How Jennifer Foyle Grew Aerie Into A $2 Billion Brand

0:00Jennifer Foyle: Our next guest rocked the retail world when she pledged not to use airbrushed models in her company's advertising. And today, she's doubling down and promising not to use AI models either. Welcome to C-Suite Unscripted. I'm Maggie McGrath, your host. And today, I sat down with Jennifer Foyle. She is the president and executive creative director at American Eagle and Aerie. Jen joined Aerie 16 years ago and has taken it from a brand that does$200 million in sales to one that does$2 billion in sales. We talked about why that growth has been driven by the 100 % Aerie Real campaign and why in turn that campaign wouldn't have been possible without an emotional question from her daughter.

0:46Jennifer Foyle: We also talked about why Jen has an open-door policy for the hundreds of employees who report to her, and how her entire career in retail started by answering a newspaper ad for something called a Christmas executive. Let's dive in.

1:07Jennifer Foyle: Jen, thank you so much for sitting down with Forbes. Thank you, Maggie.

1:10Maggie McGrath: My favorite name, by the way.

1:12Jennifer Foyle: It's your daughter's name. I know.

1:13Maggie McGrath: It's a good name.

1:14Jennifer Foyle: I'm partial to it as well, but I like that we have this in common.

1:17Maggie McGrath: Are you Margaret, by the way? I am Margaret. So is she.

1:20Jennifer Foyle: I'm not going to say my middle name while we're recording, but also a good first name. Does she go by Margaret ever?

1:26Maggie McGrath: She goes by Maggie. Well, Margaret, if she's in a little bit of trouble, but that's a rarity. So that's a pretty good kid.

1:33Jennifer Foyle: Are you a strict parent?

1:34Maggie McGrath: Not really. You know, it's interesting. Only children, they become your friends, right? I was the youngest of four and that would explain a lot. But Maggie, you know, they treat you as their peers. So dinner conversations are always interesting. She gives me a lot of opinions and a lot of news that some other mothers don't know. So I feel myself blessed.

1:55Jennifer Foyle: You are also in charge of a major business at American Eagle. You are the head of Aerie. You've grown Aerie from basically a$200 million business, 225 thereabouts, to more than$2 billion. It's been really explosive growth almost every quarter since you joined. And I've heard you say that still, in spite of this growth, not everyone realizes what Aerie is, how it's different from the core American Eagle offering. So for folks who think they know, but maybe don't know, can you give the 60 second overview for exactly what you do?

2:29Maggie McGrath: Yeah. OK. Aerie is part of the American Eagle portfolio company. Right. So there's American Eagle, which is a denim based brand, Aerie Intimates. And now we have the offshoot offline. Aerie started in its infancy on a table in American Eagle Outfitters. This two hundred million dollar table, you know, give or take. And I was brought in by Roger Markfield. He was my mentor in the beginning. And now Jay, the big boss who I report to, who is amazing, our CEO of our company, brought me in to grow this business. And I was so excited about it. I just knew that there was room in the intimate apparel.

3:07Maggie McGrath: So Aerie is an intimate apparel business. Started with this undies table, as I mentioned, in American Eagle. And now it's so much more. We have more categories. We'd like to call it what you wear inside, right? Lounge, intimates. And then we move on to AE, what you wear outside. And then offline, what you're working out in. So it is just an incredible portfolio of brands. Aerie, to me, is a little bit near and dear to my heart, though. And because it was really hard to break into this industry. There was one behemoth I don't need to mention. It was 80 % of the specialty intimate apparel market share.

3:45Maggie McGrath: It owned it. It owned the entire market share. And we knew that it was going to be really hard to be disruptive. And when I looked at just the assortments out there and the offerings, I just knew that there was a younger play, a more fun, a more spirited, intimate apparel brand that our customer, younger girls, could relate to. And that was really the beginning.

4:06Jennifer Foyle: Younger girls and also maybe women who feel intimidated to go into some intimate shop because it feels so lacy and so sexy. And if that's not part of the identity that you share, you might not feel welcome in those sorts of stores. But let's go back. So this was 2014-ish when you.

4:23Maggie McGrath: So I started in 2009 and I will tell you it took some time. I mean, this was a learning for sure. For me, I'm building a business I had. You know, I was at J.Crew and we turned that around from infancy and we went public when I was there. So I did have that experience. But this was brand new being inside of this other business. Right. We were. technically inside of American Eagle, right? And then we birthed this incredible brand. And it was this moment, I would say, we really had to reposition the entire, we closed stores. We actually did have some stores. We had 136, but really the meat of the business was that one table in American Eagle Outfitters.

5:04Maggie McGrath: As you could imagine back then, we had a thousand plus stores. So it was, you know, one table can do a lot of volume. We know the number now. And it was really getting just moving the entire business forward, we had to move step backwards. Okay. And we had to close, we closed about a hundred stores out of 136. We focused on that table, making that table as productive as possible, getting the right team in place. And may I add, many of them were legacy. We just needed to reposition. For instance, Stacey, my head of marketing right now, she was actually a merchant and I just saw so much more potential in her.

5:41Maggie McGrath: And I moved her to marketing because she had digital experience. And this is what marketing is today, right? So we took every aspect of the business, repositioned, made sure our team was in place, got a great new designer. We did hire a new designer who was an expert in intimates. You know, it did take from about 2009, the latter half of 2009, by the way, it is my anniversary, 16 years this month. And then we just moved forward, right? We had to get the product right. product is king for anything we do in this business. It is about the product, the quality, the intention, and acknowledging who our customers, of course, with that product.

6:17Maggie McGrath: And we worked hard on that product. And when we knew we were ready to deliver, that's when we started getting our footprint out there. That's when we started doing the digital climb. That's when we started opening up new stores with new renovations. That's when we started talking to our customer.

6:32Jennifer Foyle: You made a pledge in the early days of Aerie. So it sounds like marketing speak, but it came from a really genuine place is my understanding based on a mutual friend we have who said that your daughter asked you a question that had you thinking about how you market this intimates business. What was the question your daughter asked you?

6:50Maggie McGrath: It was pretty emotional, actually. She was about five, six, seven years old. She was in that zone. Boy, I'm getting old. Wise to say. Wise, not old. Yes, wise. I like that. She looked in the mirror, and this is in my early days of Aerie, and said, Mom, am I beautiful? And I just took the step back. It was a moment, a really magical moment, actually, for so many reasons, because we were still trying to find our corners of how we can really get in this business and make a mark. And I looked at her. I said, Of course, you're beautiful. You know, from the inside out, Maggie. I mean, that's what matters.

7:26Maggie McGrath: And then it occurred to me that everybody is beautiful. Every woman's beautiful. And we started to play on this concept. I brought this concept to work. And one day, my head of creative, we were brewing this concept. And I went down to, we have simulated store sets. And I went down and all the marketing, they had just done the marketing campaign. They went on the shoot and he looked over at me and he said, Jen, what do you think about these models? Let's take a step back there. They're models. Okay. That is their job. I said, they're gorgeous. This is, it's it. We have the product right now, this marketing looks incredible.

8:00Maggie McGrath: He said, not one of them have been airbrushed. And I looked around and there were moments that I saw scars and cellulite, all the things that we might be embarrassed of. I was like, why can't we celebrate this? You know, that scar has, you know, a memory attached to it, good or bad. It is who you are as a human being. And we were the first influencers, you know, we knew then it became so much more than we even vacated, just not only using model. We didn't vacate. We still use models, but we went on to using our customers as user generated content. We were the first influencers and now everyone's doing it.

8:37Maggie McGrath: Like our community is our customer and they're who we speak to and it's who we represent.

8:42Jennifer Foyle: How important is that 100 % Aerie Reel campaign to the growth of the business? Can you disentangle the booming sales numbers from that campaign?

8:52Maggie McGrath: Never, never, because real starts at home. It starts with what I do every day when I wake up. I am about as real as it gets. I don't do many podcasts, actually, because I want to spend time either with my team, which is a big part of my life, or my family. And it has to mean something. Brands have to stand for something. And the brands that survive over time, American Eagle, our portfolio is going to be 50 years. this year. And when you think of that, you have to have a following and an understanding of what your brand is. So without real, Aerie is nothing. And now in this AI world, which, you know, it's out there, we've made a recent commitment not to use AI to generate our models, who are our customers, who are our people.

9:40Maggie McGrath: And I think it's a natural progression. And certainly there'll be parts of AI, you know, forecasting tools or demand tools, that's important. But for us, we want real people. We want to celebrate our community.

9:53Jennifer Foyle: What was the reaction when you came out and said no AI in Aerie marketing?

9:57Maggie McGrath: Phenomenal. Overnight. I mean, the Aerie real overnight was mind boggling. I've never seen something take hold. I mean, I have when I meet mothers and and girls and our customers. I go into stores. I follow them. I follow an airy bag down the streets of New York and I speak to these customers. They're so thankful. I had a mother on the ferry boat to an island that I go to in the summer and she came up to me. She's like, Jen, I know of you. I know you don't know me, but I want you to know that my daughter wears her patch, her diabetes patch proudly. She wears it proudly on the beach now because of our ad campaigns.

10:38Maggie McGrath: I mean, think about how that touches people. We touch the letters that I get and we respond. I promise you, we respond to these customers. It's very old fashioned. We send them, you know, fun, anything, swag, you know, or we celebrate their stories and we bring them in. We've brought these customers in and heard their stories and listened to them.

10:59Jennifer Foyle: I was looking, it is summer 2026 that we're recording this just for folks who want a little of a timestamp. So I was looking at Q1 earnings, which are out as of this point. And Aerie seems to have stronger growth than the overarching American Eagle brand, at least in the most recent quarterly earnings.

11:15Maggie McGrath: Why? You know, I joined American Eagle, let's see, about five and a half years ago, right? And it's a really, the heritage of that brand, like I said, it will be 50 years old. It's rooted and it is rooted in denim and it has roots in the ground, right? But sometimes it takes time to rethink and recalibrate. And we've been up to that. We've had some wins in these five years. Denim is still our strength. We've done incredibly well. We still hold our position of market share, number one in women's and all ages, number two in men's. We're proud of that positioning. So I just, what we've been up to is giving her more and giving him more, outfitting them head to toe.

11:57Maggie McGrath: And that's taken some time. We have a new, exciting designer starting. I can't mention right now, but you'll hear in the next earnings call. I'm excited about that. We've repositioned the team. And I think we're ready to really let loose. And we've been finding our way there, you know, honestly. But we've had some exciting things that I think are bringing some, a little bit more pizzazz to the brand again, which I'm more thrilled. We've been very timely. Look, we just had Lamine, Lamine Lamal. I mean, how incredible is he? And they just won the World Cup, by the way. And he was stunning out there.

12:31Maggie McGrath: He did have an injury right before we released our campaign. So we were a little worried. Is he going to be in the World Cup or not? He certainly shined. So that's what we do. Our timing has been so great in American Eagle. So I think now it's really just ensuring that that product and everything is perfect. And I think we're going to do some special things. I'm really looking forward to it. Aerie, look, that community is building, you know, the following and just what we've been able to do with the AI campaign. We just had Pamela Anderson, who's a look at what she's done. Talk about like recreating just her beauty and celebrating her.

13:05Maggie McGrath: So we're just taking that next level. And in fact, I had a meeting on this today. I said, you know, everyone's doing using social media with the influencers. And that's certainly important. But how do we take ours up a notch is my question out there.

13:18Jennifer Foyle: I've also heard you say in past interviews that Aerie could be a$10 billion brand. You could spin it out tomorrow and it's already a$2 billion brand. Would you ever spin it out? Would Jay ever want that? And is$10 billion still in the future?

13:34Maggie McGrath: I think, Aerie, first of all, we're not even fully, we haven't even gone west. You know, we have a very minimal footprint out on the West Coast and even in the Southern Belt. So we have a lot of opportunity just domestically, certainly internationally. You know, we have a nice little footprint in Mexico, but way more opportunity across the globe. So think about that.

13:56Jennifer Foyle: I think part of why I ask is I was telling someone recently, I have either workout clothes or casual clothes for home, or like very nice on-camera clothes that, you know.

14:07Maggie McGrath: You look pretty cute.

14:08Jennifer Foyle: Thank you. I try. I try very hard. But I have very little in between. And I feel like the same is true for a lot of consumers. And I'm wondering if those athleisure trends are translating to some of the growth that you're seeing.

14:20Maggie McGrath: For sure. And we're taking athleisure into a new, like we have trouser jeggings or trouser joggers. We have, yes, we're like travel is so important. And why not use our incredible fabrics and offline? and translate them into apparel. And that's been incredibly successful right now. You have to get them, by the way. They are so amazing. So yeah, there's those categories. But honestly, I mean, there's more that we can do in Aerie. And I just think of all the different layers. And that's how we think of Aerie, right? Base layers to this loungewear. But loungewear is dressing up, as I just mentioned.

14:54Maggie McGrath: So I think there's more play there. I'm very excited to see what's next. I just had a back-to-school review. Believe it or not, 2027, back to school, and we're adding new ideas already.

15:04Jennifer Foyle: You are an ideas person, but you are also a numbers person. I've heard you say that you are both right and left-brained. How do you balance that as an executive? How do you make sure the ideas for growth aren't too soon, too expensive, too unwieldy for your team?

15:19Maggie McGrath: That's a great question. You know, there's always, when you look at a business, there's, you know, let's say 10 % of your risk of your portfolio. So then there's your annuity businesses that are your margin builders. and then there's the in-between, which I would call them the seasonal businesses. So I do look at how we plan and how we buy our goods is based on that sort of penetration. And there's that risk factor, but make sure that you have margin attached to those risks. Make sure that there's an easy out. Make sure you have a strategy. Inventory to me is like gold, right? It's where we spend our money.

15:51Maggie McGrath: And I really dig in with the teams when we're spending the company's money. I mean, when we invest in a line, I'm right there with them. It's the most important thing we can do. Ranking and distorting the items, very important. We run a different business model. We certainly test and scale, but we also really, we really merchandise our lines so that everything works together. That is something I'm very picky about. If we're going to chase items, it better work with that delivery. I want it to be easy for our customer to come through our doors. We are not fast fashion, and that's how we can ride the storms.

16:26Maggie McGrath: When those waves happen, certainly they do. But these brands that have those roots, like I said, and that heritage, I think it's so important when you ride some of those waves.

16:36Jennifer Foyle: When we talk about the leadership strategies you use to do your job, one that I find interesting. Well, first of all, how many people report up to you at this point? Because you've had a recent promotion. You've risen the ranks, so you're quite powerful.

16:47Maggie McGrath: Reports one number, but I run stores as well. So we're talking thousands, you know, so. Thousands, thousands, thousands.

16:55Jennifer Foyle: And yet you have an open door policy that applies to everyone in that group. Is that true?

17:00Maggie McGrath: That is 100 percent true. And I actually have a sign outside of my office that said we are not here to do the same thing that we did last year. We are not here to repeat ourselves. We are here to take the business forward. And that's how I think about the business. And any idea counts. Today, I had a meeting, I'm not kidding you, with an intern who would like a permanent job with our company. And she reached out to me and she said, I have a project I want to show you. And I said, really? And she brought, we had a half hour together and she presented her project. It happened to be for offline. And guess what?

17:32Maggie McGrath: I am using some of those ideas. She has some incredible ideas. And I'm here to listen, right? I am not in the business of tone deaf, right? I'm going to be 60 years old. I need to be relevant too. And learning from who the kids in our office or the designers or our customers again. And when they come in, I learned something. That is the most important thing. Now, I'm not saying that there's a line going outside my door. My assistant does help me with that, but it is so important to listen to the smallest idea. So important.

18:07Jennifer Foyle: I think it's notable that that intern felt comfortable enough going to you. You have president in your title. You go to the AEO website and it's Jay and then it's you. Like it, you are the most powerful woman at this company. And yet this intern felt comfortable going to you. Is that something that you make sure to communicate? Or do you think it's more through the behavior you show versus tell?

18:28Maggie McGrath: I think it's my behavior. I mean, it's both, right? I'm very hands-on. When I walk in the office in the morning, I'll see a sample, right? I'll run over to like, maybe I'll see something that just, or today I saw a ladder that was bright green. I'm like, who wouldn't want to own that ladder? I mean, and I had the whole team cracking up. that you have to be visual right in this job and you have to see the smallest things. And that's what excites me, whether it's color, whether it's a cool outfit, a girl walking around with something in her hand that caught my eye. And then I bring it to life. And that's what's exciting.

19:00Maggie McGrath: I mean, I make sure I say hi to everyone when I get into the office and the ones that don't really respond back, I sort of pay attention to that. Like, are we in the game here? Are we in this office together? Because that's what we're here to do. And we do go into the office. I mean, we have to. We're It's a tactile business.

19:15Jennifer Foyle: It is very visual, very artistic. Do you have an artistic background?

19:19Maggie McGrath: Not really. I did major in theater and that didn't go very well, as you can see. So here I am.

19:25Jennifer Foyle: Do you think it helps you communicate?

19:26Maggie McGrath: You know, I am. As you can see, my hands, I'm visual. I remember that I do have this sort of, my husband calls me a little bit of this crazy suvant where I do have this visual memory. And if a sample, like if a style comes into the floor when I do my walkthroughs, you know, for new deliveries, I'm like, something's not right with that. I can tell if something didn't work out the way I thought it was and the way we invested in it. I call it a sample alert. I'm like, I call the merchant. What is going on with this? This is not what we signed off on. What happened? You're right, Jen. I mean, I do have that type of visual memory.

20:00Jennifer Foyle: That's interesting. All right. So this is a good transition to the steps that you took to get to your current seat of power. And we begin at Bloomingdale's, a little up the street from here. And I've heard you talk about this early job and say this training program that you were kind of thrust into through Bloomingdale's doesn't exist anymore. But can you talk about those early days and what you learned at Bloomingdale's?

20:21Maggie McGrath: Yes, it was rigorous. I was there for 10 and a half years. I literally looked in The New York Times when we read the newspaper, physical newspapers. There was a great article, Christmas executives. I'm like, that sounds amazing. I want to be a Christmas executive. Who does not want to be a Christmas executive? And so it was right off the street. I made sure I got a power outfit. I did. Mom always like dress for success. My mom was in retail, by the way. And I had the interview. I couldn't even believe it. I waited in line, got in. I got in with Marion Goodman. And she said, you know, this is not a desk job.

20:53Maggie McGrath: And I said, my desk is on my feet. And boy, that one. I got that job with that line. And I started on the floor during Christmas, which is like surviving mayhem times 20. I was in the Mickey Mouse department. Imagine that on 59th Street. And then what was incredible about that training program is you learn the floor. You learned how to merchandise. You learn to see how customers respond to your product. And then you go to the buying office. Right. So then you move, you know, you get promoted, you move to the buying office. And from there, you learn the business side. So then you're attaching numbers only as an assistant.

21:24Maggie McGrath: But, you know, and then you move through the pipeline. Then you move back to the floor as a manager. I ran the second floor at one point of my career. And then I became a buyer and I learned and I learned the finances, the financials, how to forecast, how to take markdowns and what that means to your forecast. It's an unbelievable experience that, you know, I try to instill. We have a really good program, actually, at American Eagle. A lot of the I think it's pretty it's similar, not the same. It's more you're either corporate or your stores. But we do cross pollinate, which I do like that. So it was that experience of that, that was able, that's that numbers, the visuals and the numbers.

22:03Maggie McGrath: And that's how I got that solved. Yeah, it was incredible.

22:06Jennifer Foyle: Those early jobs can teach so much. And I think the on the ground experience with customers is also key. We had a restaurant executive in here a few months ago, and she is building a technology business, but she requires everyone who joins this technology business to work a shift at the restaurant.

22:21Maggie McGrath: And there, there's nothing like it. It's critical. It's critical. So, and we do that. We, I do send my teams. We go to the floor together. I visually help them merchandise. I show them why it looks better this way. I mean, it's really critical. And I'm proud of that. I'm proud of these teams I built and I'm still building, you know, and then, you know, I do have to say I worked on an analysis pad. You know, it was the old legal pads. I worked and I went to the gap to imagine the gap during the height of Silicon Valley. Everything's computerized. I was going to say

22:50Jennifer Foyle: 1999, you joined the gap. Oh, my gosh, it was crazy.

22:52Maggie McGrath: I went to the gap. I worked for Mickey. I get to the gap. I'm in heels, hoes, because that was expected at department stores. I get to the gap. Jeans, everyone's casual. I almost fell down North Beach Hill with my analysis pad. And I literally, you know, I don't know if you know, but one, you know, the numbers on the calculator, you know, if you add them all up, it's 45, right? Like that's how fast I could use that calculator. And it was just amazing because I came there. I'm like, wait, you guys use computers. I had my analysis patch. So I quickly evolved and learned how to use Excel. And yeah, and that was a great part of my career to five years of incredible learning from branding to specialized, you know, vertical retail.

23:33Jennifer Foyle: And then from the gap, you go to J. Crew. What prompted that move?

23:36Maggie McGrath: The gap for five years. I ran women's by the time I left. Mickey was on his way out. He was leaving. I mean, he imagined that he created a$14 billion operation. You know, I had a couple of personal, I actually had a brain tumor and my dad was sick as well. But before I left, I did turn my business around because when I left on my medical leave, it was getting a little wobbly and I came back and I did turn that around. Was that important to you? Absolutely. Leaving on a high, leaving on a high. I would have not left that business if it, you know, did not have what I would say my mark, but the team's mark.

24:08Maggie McGrath: And giving them that confidence that we're, you know, we're in the right footing here and we can move forward. But Mickey did leave and went to J.Crew and he did call me and he asked me what I thought about J.Crew. And I said, big name, relatively small business. I like that. So, sure, we turned that business around pretty fast and we did go public and it was a very exciting time. Very exciting time. I brought all my tools with me. You know what I learned at Bloomingdale's and then Mickey's life lessons at, you know, the Gap that I learned and, you know, the way he operated and how investing and how everything matters.

24:42Maggie McGrath: Every dollar counts. He was very involved in the buys. And then rebranding with J.Crew was really fun to watch.

24:50Jennifer Foyle: Big name, small business. That's interesting. Do you analyze the business landscape like that and opportunities when maybe the reputation outpaces the revenue that you're seeing practically?

25:02Maggie McGrath: I do. I do. And that's why I like the idea of Aerie, because, you know, AE is a solid brand, a solid foundation, American Eagle and huge customer base. And I said, wow, we could leverage those customers, right? We could leverage them. We could entertain those customers. We could get them to wear, you know, undies inside of these great jeans and we get them to buy a pair of undies for every jeans or 10 pairs for every pair of jeans. So yes, I do. When I look at opportunities for sure. That's really interesting.

25:31Jennifer Foyle: So from J.Crew, you go to Calypso St. Barth, and that's another turnaround.

25:35Maggie McGrath: That was a turnaround. That was a little bit, that was a smaller stint in my career. I reported to a PE firm, but I will tell you probably one of my most valuable experiences that I did apply when I moved to Aerie, when I moved to American Eagle Outfitters, was a lesson in leadership. You know, there was 54 people at the headquarters. I call it the seven train. I actually am writing a journal myself right now. And I was coming up with chapter heads. This one is the seven train. The headquarters was in Queens. I took the seven train every day. I get there and it's just one big warehouse where the DC was in there too.

26:13Maggie McGrath: So the distribution center and 54 employees. And it was an owner operated business. She was really talk about a savant. She was really kind of, she was amazing. Christiane Ciel, and she had a really powerful grip on her employees. Right. And they were sad when she left and here comes Jen Foyle. I have to step in. And I thought it was just going to be a no brainer. I thought it was going to be so easy to just say, here's my vision. I get Calypso. We got this. We can turn this around and, you know, I can get this in the black. And again, lesson, we had a reposition. we had too many stores we had actually six store fronts on bleaker street believe it or not and bleaker into broom street and i was just like this is crazy there was a lot of repositioning but i wasn't going to get anywhere if that team did not respect me and if they did not believe and i realized i had to get to them i had to connect with them emotionally and um this is not a political statement but obama became president during that tenure of mine and i just remember I took a break and I brought in his inauguration.

27:19Maggie McGrath: It was his inauguration. I brought it in a TV and we all watched it together as a team. And I realized I've got to touch people in a different way. I've got to, I've got to show that I'm human as well and that we're here to do business, but I have to get to know these people and 54 people. It's pretty easy to do. It was pretty easy. And then I learned where the, where the online, I was like, where do we fill orders? Where do we fill orders in this company? They're like, Oh, down on three. I go downstairs. There's two girls literally taking orders pretty much and then going to the D.C. and filling them and stuffing the bags and sending them out.

27:52Maggie McGrath: Then I learned, wow, whoa. It's the same thing as we were saying, to get them to when you experience what your employees are really actually doing, you can make change.

28:02Jennifer Foyle: And I think noting those moments for people to come together, it's a historical moment watching any president get inaugurated. I know I appreciated when I came to Forbes, I think the World Cup was on in one of my first summers. And I was a little shocked that everyone just let the TVs stay on during World Cup time. But it's an acknowledgement that people are human. You want to know what's going on in the outside world.

28:24Maggie McGrath: 100%.

28:24Jennifer Foyle: So you join Aerie in 2010. And at that point, you referred earlier to you joined American Eagle five, six years ago. So Aerie hired you specifically. So for those 10 years, did you not say you were with American Eagle?

28:40Maggie McGrath: No, I was very proud of the, you know, thank God for American Eagle. They were turning on the light bulbs, right, as Aerie, you know, as we grew the business and became more and more profitable year over year. So no. And like I said, I leveraged that their customer base. And it was just, yeah, we needed the mothership. Aerie did with the funding. That was my lesson, you know, when I was at Calypso. It was, you know, a very tight budget. It was a pure turnaround. We did turn it around in a small way. You know, it wasn't like what we did. I've been doing in American Eagle. But certainly, no, no, it never even, no, I just knew that this was a way to gain customer acknowledgement, customer awareness, and building from the AE portfolio made a lot of sense.

29:23Jennifer Foyle: And now, after really 15 years after first joining Aerie, you are president, chief, sorry, executive creative director, you oversee quite a large business. And we can't preview earnings just yet, but think beyond the next quarter. Think a year, two, or five from now. Where do you want Aerie to be? If we were to sit down and have a follow-up conversation in a year or two, what would you want to report to me that you or Aerie have accomplished?

29:50Maggie McGrath: On everyone's body in the mirror. No. Look, I want Aerie to be what I think we've been doing, is we are groundbreakers, right? We are trailblazers. We do things first, and that's what I challenge the team today. I want Aerie to be in the forefront of what's happening next. I don't like following. I like leading. And the teams know that for me. When I think things are getting stale, I feel it. I'm just like, this is getting too routine. And we have to continue to look for white space. There's a ton of white space out there. And I know it exists. And so to get to that$10 billion mark, we have to keep on driving to that white space.

30:28Maggie McGrath: I see this$10 billion in front of me. I see us as a global brand. I see Aerie literally pleasing customers around the world and not only just what we do here and making our customers happy. That is it. That is it. Like if you don't go to work and smile or if a customer doesn't feel great in our clothes, everything in Aerie is soft. If they don't, then we're missing the mark. And that's what makes us special.

30:52Jennifer Foyle: Jen Foyle, thank you so much for sitting down with Forbes. This was a delight.

30:55Maggie McGrath: Thank you. Thank you so much.