground floor at Tommy Hilfiger, which had been incorporated in 1985.

Grossman later recalled, "At the time, it was a small company, and sales were meteoric. They went from around $38 million to $350 million."

She started out as Vice President of Sales and in 1987 became Vice President of Menswear.

From 1988 to 1991 she was Vice President of Sales and Merchandising at Tommy Hilfiger.

From 1991 to 2000, Grossman worked for brands by Ralph Lauren.

From 1991 to 1994, she was President of Chaps Ralph Lauren, a division of Warnaco, Inc., and she was Senior Vice President of Menswear for Warnaco, Inc. during those years as well.

Chaps was Ralph Lauren's midprice department-store brand; She turned around the Chaps division and grew its annual revenues from $26 million to $250 million.

She was vice-president of New Business Development at Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation from 1994 to 1995.

During that period, she developed new brand concepts, including Polo Jeans.

She convinced Lauren that in order to attract customers at a younger age he needed to embrace new ideas, and that Polo Jeans Company was a good way to make lifelong customers out of a younger audience.

Grossman calls starting Polo Jeans "my start-up experience"; she was its president and CEO from 1995 to 2000, launched the brand in 1996, and took it from a standing start to a $450 million business, building it into the leading department store status denim brand.

In 2000, Grossman joined Nike, Inc., where she served as Vice President of Global Apparel from 2000 to 2006, overseeing its worldwide multi-billion-dollar apparel business.

Nike CEO Phil Knight had brought her in to revive Nike's sagging apparel business, capitalizing on her expertise in fashion, brand strategy, product development, and retail space management.

In her capacity as head of global apparel, she oversaw global strategic planning; product development; and global apparel manufacturing, operations, sourcing, merchandising, advanced innovation, quality assurance, and compliance and sustainability.

She was also responsible for Nike's women's business.

She aggressively and successfully reengineered the entire apparel organization, and created three sub-brands for Nike apparel: Nike Performance, targeted to athletes and aspirational consumers; Nike Active, a line to be worn from gym to street; and Nike Fusion, apparel with higher-performance fabrics and aggressive styling.

Under her leadership, Nike also rolled out new NikeWomen stores, launched NikeWomen catalogues, and started a new division called Fitness Dance.

She advanced Nike's apparel innovation agenda, led the development and growth of the global women's business, and created and co-chaired Nike's Global Women's Leadership Council.

Grossman was credited with showing a footwear company how to be an apparel company.

She brought her strong fashion background to Nike's apparel and regenerated it, devoting much of her energy to the company's weaker women's wear business.

Nike's apparel business's annual revenue was $2.7 billion when she joined in 2000; by the end of fiscal year 2005 she had grown it to $4.1 billion, which was 32% of Nike brand revenues.

After 28 years in the apparel industry, including 9 highly successful years at Ralph Lauren Corporation and 6 equally successful years at Nike, she became the CEO of HSN in 2006.

By 2006, after six years at Nike, Grossman desired a CEO position, preferably in a company where she did not need to commute across the country as she did at Nike.

She aggressively reinvented and relaunched the brand, took HSN public in 2008, and oversaw its multi-billion-dollar retail portfolio and multimedia expansion.

The Financial Times listed her in the Top 50 Women In World Business in 2010 and 2011, and she was ranked among Forbes' 100 Most Powerful Women In The World for the years 2009, 2011, 2012, and 2013.

In 2014 she was ranked #22 in Fortune's Top People in Business.

In July 2017 she left HSN to become the CEO of WW International.

She stepped down from her role as CEO of WW after the first quarter of 2022.