CEO’s ‘Tough’ Trade Exchange Ends up in 8-Determine Earnings

“It’s at all times been my dream to be a CEO of a manner emblem,” Ginny Seymour, CEO of recent girls’s model emblem Aligne, tells Entrepreneur.

^{Symbol Credit score: Courtesy of Aligne. CEO Ginny Seymour.}

A fashion industry veteran who began her profession as a modern purchaser at Saks 5th Street, Seymour had a chance to understand that goal with Aligne, at the start based via Dalbir Bains as a wholesale girls’s model emblem in London in 2020.

Seymour envisioned a brandnew past for Aligne — the logo may just fill a white dimension she noticed in fashionable girls’s clothes: the desire for design-led, wearable items at an out there value level, delivered with an omnichannel manner.

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Seymour got down to assemble it occur, necessarily “refounding” the corporate. She joined the trade as managing director in 2022, relaunched Aligne underneath her optic in 2023 and used to be formally named CEO in 2024.

^{Symbol Credit score: Courtesy of Aligne}

“I felt partners [had to be] a huge part of the story.”

All over her first a number of years as CEO, Seymour considering Aligne’s community building on-line and “design handwriting,” next branched out from a direct-to-consumer technique to an omnichannel manner with U.S. retail companions.

In reality, regardless of being a London-founded emblem, Aligne sees a bigger a part of its trade unfolding within the U.S., Seymour says.

The CEO even not too long ago relocated from London to Pristine York to backup the U.S. administrative center and group as the logo continues its enlargement.

“ We’re still based in the UK, so I travel back and forth,” Seymour says. “London to me is our creative hub; it’s part of our DNA being a British brand. That’s super important to me and something we don’t want to lose. So we’re very much creatively driven out of London, but commercially driven out of the U.S.”

^{Symbol Credit score: Courtesy of Aligne}

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As a nonetheless reasonably younger British emblem, Aligne features validation with a U.S. target audience thru shops that experience loyal customer bases.

“In  the UK, it’s easier to be direct-to-consumer only because the UK is much smaller and more attainable,” Seymour says. “But in the U.S., to resonate as the next contemporary brand that people should be looking at, I felt partners [had to be] a huge part of the story.”

Aligne not too long ago introduced with Nordstrom, a store Seymour says she’d at all times was hoping to spouse with one week, nearest the corporate direct-messaged her to precise its pastime within the emblem. Aligne may be to be had at Anthropologie.

^{Symbol Credit score: Courtesy of Aligne}

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“There’s less visibility [into] the analytics and who your customer is. You have to really listen.”

In spite of the long-term objective to amplify in retail, Seymour first prioritized working out Aligne as a emblem and its relationship to customers prior to tackling the ones partnerships, appreciating how impressive that technique is for sustainable good fortune.

Whether or not you’re refounding a trade that already exists or starting one from scratch, figuring out who your buyer is — and temporarily — will assemble or crack its enlargement.  ”And that’s easier said than done,” the CEO notes. “There are so many factors. With every iOS update, there’s less visibility [into] the analytics and who your customer is. You have to really listen.”

Aligne’s goal consumers are “confident, working” girls, and acknowledging what the ones shoppers sought after in a clothes form helped information the logo’s design shift and the path of its assortment, Seymour says.

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Dialing into that buyer bottom is paying off. Aligne ended its fiscal yr in July 2025 with 56% year-over-year revenue growth and income coming near 8 figures.

Maximum of Aligne’s items are priced between $100 and $300. Even if Seymour appreciates why some manufacturers evolve into the “premium contemporary” dimension amid emerging prices and tariff challenges, she says the corporate is dedicated to its out there value level.

^{Symbol Credit score: Courtesy of Aligne}

“I quickly had to learn where I didn’t want to lean and how to make sure to get the support.”

Being a CEO is a quantity tougher than Seymour concept it could be when she used to be two decades worn, she admits. However she admires how the activity has allowed her to attract on her revel in as a purchaser, which demanded a “balance of art and science” similar to the chief position does.

“[There might be a] week that I’m so artistic and designing the concept and the line, and there’s other days where I’m definitely leaning into the science,” Seymour says. “However I temporarily had to be told the place I didn’t wish to incline and find out how to assemble certain to get the backup in the ones grounds as a result of a CEO wears so many hats.”

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Probably the most greatest classes Seymour’s realized throughout her tenure as CEO thus far is the worth in paying attention to her instincts — even if it’s tricky. Over the primary couple of months of the corporate’s refounding, Seymour every now and then hesitated to mention what she sought after, next didn’t get the consequences that she desired.

“Three months in, I had this moment where I brought the team together and was much clearer about what I wanted,” Seymour says. “That introduced them extra at the proceed with me, and it solidified us as a group and our values. If in case you have an concept and also you’re building your own business, trusting your intestine and no longer being scared to mention it’s robust.”