Alumni
Lauren Ulz Hired as National Sales Manager at Trunk Club
Lauren Ulz graduated in 2015 with her Merchandising & Marketing degree and is now the Trunk Club National Sales Manager for the Los Angeles area, heading up the company’s Welcome Specialists team of 70. She visited the LA campus this week to speak at the Premier Merchandising & Marketing Group meeting.
Trunk Club started in 2009 out of Chicago, as a styling service for men. They opened their first brick and mortar locations in 2014 and were acquired by Nordstrom. In 2015, they opened their women’s division.
With a degree in English Literature and a goal to pursue a career in buying, Lauren moved to Los Angeles in 2014 to attend FIDM to study Merchandising & Marketing. She got a job at Nordstrom in the Savvy Department, then applied and got accepted into their Management Internship Training Program.
Six months into the Nordstrom training program, Lauren pitched her boss to get into women’s shoes, motivated by the commission opportunities. She stayed there for about seven months before she went back to Savvy. She realized that employee coaching was something she really liked, so she made a decision to pursue retail management as her career.
A position in management opened up at Trunk Club, so she applied and got a call back the following morning. She’s been there four months now and absolutely loves every minute of it.
“Everyone I work with believes in what they’re doing,” she said. “They want Trunk Club to succeed. It’s a very collaborative working environment.”
As the National Sales Manager for the LA area, Lauren heads up the onboarding for customers. The work her department does streamlines the work for the stylists, so they can focus on what they do best—delivering customers the styles they love.
Her team is measured on conversion and she said they’ve doubled their goals every month. “I see the fruits of our labor,” she said. “I see the results and it really feels like we’re making an impact.”
When asked what lessons she learned at FIDM that are helping her now, she said, “The work ethic. At FIDM, it’s such a sprint. That’s pushed me. When I get an assignment [at Trunk Club], I don’t sit on it.”
She added that everything she learned in her classes at FIDM has helped her. She said, “I recently hosted a seminar on textiles [at Trunk Club], and I realized I really know my fabrics. It’s important for our stylists to know why linen is great for summer, for example.”
The training at Trunk Club is great, too. She said they hold product knowledge meetings several times a month, to keep everyone in the know about current and upcoming fashion trends.
Lauren encouraged the students to check their site as Trunk Club is currently hiring.
Categories: Merchandising & Marketing Alumni
