---
title: "WADE at The LEAD Summit - DAY 2"
url: https://stacklist.com/card/8e93d27a-c7f7-4bfb-9d89-c9fbd5b84448
source_url: "https://www.linkedin.com/posts/deannaandersen_heading-home-if-day-1-at-the-lead-summit-ugcPost-7463350550265262080-fGMN?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAFrUaX0BkrFcqdmToMFUUOoHg_DGFyswYjY"
stack: https://stacklist.com/c/events/stack/0ca7f6eb-9515-497f-bf39-20e742781ebb
summary: "Deanna Andersen shares key takeaways from Day 2 of The LEAD Summit, covering themes like community vs. audience, consistency at scale, timelessness as growth strategy, and the collapsing value chain in retail. The post highlights insights from leaders at NATURIUM, Brooks Brothers, Veronica Beard, Loop Earplugs, and Arcade on building durable brands in a rapidly shifting market."
tags: "retail-leadership, brand-strategy, community-building, consumer-brands, cpg, scaling, dtc"
key_entities: "Deanna Andersen (person), Jake Galtere (person), Ken Ohashi (person), Stephanie Unwin (person), Amy Barber (person), Mariam Naficy (person), Bryan Mahoney (person), Marie Chevrier Schwartz (person), NATURIUM (organization), Brooks Brothers (organization), Veronica Beard (organization), Loop Earplugs (organization), Arcade (organization), Minted (organization), WADE (organization), Walmart (organization), Target (organization), SEPHORA (organization), Chord (organization), The LEAD Summit (event), COACHELLA (event), NYC (location), community vs audience (concept), consistency at scale (concept), value chain collapse (concept), GLP-1 shifts (concept), demographic inversion (concept)"
classification: "notes"
content_hash: "sha256:17ec78111acbb88216f1f516316a97140aba54ad6f7a227133fba97820413f94"
acp_version: "0.2"
token_counts_approximate: 1038
visibility: public
agent_accessible: true
status: "final"
---

# WADE at The LEAD Summit - DAY 2

Deanna Andersen 5d Edited Report this post Heading home ... If Day 1 at The LEAD Summit was about knowing who you are, Day 2 was about holding that under pressure, at scale, in a market shifting faster than most business models were built for. Key Takeaways: Community is not an audience. Jake Galtere shared how NATURIUM built their entire product development pipeline on community insight. Reading every comment. Letting it drive category decisions. The result: the fastest growing skincare brand in the top 50 of the US market, up 2.5x in the past year. The framework that kept surfacing: audiences listen to you, customers buy from you, communities engage with each other. If your community goes quiet when you step back, you have an audience, not a community. Consistency is an operational achievement, not a creative one. NATURIUM shows up the same way in Walmart , Target , and SEPHORA . That discipline at scale is harder than it looks and most brands do not manage it. Timelessness is a growth strategy. Ken Ohashi , Brooks Brothers and Stephanie Unwin , Veronica Beard made this case better than anyone. The brands designed for both the entry point customer and the lifetime customer build something that compounds across decades. Authenticity scales when rooted in constraint. Amy Barber , Loop Earplugs built a partnership model on one rule: everything compounds or it does not happen. COACHELLA to a 12-week national Target end cap. Sales up 112% in the four weeks after the festival. The value chain is collapsing. Mariam Naficy , founder of Arcade and previously Minted , was direct: manufacturers want consumer data, retailers want design capability, creators want to own what they sell. The brands treating their lane as fixed will be squeezed. The window to build flexibility is open now. Strategies for protecting margins in a volatile market > scenario planning is the job. GLP-1 shifts and demographic inversion are not edge cases. By 2028, more Americans will be over 65 than under 18. These are demand stories hiding inside healthcare headlines. The companies that have run the scenarios will set the terms. The market is no longer rewarding founders who are good at launching. It is rewarding founders who are good at holding. WADE had three great days! Incredible meetings, dinners, coffee chats ... time with clients, investors and building relationships with new ecosystem partners and brands ... many follow on discussions, cannot wait. Love NYC, see you in a couple weeks. 19 11 Comments Like Comment Share Copy LinkedIn Facebook X Deanna Andersen 5d Report this comment Kimberly Morgan we missed one another again ... hope to see you soon! Come to TO for the launch of Retail Women in Tech Toronto Chapter! Like Reply 1 Reaction Deanna Andersen 5d Report this comment Great to see you Marie Chevrier Schwartz and Jeremy Goldman Like Reply 2 Reactions 3 Reactions Deanna Andersen 5d Report this comment Amazing to see the Chord crew, Bryan Mahoney and Cece Lee Arnold ... Toronto Tech Week is up next, see you soon! Awesome to see you Ricky Gilbert Like Reply 1 Reaction 2 Reactions Deanna Andersen 5d Report this comment Great to see you Daniel Abitbul and Shay Amir Like Reply 1 Reaction 2 Reactions Deanna Andersen 4d Report this comment Stephen Ellis , really great to see you Like Reply 1 Reaction Deanna Andersen 5d Report this comment Look forward to working together Emma Shields , Swap Like Reply 1 Reaction 2 Reactions Eleviam 5d Report this comment constraint driven authenticity is something we see consistently with the brands that scale durably, the discipline to say no to adjacent opportunities preserves the brand voice the next cohort of customers actually buys into Like Reply 1 Reaction 2 Reactions Tom C. 5d Report this comment consistency at scale across walmart, target, and sephora is one of the most underrated operational achievements in cpg, the brands that hold the same voice across channels build a different quality of brand equity Like Reply 1 Reaction 2 Reactions See more comments To view or add a comment, sign in