By Brittany Hutson
Not very many men have a great deal of knowledge about a woman’s bra, but Richard A. Dent III admits that he knows more than any man probably needs to know. He knows all about cup sizes. He knows all of the different parts that go into the making of a bra. He knows what happens when lace is added to a bra. He knows when it’s appropriate for a woman to wear a strapless bra, push-up bra, demi bra or halter bra.
Mulling over details about women’s lingerie is nothing unusual for Dent. It is a fundamental element of his everyday conversation as the chief operating officer of Victoria’s Secret PINK, the billion-dollar loungewear brand that is under the umbrella of the $10 billion conglomerate, Limited Brands. Limited Brands is the parent company of some of retail’s popular brands in lingerie, beauty and personal care, including Victoria’s Secret and Bath and Body Works.
Today, Victoria’s Secret PINK stands as a top lifestyle brand targeting college girls, but seven years ago, PINK was the little cousin of Victoria’s Secret—a new sub-brand that was being tested in one store in Columbus, OH. For a young man who originally had plans to be a top executive in the automobile industry, being assigned the task of building a women’s brand was unexpected at first but it was the sort of opportunity that was befitting for the zealous professional.
The West Philadelphia native originally had other plans for his career. Growing up, he had aspirations of becoming a shooting guard for the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team. Though he spent a lot of time working on his skills, eventually, Dent acknowledged that a career in basketball wasn’t meant for him. “At some point I realized that I didn’t have the height nor the athletic ability to make that a reality,” he said.
It wasn’t until the summer of junior year in high school that Dent discovered that his passion was in business, not sports. For four weeks, he was a participant of the University of Michigan’s School of Business program called LEAD. The program selects African American, Hispanic and Native American high school students to participate in summer business institutes at graduate business schools, such as the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the Tuck School at Dartmouth College. The schools immerse the participants in finance, marketing and entrepreneurship.
“What I liked about business was the notion of taking an idea, turning it into something and creating a demand for it,” he said. “Business in corporate America was intriguing to me. It’s different from say Wall Street where at the end of the day you haven’t really made anything but money.”
To get the best training for a career in business, Dent turned to Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU). Dent credits the historically black university for fostering his high level of confidence and preparing him for the world of corporate America. “We had a very novel professional development curriculum,” he said. “On top of academics and internships, you learned business writing and speaking, and you went to three or four receptions a week to learn how to engage with business people in a non-corporate environment.”
After his first two semesters at FAMU, Dent landed an internship with Ford Motor Company, where he later launched his career in 1993. “At the time, Ford had five of the top ten selling vehicles in America so it was a hot place to be,” reminisced Dent. “I could see my whole career laid out in front of me—I thought, ‘I’m going to be the CFO of Ford, I’m going to run for mayor of Detroit…”
Yet, by his fourth year with the company, Dent became restless. He believed that he had done significantly well at Ford and began evaluating his options. At that point, Dent realized that he would not be able to advance further within the company. “I thought, ‘do I want to sit here in this job and wait five years, not because of my talent, but because of time since that’s how things worked,’” recalled Dent. “I decided I was too young in my career to sit around when I felt that I could contribute more.”
So he moved on. In 1998, Dent became the US Controller for Sales and Marketing at Volvo Trucks North America. At 27-years-old, he became the youngest controller at Volvo. But his time with Volvo was cut short when the company decided to sell their heavy truck business. Word through the grapevine was that many of the leaders under that branch would be laid off. Though Dent had no doubt that he would not be given a pink slip due to his skill in finance, he still felt it was time to pursue another opportunity.
That next opportunity was with Limited Brands, which was seeking prospective employees with strong financial backgrounds. In the early years of his career with the company, Dent rose through the ranks and served in multiple capacities, including director of finance for Limited Brands, and director of strategic planning for Bath and Body Works. In 2005, Dent was one of a few people selected by the chairman of Limited Brands to join the PINK team. At the time, PINK had very few resources dedicated to the brand.
“There were two merchants, one of which is the current CEO, a couple of planners, a marketing person and a PR analyst,” explained Dent. “There were less than six or seven people dedicated to PINK and the brand was being offered in about 300 stores. The business was somewhere in the $300 to $400 million territory. Very few people knew what PINK was at the time it started.”
Not to mention, company insiders had diverse opinions about the brand’s potential. “The chairman of Limited Brands was excited about it [but] the CEO of Victoria’s Secret didn’t like it and didn’t get it,” said Dent, who was initially unsure that he would be interested in the job. However, after careful consideration, Dent realized the professional growth he would attain in the position.
“I would get to work on store design and construction; I would get to help shape the strategy and build the organization; I would get to do a whole bunch of stuff that I would never get to do if I were in a really mature business,” he said.
In addition, like the chairman, Dent also noticed PINK’s potential. “Girls were having this really interesting reaction to the aesthetic of the product,” he said. “It had the characteristics of a brand as far as our customers’ interaction with it way before it was really prepared to be a brand.”
Interestingly, Dent was able to apply the training he received at Ford to his position with PINK. At Ford, employees were mandated to work in a variety of functions so that when they reached a senior level, they were familiar with the system.
“Their philosophy was you weren’t just going to be a numbers guy,” said Dent. “If you work with a plant, you will work in a plant on the line, so one day when you’re an executive, you’re not talking about what you’ve heard. You would know because you’ve been there.”
Dent used this philosophy at PINK when he worked in a store for three weeks. Though he wasn’t mandated to do so, Dent felt it was necessary in order for him to understand the implications of the decisions that he would later make in his executive position, which, he believes makes him a stronger leader.
Throughout his tenure at PINK, Dent has played a critical role in negotiating multi-year exclusivity deals with the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Collegiate Licensing Company, a deal that created a collection of hoodies, football tees and totes that features the names and logos of 60 universities. Originally, the university collection did not include historically black colleges and universities.
In mid-2008, a sophomore at Howard University named Amelia Reid voiced her dismay to Victoria’s Secret that HBCUs were absent from the university collection. She initiated a Facebook group called “HBCU Ladies Wear Victoria’s Secret Pink Too.” Dent reached out to Reid to verify that a HBCU line was in the process of being created, for which he was pushing; that fall, the collection premiered starting with five schools: FAMU, Howard, Hampton University, North Carolina A&T University and Southern University.
Inside the company, not many were familiar with the term HBCU, according to Dent. “I wanted to bring this idea to HBCUs because there hadn’t been a retailer of our scale and size willing to put this energy and effort behind anything that had to do with HBCUs,” he said.
Though proud of his accomplishments professionally, the husband and father of four is most passionate about volunteering as a group mentor for Expanding Visions Foundation. Expanding Visions is a Columbus, OH based non-profit dedicated to mentoring inner-city males ages 12-18. “The PINK position gives me a platform to do a lot of good,” he said. “I always tell people when I die and go to heaven and have my first face-to-face conversation with God, I’m convinced that he’s not going to care about how many bras, panties and hoodies I’ve sold. He’ll care about when I was in this position what did I do to help other people.”
