Inside a crisis turnaround

CARLA VERNÓN: I remember going to see Inside Out the first movie with my kids, and I loved as a mom how it told me about the different pieces of the emotional psyche. And so I thought that might be a less corporate way to help my employees feel normal about the change and fear or excitement that they had about me as an outsider and what I represented.

JESSICA BERMAN: Every single leadership lesson you need in life. You learned when you were five. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. Guess what? You can’t go around it. You can’t go over it. You can’t go under it. You just have to go through it.

BOB SAFIAN: That’s Carla Vernón, CEO of The Honest Company and Jessica Berman, Commissioner of the National Women’s Soccer League recorded live at the 2025 Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco on October 9th. Carla and Jessica inherited businesses in crisis and in this episode they share how they each managed to steady the ship and turn things around. The pair hadn’t met before, but they hit it off instantly building on one another’s enthusiasm, riffing on counterintuitive methods to gain employee trust and sharing advice for reframing strategy and how to implement a better future for any leader looking to flip the script and spark positive change big or small, Carla and Jessica offer a critical case study to inspire us all. So let’s get to it. I’m Bob Safian and this is Rapid Response.

[THEME MUSIC]

Please join me in welcoming Jessica Berman, the Commissioner of the National Women’s Soccer League, and Carla Vernón, the CEO of The Honest Company.

Copy LinkThe first step in leading a turnaround

I’m going to jump right in, if that’s okay. You each came into your leadership roles in crisis in a lot of ways. Honest Company was facing public scrutiny over some of its products. Cash reserves were dwindling. Jessica, at the NWSL, there were accusations of sexual misconduct around the team, the league’s culture was talked about as toxic.

I’m going to start with you, Jessica, those early days when you first get there, players are in revolt. Megan Rapinoe is saying let it burn. What do you do to address that from the start? I mean, I know you ultimately got a collective bargaining agreement that sort of changed the relationship between players in the leagues, but how do you get them to the place where you can even have that conversation?

BERMAN: Well, it’s definitely daunting to start a new job as a first-time commissioner, first-time CEO, and knowing that someone like Megan Rapinoe had just posted on Twitter, let, period, it, period, burn period, and she was talking about the league and I think it started– 

SAFIAN: It’s not a vote of confidence.

BERMAN: No. Well, the league was really at a crossroads and the crossroads was do we go out of business and potentially restart? The history of this league is that there were three prior women’s professional soccer leagues that had failed. And so that was a cycle that this sport had known before, and the alternative was we go and hire a new commissioner and see if we could turn it around. And I think from my perspective, there were really two pieces.

First, I had a job when I got the call from the headhunter, so I felt like I could be very honest and transparent with the players and actually with the board of governors who hired me, asked to interview with them and I sat with them and I said, do you see a world where you can trust this institution? Because if the answer is no, then I could be the best leader in the world– 

SAFIAN: It’s not going to matter.

BERMAN: –then it’s not going to matter. And what I heard from the players was, while they lacked confidence in the league and had a very, very, very long list of gripes that needed to be addressed, that they actually did want the league to succeed. And what they expected was a leader who would show up with vulnerability and humility and actually join them in understanding their lived experience and really respect and understand the labor relationship and the underpinning of professional sports in this country is the relationship between management and labor. And I’m a labor lawyer by training. Everyone always says, are you a soccer player? I’m like, no, I’m a labor lawyer. And actually being a labor lawyer is what helped create the fabric and the culture that we have reset in NWSL.

SAFIAN: Because you knew that building the trust was about having that relationship reset by this collective bargaining agreement, giving the players a stake in a different kind of way.

BERMAN: There is no business in professional sports without a constructive, productive relationship with your union and the players.

SAFIAN: So Carla, you joined Honest from Amazon.

VERNÓN: Yes.

SAFIAN: Much bigger entity. You ran a huge part of the business, all the consumables, household products and food and beverage and health and wellness and beauty. Then you come to Honest as the CEO, the team doesn’t know you, the business is kind of on fire. And so to gain their trust, you invoked cartoon characters. Why cartoon characters and what was that about?

Copy LinkHow to rebuild a company culture

VERNÓN: Well, I feel like we have so much in common, Jessica, in our story. It’s important to back up and say The Honest Company for people who don’t know is a very purpose-driven company. We were founded to really break up the personal care sort of old school lens on things. So all of our products are very cleanly formulated to a high standard of clean. Which means we attract a very emotionally centered, purpose centered employee base. And our employee base, 66% of my employees are millennial or Gen Z, so they’re younger. So I knew that I couldn’t bring the tools that I’m from old corporate America. I used to work at General Mills, a 150-year-old company. Everything that you could Google about taking a team through change– 

SAFIAN: Wasn’t going to work.

VERNÓN: –old corporate America is not going to work. So I am a mom of teenagers and I remember going to see Inside Out, the first movie, with my kids, and I loved as a mom how it told me about the different pieces of the emotional psyche, how genuine they are and how essential they are to all of us. And so I thought that might be a less corporate way to help my employees feel normal about the change and fear or excitement that they had about me as an outsider and what I represented. So this kind of became a bit of our culture.

SAFIAN: Yeah, now you’re dealing with this sort of internal culture at the same time you’ve got this cashflow problem that you’ve got to fix at the same time that you want to expand the reach of the brand. I mean that’s a tough balancing act to like, we’re going to cut back, but we’re going to expand.

VERNÓN: It seems like it would be tough, but in a lot of cases that old adage that you hear, less is more, turns out to be true in business. It is so helpful to define the core essential elements of what you are in business to do and what the people you serve really want from you, and in my case, from our brands. So some of the ability to say we are actually going to decide what we’re not going to do as much as we’re going to decide what we are going to do helped us unlock the biggest pieces of our portfolio, the most profitable pieces, the pieces that were growing the most and really invest and focus in them. The other thing that we did, Bob, was make sure we had disciplined practices so that we just kept repeating and focusing on what was most important and not getting worried about the stuff that’s on the edges.

SAFIAN: I mean, it’s easy to say, it’s hard to do, right? Everyone’s, yeah, we’re going to be disciplined, but we all get distracted by whatever.

VERNÓN: But if you’ve ever worked at Amazon, you will learn how to be disciplined.

Copy LinkInside the first “purpose-built stadium for professional women’s sports”

SAFIAN: I mean, as you’re both on this sort of journey of renovation, you kind of need these wins along the way to keep the momentum going, right? Jessica, I know media rights deals generate a lot of dollars. You signed a record deal, like a 40X increase from before. But you also talked to me about the importance of expanding the number of teams and building out the infrastructure starting in Kansas City, which made you literally teary.

BERMAN: It’s true. Anyone in here from Kansas City? No, literally not a single person in the room.

SAFIAN: Wow.

BERMAN: That was really sad. Well, you should go. You should go. And the reason you should go is because in our country, in the heartland of our country in Kansas City, our ownership group there, Angie and Chris Long built the first purpose-built stadium for professional women’s sports in the history of the world.

VERNÓN: Wow.

BERMAN: You have to sort of think about it and say it a few times to really appreciate the gravity of it. So why did I become teary? Well, I spent my whole career working in men’s sports and it was only in 2022 when I got this call that I had this idea that I could actually live my true purpose, which is using sport as a catalyst for social good, working on behalf of women. It was like, wow, this was like a big unlock for me that I could apply everything I learned for 20 years working on behalf of men for these incredible female athletes. And these incredible female athletes have been tenants in men’s buildings for their entire careers. That means that they don’t have control over the amenities, that they have, the fan experience, access to the appropriate revenue streams, have control over when they play, how they can access the building, all the things that–

SAFIAN: But when they play, meaning even what time games are?

BERMAN: Friday night, Saturday night, what time the game starts because they go second, third, sometimes fourth, sometimes fifth in the pecking order of the building.

SAFIAN: So the men get all the good TV slots and whatever, you can’t get them.

BERMAN: It becomes really hard to build a business when you are a tenant. And so what we did, and really it was Chris and Angie Long in Kansas City did was really take control and agency over their business, which is to say, no, we can’t turn this investment into a billion, multi-billion dollar asset like NBA franchises are until we actually control our infrastructure in a world that is so digital and fleeting, to actually have something you can physically touch. It literally brought me to tears. It also brought me to tears when I walked in the building and saw Title IX written on the wall. It gives me chills even just to think about it because what it means is that not only is that an actual reminder that this is their home and it was built for them. But now men’s teams get to play there too, and they are landlords and it’s incredible.

And when those men’s teams come through, and by the way, the PLL recently rented out the building to host their tournament, which is hugely successful. It’s on ESPN. That’s great. Those male lacrosse players walked in that building and they got to see Title IX on the wall and that’s amazing. That’s an amazing thing to actually witness that transformation.

SAFIAN: I mean, you and I talked about this before, and this applies in some ways to both of you, but in most industries, increased supply pushes prices down, right? In professional sports, sort of adding teams doesn’t necessarily do that. The value of the teams has gone up. How much of that has to do with the vibes of NWSL games? And we’ll talk about what the vibes are of The Honest Company also, right? But it feels different going to an NWSL game.

BERMAN: What the research tells us, and this is actually directly from our fans, is that the word used unprompted most often by our fans when surveyed, what does it mean to be part of the NWSL community is “vibes”. That is the word they use. And when we unpack that, what they say is that it brings them happiness and joy, that they feel a sense of inclusion and belonging that they don’t feel in other places in their life, and that they have an appreciation for greatness when they see our athletes perform on the pitch that is agnostic to women or men or any particular community or background, but rather just something that provides them with inspiration of what is good in the world. And so that’s a really good business. You want to invest in that because in our world today, people need that. People are searching for hope and people are searching for positivity.

SAFIAN: I want to double click on what Jessica’s saying here. In volatile times, people are hungrier than ever for brightness and warmth and joy. So how do you generate that in a culture that’s more and more divided and how do you attract a broad diverse audience and customer base when so much public dialogue is pulling us apart? We’ll talk about that and more after the break. Stay with us.

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Before the break, Honest Company’s Carla Vernón and National Women’s Soccer League’s Jessica Berman, talked with me live at the Masters of Scale Summit about turning around a business in crisis. Now we explore how to attract a broad customer base in an increasingly polarized culture and where Carla and Jessica get their leadership inspiration, from the US Constitution to children’s books. Let’s dive back in.

Copy LinkThe future of DEI

I want to ask you about this, Carla, because there’s also been a certain vibe around Honest Company too as you talk about the mission. Maintaining a distinctive brand is so hard now because so much is so polarized. You said to me at one point, if you want to win in commerce, you should want to win with everyone. But can you? Like in this country today, can you win with everyone or do you have to pick?

VERNÓN: Yeah. Well, Honest, we have such an interesting origin story. We were founded by four founders. Our founders were diverse. Many people are aware of our founder Jessica Alba, who’s an actor, and she’s Mexican American, and she was a founder. I’m Afro-Latina and I’m a founder. And so us being able to be that at a corporation already represents a possibility that a lot of people in the generations coming up have been waiting to see, and now they get to see how we do it. And I always say, I want to run the company that I always wanted to work for. I’ve spent a lot of time at some of the best companies in the world. General Mills, really values driven company. Amazon, excellent, outstanding execution.

And now I get to put all of that together with what is essential to the spirit I’m trying to bring to life, which is a place where our employees can feel seen. So 66% of our employees are either millennial or Gen Z, but we are also very diverse. Our board is diverse and we have employee resource groups, ERGs, we call them a lot. But at Honest, everybody is part of every ERG if they want to. We don’t use it as an opportunity to divide and separate. We use it as an opportunity to build allyship, understanding and also community for the people in the ERGs.

And I’ll tell you, I’m a “I don’t believe the hype” person. I’m not all hyped up about that. The fact that we’re going to be divided as Americans, because I think the reality of what you see in your neighborhood is more true than what you see on your social media feed. So I ask everybody to think about who lives next to you, who lives a block away from you, even if they wear a hat that’s a different color than your hat, when you know them as a human we are all just in, what does RuPaul say? We’re all just humans in drag, right? These are costumes. What essentially beats in our heart is the same. So when I bring products forward, I don’t care what color your hat is, if your baby has sensitive skin or you don’t like chemicals on your kitchen countertop, then I think you’re going to love our vibes.

SAFIAN: You mentioned the word diversity, and both of your organizations are diverse. The term DEI has become this sort of heightened polarizing nomenclature, does that mean that you have to approach the way you talk about and label the diversity that you are proud of differently?

VERNÓN: I don’t know if you’ve noticed, so I don’t want to alert anybody, but I’m not a white man. So there’s no hiding. I can’t hide, right? I can’t hide and I’m not going to change because I don’t believe the hype that is a kabuki theater act that’s happening on the outside. I can tell you that I speak to so many public company CEOs who know the truth is still the truth. We’re going to fill those stadium seats with people from all the neighborhoods. We’re going to walk into our grocery stores or shop on our mobile phone with people from all the neighborhoods. And that’s where my focus is. I am not confused. And the plot did not change. The future is coming. We will be part of it. It will be positive.

SAFIAN: And Jessica, for you, I mean the league is based on the idea in some ways that we should be giving opportunity to people who haven’t gotten an opportunity before, but how much do you sort of overtly stress that, or as Carla is saying, you just sort of wear it because it’s who you and your league are?

BERMAN: Well, I spent about four years of my career when I was at the National Hockey League leading Cause, social impact. I was the executive director of the NHL foundation for a brief stint, and my job was to create the social platforms that help drive all of our Cause marketing and all of our messaging around community-based initiatives. I like to say at the NWSL, our social impact strategy is creating a sustainable business that is literally what we do to do good in the world. We are the embodiment and the combination of the do good, do well model. We will prove to people that investing in women is good for business by having a successful professional women’s soccer league. Particularly when you think about the fact that I would venture to guess that every person in this room, if you close your eyes and think of greatness and soccer in America, you think of women first. It is the only team sport where that is true.

And so these women are the literal best in the world. And let’s face it, Americans like the best. They want to pay to watch the best. They want to watch the best on TV. They want to wear the merch because we celebrate greatness in this country. That is some of the values that are universal that we all can rally around. And women’s soccer players are the best who are from here. And so we are building our business on the backs of that, which is something that is true for everybody.

Copy LinkCarla’s passion for the US Constitution

SAFIAN: Carla, you had talked to me earlier about a particular passion you have for the US Constitution.

BERMAN: Oh wow.

VERNÓN: I know. I’m very patriotic.

SAFIAN: I wonder if you’d share that with this group a little bit about where your passion for the Constitution comes from and why it remains important to you today.

VERNÓN: My father was an immigrant to this country. My father came to the United States from Panama to attend college to be the only one of the three brothers who went to college. He was a Black Panamanian. He’s passed away. He was a Black Panamanian and he came to the United States during segregation. So he came from a country where he was free to a country where he was decidedly not free. The rights and laws of this country restricted what he was allowed to do, but he still came here because apparently this was a better path to what’s possible than that, which is a mind blower.

But, it really says something about the importance of what America can promise to be. So as my parents raised us, my mom is a New Orleanian. You also know this. My mom is a NASA hidden figure, so–

BERMAN: Wow.

VERNÓN: I know. I know. I didn’t tell it to you.

BERMAN: Wow.

VERNÓN: She’s so cool. And she can party me under the table. But anyway, that’s an aside.

BERMAN: Wow, that is so cool.

VERNÓN: So my parents had very little of what America promises at its peak for us, but that never stopped them from believing in pushing it for themselves and telling us that we must push. So we grew up pushing, including that when I was seven, six or seven, my mom took me to Washington DC to march on the Capitol for Women’s Equal Rights, for the Equal Rights Amendment that does now technically have enough states to pass. So we’re going to get after it still. And I always just felt like America belonged to me. America just didn’t understand that yet. So that is a value that we have instilled.

Today I sit on the, I’m a trustee at one of the Smithsonian’s that’s being built, and I just always tell people, if you are ever near a Smithsonian, most of which are in DC, but are not all in DC, they are your museums. You pay for them in your tax dollars. They’re yours. You go to them and demand that they show you this country in all its realness.

Copy LinkLeadership lessons from children’s books

SAFIAN: We only have a minute more, but as you were talking, Carla, I was thinking about Jessica when I was in your office in New York. I know on your coffee table in your office, there was this big stack of children’s books, and I sort of thought like, oh, some kids are visiting the office or something. And I asked you about it and you said, no, no, no, they’re for my staff.

BERMAN: Because I really believe that every single leadership lesson you need in life, you learned when you were five, every single one.  I know. We’re the same person. You’re Inside Out. And all of who I am as a leader is the direct combination of what I learned from my mother and my father. My mother’s a child psychologist and my father is a scrappy, barely college-educated entrepreneur. And together that is me. I am that. And I’ll just give a recent example. Actually, this morning we were on a board call with my owners. So I report to the 16 owners in the NWSL. By the way, for those of you who have only one boss, I do not recommend reporting to 16. It’s hard. You know when you know.

But on the call, I got a little ping on Slack from someone on my team that quoted one of the children’s books, which is guess what happens? If you give a mouse a cookie they’re going to want a glass of milk.

VERNÓN: Of milk.

BERMAN: That’s what happens when you give a mouse a cookie. That’s one of the 15 books on my desk. So people on my staff are constantly pulling those out and I’m like, yes, you get it. And it’s such a great analog for people to humanize and boil down sometimes hard to talk about or complex concepts or things that are really interpersonal.

SAFIAN: Is there a book that right now, a children’s book that you find yourself going to more? Is there a lesson that you pull from that that we could-

BERMAN: Yes, I have one. “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt”. It’s relates to what you just said. Guess what? You can’t go around it. You can’t go over it. You can’t go under it. You just have to go through it. And that is the story of challenges in life. And so we cite that in our office almost every single day.

SAFIAN: Well, Jessica, Carla, this has been great. Thank you.

The best lessons really can be the simplest, though citing them is often easier than acting on them. One of the big takeaways for me from my conversation with Carla and Jessica is how they both link inspiring ideas with brave strategic action. Whether that’s innovating on a collective bargaining agreement or reshuffling cash flow priorities. The turnaround stories of the NWSL and the Honest Company represent that nothing is impossible, no matter how seemingly insurmountable with enough perseverance. And of course, it helps when you’ve got the right leaders in place.

We’ve got several more dynamic leadership conversations from the Masters of Scale Summit to share on Rapid Response, including a lightning round session on marketing with Autodesk CMO Autodesk CMO Dara Terceder, a dive into five myths around tariffs and global trade with Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen. And what character driven leadership looks like in 2025 with retired US General Stanley McChrystal and cultural commentator, Baratunde Thurston. You won’t want to miss any of it. You can also watch videos of the Masters of Scale Summit on YouTube by visiting the Rapid Response or Masters of Scale pages. I’m Bob Safian. Thanks for listening.