Kelly Cook admits to being “addicted” to business management challenges and loves transformation. That passion led her to work across industries as diverse as aviation and waste management before she became CEO at David’s Bridal, driving transformation.

“I love anything that makes the customer experience better,” she told Inside Retail’s Amie Larter in the latest episode of the video series Retail Transformers. “I strive to exceed the expectations of a customer.” 

At David’s Bridal, Cook is leveraging her change-management experience to expand the business, develop new revenue opportunities, and double down on creating a truly personal customer experience. 

That means redefining what a deeply personal customer experience looks like for shoppers, a challenge many retailers are learning to master. 

A unique business with unique ratings

Every year in the US, there are around 2 million weddings, and 90 per cent of those couples visit David’s Bridal online at least once. “I bet every retailer in existence would love that stat.”

There are many things she loves about the business. “It doesn’t matter if it’s Covid, murder hornets, snowmageddon; you cannot cancel love.

“I love that we are an industry that is about hope and joy and optimism and passion and love. I mean, you can never be in a bad mood and work at this company. It is absolutely extraordinary. And it combines all the things I love: Leadership, service, heart culture, data, analytics, AI, technology, marketing, brand – all of that yummy stuff put together. I literally have the best job on the planet.” 

David’s Bridal has twice been in bankruptcy protection in recent years: In 2019, before Cook joined, and in 2023. Her first focus was identifying the areas of the business where it was successful, and that evaluation process showed many areas where the brand was winning. 

The best fact she learned about the company when she joined was its MPS score, which was over 80. “Nordstrom is in the low 70s. Apple is in the high 60s. You’re talking about world-class brands. Even Amazon’s MPS is in the 60s.” That proved to her the company was doing something right, and when they pulled apart the MPS data, the “humanity of the brand” emerged.

Most women hate some part of their bodies, or they want what they cannot have, she ventures. 

“They want to be taller, shorter, thinner, or heavier. These brides were coming into our store for an appointment, and she’s thinking, ‘These pictures last forever. I don’t like my waist, my butt, my boobs, my arms, whatever’. She’s fighting with the in-laws about who’s sitting at which table. She’s got US$35,000, which is the average cost of a US wedding, and she needs like $50,000. So how is she going to make her dream come true?”

When you have an MPS score that high, she suggests, the company must be doing something empathetic and passionate around that appointment to meet and mitigate those fears, making the bride feel so good about her experience. 

Cook is now preparing the business to take that empathy and success into other categories. “The vision of our algorithm is to be the largest AI-enabled retail medium planning marketplace serving life’s moments. We are doing weddings now, but we’re not stopping there. Weddings are a $7 billion industry. Quinceañera is even bigger. So we are to go after Bar Mitzvahs, quinceañeras, all of that.”

“Here is my prediction. We are going to be the largest marketplace serving this industry, and we are going to be the biggest media network serving this industry, but more companies will come together to cross-pollinate sales by combining their marketplaces. Because I really think one plus one makes three. That’s what we’re seeing with some of the deals we’ve just struck. There are multiple layers of opportunity for both companies to make money. I love that.

“Fasten your seat belts. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.”

On celebrating failure, how anything can happen, and being brave

Cook shared some of her favourite lessons in leadership during the interview. 

“My first leadership lesson is that anything can happen. Stay encouraged. Two, if you look at the circle around you and you’re not inspired, then you have a cage, not a circle. So hire people who are better at everything, and then your job is to make sure they can work together.”

“The third leadership lesson is to be brave enough to suck at something new. Put yourself out there, try new things, take some chances.

“The final one is to celebrate failure, make it fun. We launched something at David’s called CLMs, which stands for career-limiting move, which is celebrating mistakes. It works. And somebody goes, Kelly, I have a CLM, I’ve got a CLM, I’m like awesome, tell me about it, I want to hear.” 

• Watch the interview as Cook talks about overcoming the technology challenges stunting David’s Bridal’s resurrection, the four pillars of the company’s success, and why she believes there is a lack of urgency in reinventing traditional retail business models.