Leslie H. Wexner - Academy of Achievement

<!doctype html> <html lang="en-US" prefix="og: http://ogp.me/ns#"> <head><script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/bundle-playback.js?v=HxkREWBo" charset="utf-8"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/wombat.js?v=txqj7nKC" charset="utf-8"></script> <script>window.RufflePlayer=window.RufflePlayer||{};window.RufflePlayer.config={"autoplay":"on","unmuteOverlay":"hidden"};</script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/ruffle/ruffle.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> __wm.init("https://web.archive.org/web"); __wm.wombat("http://www.achievement.org:80/achiever/leslie-h-wexner","20181020025305","https://web.archive.org/","web","/_static/", "1540003985"); </script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/banner-styles.css?v=S1zqJCYt" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/iconochive.css?v=3PDvdIFv" />  <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="57x57" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-57x57.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="114x114" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-114x114.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="72x72" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-72x72.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="144x144" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-144x144.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="60x60" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-60x60.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="120x120" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-120x120.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="76x76" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-76x76.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="152x152" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-152x152.png"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-196x196.png" sizes="196x196"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-96x96.png" sizes="96x96"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-32x32.png" sizes="32x32"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-16x16.png" sizes="16x16"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-128.png" sizes="128x128"/> <meta name="application-name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#000000"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileImage" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-144x144.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square70x70logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-70x70.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square150x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-150x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-wide310x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square310x310logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x310.png"/> <link href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305cs_/https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Sans+Pro:400,600,400italic,600italic,700,700italic" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <title>Leslie H. Wexner - Academy of Achievement</title>  <meta name="description" content="As a young man, Leslie Wexner worked in his family's small clothing store in Columbus, Ohio. Despite his parents' long experience, Leslie believed he had a better idea for running a retail clothing business. While the then-dominant regional department stores — and neighborhood shops such as that of his parents — carried clothing for the entire family, Leslie Wexner decided to focus on high-turnover items for a single segment, young women. With a small loan from his aunt, he started a shop of his own — The Limited — and grew the business into a national chain. Through ingenious innovation and strategic acquisitions, he built a family of enterprises, buying and selling companies such as Lane Bryant, and Abercrombie and Fitch. In 1982, he acquired a struggling San Francisco lingerie store called Victoria’s Secret for $1 million and built it into the world’s leader in intimate apparel. Today, Wexner’s L Brands, centered on Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works, is a $12-billion international company, with more than 80,000 associates focused on lingerie, beauty and personal care products. Wexner himself has long been the richest man in the state of Ohio, renowned for his generosity to local and national institutions. He is the leading benefactor of Ohio State University and a major benefactor of the Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus, as well as Harvard University’s Center for Public Leadership. Thanks to Leslie Wexner, thousands of men, women and children receive life-saving care every year at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center."/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leslie-h-wexner/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Leslie H. Wexner - Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="As a young man, Leslie Wexner worked in his family's small clothing store in Columbus, Ohio. Despite his parents' long experience, Leslie believed he had a better idea for running a retail clothing business. While the then-dominant regional department stores — and neighborhood shops such as that of his parents — carried clothing for the entire family, Leslie Wexner decided to focus on high-turnover items for a single segment, young women. With a small loan from his aunt, he started a shop of his own — The Limited — and grew the business into a national chain. Through ingenious innovation and strategic acquisitions, he built a family of enterprises, buying and selling companies such as Lane Bryant, and Abercrombie and Fitch. In 1982, he acquired a struggling San Francisco lingerie store called Victoria’s Secret for $1 million and built it into the world’s leader in intimate apparel. Today, Wexner’s L Brands, centered on Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works, is a $12-billion international company, with more than 80,000 associates focused on lingerie, beauty and personal care products. Wexner himself has long been the richest man in the state of Ohio, renowned for his generosity to local and national institutions. He is the leading benefactor of Ohio State University and a major benefactor of the Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus, as well as Harvard University’s Center for Public Leadership. Thanks to Leslie Wexner, thousands of men, women and children receive life-saving care every year at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center."/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leslie-h-wexner/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/wexner-Feature-Image.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:description" content="As a young man, Leslie Wexner worked in his family's small clothing store in Columbus, Ohio. Despite his parents' long experience, Leslie believed he had a better idea for running a retail clothing business. While the then-dominant regional department stores — and neighborhood shops such as that of his parents — carried clothing for the entire family, Leslie Wexner decided to focus on high-turnover items for a single segment, young women. With a small loan from his aunt, he started a shop of his own — The Limited — and grew the business into a national chain. Through ingenious innovation and strategic acquisitions, he built a family of enterprises, buying and selling companies such as Lane Bryant, and Abercrombie and Fitch. In 1982, he acquired a struggling San Francisco lingerie store called Victoria’s Secret for $1 million and built it into the world’s leader in intimate apparel. Today, Wexner’s L Brands, centered on Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works, is a $12-billion international company, with more than 80,000 associates focused on lingerie, beauty and personal care products. Wexner himself has long been the richest man in the state of Ohio, renowned for his generosity to local and national institutions. He is the leading benefactor of Ohio State University and a major benefactor of the Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus, as well as Harvard University’s Center for Public Leadership. Thanks to Leslie Wexner, thousands of men, women and children receive life-saving care every year at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center."/> <meta name="twitter:title" content="Leslie H. 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class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Leslie H. Wexner</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Retailing and Fashion</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-38594 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-business careers-entrepreneur role-model-ambitious role-model-analytical role-model-difficulty-with-school role-model-resourceful role-model-start-a-business"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane fade in active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="banner clearfix"> <div class="banner--single clearfix"> <div class="col-lg-8 col-lg-offset-2"> <div class="banner__image__container"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <img class="lazyload banner__image" data-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/WhatItTakes_wexner-date_256-190x190.jpg" alt=""/> </figure> </a> </div> <div class="banner__text__container"> <h3 class="serif-3 banner__headline"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305/https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/what-it-takes/id1025864075?mt=2" target="_blank"> Listen to this achiever on <i>What It Takes</i> </a> </h3> <p class="sans-6 banner__text m-b-0"><i>What It Takes</i> is an audio podcast on iTunes produced by the American Academy of Achievement featuring intimate, revealing conversations with influential leaders in the diverse fields of endeavor: music, science and exploration, sports, film, technology, literature, the military and social justice.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">I decided quite subconsciously that I was going to prove to my dad that I had real worth and could do something, but the only language he understood was his business. I thought 'his business was wrong. I’m going to do one that’s right' and invented one in my mind and began making sketches of stores.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">Victoria's Other Secret</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> September 8, 2017 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p>Leslie H. Wexner was born in Dayton, Ohio. His parents, Harry and Bella Wexner, were both of Russian-Jewish origin. His father was born in Russia; his mother was the first member of her immigrant family to be born in the United States. After working for a number of major department stores, the elder Wexners opened a small clothing store of their own in Columbus, Ohio. The couple named the store Leslie’s, for their son. From an early age, Wexner’s parents treated him like an adult, asking his advice and including him in family business discussions.</p> <figure id="attachment_39046" style="width: 1153px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-39046 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/young-leslie-wexner-and-the-limited.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-39046 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="1153" height="396" data-sizes="(max-width: 1153px) 100vw, 1153px" data-srcset="/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/young-leslie-wexner-and-the-limited.jpg 1153w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/young-leslie-wexner-and-the-limited-380x131.jpg 380w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/young-leslie-wexner-and-the-limited-760x261.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/young-leslie-wexner-and-the-limited.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Leslie H. Wexner was born on September 8, 1937 in Dayton, Ohio. His parents were Russian immigrants who owned a small store named “Leslie’s” in downtown Columbus. After graduating from The Ohio State University (OSU) and serving in the Air National Guard, Wexner worked in his parents’ business. In 1963, at the age of 26, he opened “The Limited” selling women’s sportswear separates in the Kingsdale Shopping Center in Columbus, Ohio.</figcaption></figure><p>Young Leslie showed an entrepreneurial streak from an early age, organizing other local boys to join him in a lawn mowing business and other small ventures. He was encouraged to study hard although he enjoyed school less than his outside enterprises. He graduated from Ohio State University with a business degree and served in the Air National Guard before returning to Columbus to consider his career options.</p> <figure id="attachment_39053" style="width: 768px" class="wp-caption alignright"><noscript><img class="wp-image-39053 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/nrm_1409087196-09957_1986-01-vsc-jansale-1-1-x-h_122_909lo.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-39053 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="768" height="1213" data-sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" data-srcset="/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/nrm_1409087196-09957_1986-01-vsc-jansale-1-1-x-h_122_909lo.jpg 768w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/nrm_1409087196-09957_1986-01-vsc-jansale-1-1-x-h_122_909lo-241x380.jpg 241w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/nrm_1409087196-09957_1986-01-vsc-jansale-1-1-x-h_122_909lo-481x760.jpg 481w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/nrm_1409087196-09957_1986-01-vsc-jansale-1-1-x-h_122_909lo.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1982 Victoria’s Secret Catalogue. Les Wexner purchased Victoria’s Secret, a small San Francisco chain headed into bankruptcy, from Roy Raymond in 1982 for $1 million.</figcaption></figure><p>After a brief experience of law school failed to ignite his passion, he agreed to assist his parents in their store and learn more about their business. Profit margins were small and the family could afford few luxuries. When his parents took a brief vacation — their first — and harsh weather kept the customers away, young Leslie carefully reviewed his parents’ books and made an interesting discovery. Large-ticket items, such as winter coats, that the elder Wexners believed were the most important, were actually yielding little profit, while lower-priced items that turned over quickly were the actual profit center of the business.</p> <p>Leslie tried to share his findings with his father but was unable to persuade him to change the family’s business model. Instead, Leslie Wexner set out to start a business of his own. An aunt offered him the use of $5,000 — an open-ended interest-free loan — as collateral. Borrowing from the bank against the money his aunt had given him, he planned to open a small clothing store in a rented space between a supermarket and a dry cleaner. When a new shopping center was built in the nearby suburb of Upper Arlington, he decided to rent that space as well and open two locations at once. With only the original $5,000 in the bank, he had soon taken on commitments of nearly a million dollars.</p> <figure id="attachment_39023" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39023 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-wexner-center.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39023 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1494" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-wexner-center.jpg 2280w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-wexner-center-380x249.jpg 380w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-wexner-center-760x498.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-wexner-center.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1989: The Wexner Center for the Arts is The Ohio State University’s multidisciplinary, international laboratory for the exploration and advancement of contemporary art. The $43 million Wexner Center, was named after the father of Leslie H. Wexner, an Ohio native and Ohio State alumnus who pledged $25 million to the project. Wexner began collecting art seriously in the mid-1970s, initially focusing on modern artists of the New York School, particularly Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning. With the purchase in 1986 of a significant work by Picasso, Wexner began a partnership with the art dealer Richard Gray, and since then, they began to look more intently at earlier modern masters, primarily collecting the work of Picasso, Giacometti, and Dubuffet.  In 2014, the Wexner Center for the Arts had the first-ever public exhibition of the personal collection of Leslie and Abigail Wexner.</figcaption></figure><p>Wexner decided to narrow his focus by concentrating solely on clothing for younger women, the age group whose taste he knew best. Seeking a novel identity for his business, he called his stores The Limited and opened his doors for business in 1963. Wexner possessed a sixth sense for the tastes of his customer base. Success came quickly, and within a year his parents closed their old store to come work with him. Slowly and methodically, he expanded his business in concentric circles from locations he could personally visit in the course of a day. Within a few years, he expanded from the Midwest to both coasts. By age 30, Les Wexner was a rich man.</p> <p>In 1969, The Limited made its debut as a publicly traded company. The chain prospered throughout the 1970s, and Wexner began to consider other opportunities for expansion. Knowing his customers’ tastes as he did, he suspected that there was an unmet demand for stylish intimate apparel. He was in San Francisco opening a new location for The Limited when his employees drew his attention to an unusual little lingerie shop nearby.</p> <figure id="attachment_39029" style="width: 2000px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39029 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-AP_110216083854.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39029 lazyload" alt="" width="2000" height="1333" data-sizes="(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px" data-srcset="/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-AP_110216083854.jpg 2000w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-AP_110216083854-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-AP_110216083854-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-AP_110216083854.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">February 16, 2011: Leslie H. Wexner, left, and Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee talk before an audience at the Ohio Union in Columbus, Ohio. During the talk, the two discussed the $100 million gift to Ohio State from the Limited Brands Foundation and Wexner and his experiences at the university. (AP Photo/The Columbus Dispatch)</figcaption></figure><p>Founded by Roy Raymond in 1977, Victoria’s Secret had grown to a handful of stores in the San Francisco Bay Area when Les Wexner first visited the chain’s San Francisco location. Wexner was intrigued by the store’s eccentric Victorian atmosphere, but the owner declined to meet with him. Within a year of Wexner’s first visit, though, Victoria’s Secret was in serious financial trouble and Raymond offered to sell Wexner the business. The Limited purchased Victoria’s Secret for $1 million.</p> <p>Doubling down on this gamble, Wexner also bought out the Lane Bryant stores, adding them to the growing Limited family of companies — along with a single Henri Bendel store — purchased for $10 million; and, in 1985, 798 Lerner dress shops were acquired for $297 million. In 1988, The Limited purchased 25 Abercrombie and Fitch stores for $46 million, later spinning them off as a publicly traded company in 1996.</p> <figure id="attachment_39028" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39028 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-121196442_master.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39028 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1523" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-121196442_master.jpg 2280w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-121196442_master-380x254.jpg 380w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-121196442_master-760x508.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-121196442_master.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">2011: Les Wexner with his wife, Abigail Wexner, and son Harry Wexner, during the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) performance of <em>Romeo and Juliet</em> at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. In 1993, at the age of 55, Wexner married Abigail Koppel. They have four children: Harry, Hannah, David, and Sarah. (Amanda Gordon/Bloomberg)</figcaption></figure><p>While Raymond had built the first Victoria’s Secret stores on the assumption that his primary customers would be men buying lingerie as gifts for the women in their lives, Wexner reversed the assumption and geared his stores toward the female shopper. Inspired by Emile Zola’s 1883 novel, <em>The Ladies’ Paradise</em>, he sought to make his stores a stress-free haven for women to buy intimate apparel in comfort and privacy. He continued Raymond’s practice of printing a mail order catalogue to drive sales as well. In the first five years of his management, Wexner grew Victoria’s Secret from a handful of stores in the San Francisco Bay Area to nearly 350 locations across the United States. As the only national chain specializing in lingerie, it drew market share away from traditional department stores. In a single year, 1990, sales quadrupled. In 1995, Wexner initiated an annual Victoria’s Secret fashion show, broadcast on primetime television.</p> <figure id="attachment_39031" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39031 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-2014-wexner-walkthrough13.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39031 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1628" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-2014-wexner-walkthrough13.jpg 2280w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-2014-wexner-walkthrough13-380x271.jpg 380w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-2014-wexner-walkthrough13-760x543.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-2014-wexner-walkthrough13.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">September 19, 2014: Les and Abigail Wexner walk through the Wexner Center for the Arts looking at the exhibit <em>Transfigurations,</em> a collection of art from their personal collection. In the foreground is a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, and the background is a painting by Susan Rothenberg.(Dispatch photo by Eric Albrecht/Getty images)</figcaption></figure><p>In the 1990s, the chain was among the first to make use of sophisticated data analysis to determine which products sold best in given locations, increasing their sales by 30 percent. Meanwhile, Wexner sought to move beyond lingerie into bath products and cosmetics. In 1990, L Brands opened its first Bath & Body Works store in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Specializing in shower gels, lotions, fragrance mists, perfumes, candles, and home fragrances, by 1997 it was the largest bath shop chain in the United States. That year, Wexner launched a secondary brand, Bath & Body Home, later rebranded as White Barn Candle Company.</p> <figure id="attachment_39036" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39036 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wexner-medical-center-ohio-state-university.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39036 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wexner-medical-center-ohio-state-university.jpg 2280w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wexner-medical-center-ohio-state-university-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wexner-medical-center-ohio-state-university-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wexner-medical-center-ohio-state-university.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center located in Columbus, Ohio was completed in 2014. <span class="bodycopy">For more than 30 years, Wexner and his Limited Brands affiliates donated more than $200 million to the university, as well as hundreds of millions more that he has directly helped to raise. </span><span class="bodycopy">Wexner serves on the Board of Trustees and, as the immediate past board chair, has helped to guide the $1 billion expansion of Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center. As a founding member and the first chair of the university’s Foundation Board, Les Wexner became a driving force behind the growth of the endowment, now totaling more than $2 billion. On February 10, 2012, The Ohio State University Medical Center officially changed its name to The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.</span></figcaption></figure><p>By 2006, Victoria’s Secret’s 1,000 stores across the United States accounted for one third of all purchases in the intimate apparel industry, while Bath & Body Works reported net sales of $2.3 billion.  Wexner resolved to consolidate the sprawling family of Limited companies. He sold the Abercrombie & Fitch, Lerner’s, Lane Bryant and Structure stores. In 2007, Wexner sold a 75 percent interest in Limited Stores and Express to Sun Capital Partners, the better to concentrate energy and resources on building Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works. The remaining 25 percent of The Limited was sold to Sun Capital in 2010. Wexner reorganized the remaining companies as L Brands.</p> <figure id="attachment_39038" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39038 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/2016-gettyimages-538742650.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39038 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/2016-gettyimages-538742650.jpg 2280w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/2016-gettyimages-538742650-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/2016-gettyimages-538742650-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/2016-gettyimages-538742650.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">June 7, 2016: Elizabeth Musamanno, President of the Fragrance Foundation, Les Wexner, and supermodel Stella Maxwell at the 2016 Fragrance Foundation Awards presented by Hearst Magazines in New York City. (Getty Images)</figcaption></figure><p>In the 21st century, L Brands made its first moves outside the United States, initially into Canada, then into the duty-free areas of major international airports. In 2012, it opened its first stores in the United Kingdom, growing quickly from two locations in London to 15 stores throughout the United Kingdom by 2016.</p> <p>At Victoria’s Secret, Wexner responded to challenges from competitors with increased expenditure on television advertising, and introduced a line of cosmetics. The company continued to keep up with changing trends and the tastes of younger consumers, featuring sports bras for athletic wear and bralettes — bras without underwire — to be worn visibly. As of 2017, Bath & Body operates 1,600 stores in the United States, Canada, Peru, Chile and Kuwait. L Brands now operates Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works, Pink, Henri Bendel, the White Barn Candle Company, and La Senza.</p> <figure id="attachment_39026" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39026 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-627869510_master.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39026 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1518" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-627869510_master.jpg 2280w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-627869510_master-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-627869510_master-760x506.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-627869510_master.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">November 30, 2016: Adriana Lima, Elsa Hosk, Alessandra Ambrosio, Taylor Hill, Martha Hunt, Sara Sampaio and Lais Ribeiro walk the runway during the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in Paris, France. (Kristy Sparow/WireImage)</figcaption></figure><p>Despite his far-reaching national and international success, Leslie Wexner has always made his home in Ohio. He has long been the state’s wealthiest resident and leading benefactor of its institutions. Among the objects of his philanthropy are his alma mater, Ohio State University, and his family synagogue, Congregation Aguda Achim. In 1984 he created the Wexner Foundation to foster Jewish leadership. The foundation supports volunteer programs in North America, a graduate fellowship for rabbinical students, for aspiring cantors, and for scholarship in Jewish studies, as well as a fellowship for Israeli public officials to study at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. In 1989, Wexner and his mother donated $1 million to the United Way, the largest personal donation made to the organization at that time.</p> <figure id="attachment_39024" style="width: 2000px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-39024 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-681638744.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-39024 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="2000" height="3000" data-sizes="(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px" data-srcset="/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-681638744.jpg 2000w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-681638744-253x380.jpg 253w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-681638744-507x760.jpg 507w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-681638744.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">May 2017: Victoria’s Secret Angels Stella Maxwell and Josephine Skriver attend Victoria’s Secret Celebrates Bombshell Fragrance in New York City. Through Victoria’s Secret, PINK, Bath & Body Works, La Senza and Henri Bendel, L Brands is an international company that sells lingerie, personal care and beauty products, apparel and accessories. With more than 88,000 associates, L Brands recorded sales of $12.6 billion in 2016. (Michael Stewart)</figcaption></figure><p>In 1993, Leslie Wexner married attorney Abigail Koppel. The couple make their home in New Albany, Ohio, near Columbus. Their 335-acre estate hosts an annual equestrian competition to benefit the Center for Family Safety and Healing. The Invitational Grand Prix and Family Day draws the best show-jumping riders in the world. In 1997, the Wexners purchased the historic Foxcote House in Warwickshire, England. The same year, Wexner built a 315-foot yacht, the Limitless. At the time, it was the largest private yacht owned by any American; it remains one of the largest in the world.  As of 2017, Leslie Wexner’s personal fortune was estimated at nearly $6 billion.</p> <figure id="attachment_39221" style="width: 2160px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39221 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Limitless-yacht.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39221 lazyload" alt="" width="2160" height="1440" data-sizes="(max-width: 2160px) 100vw, 2160px" data-srcset="/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Limitless-yacht.jpg 2160w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Limitless-yacht-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Limitless-yacht-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Limitless-yacht.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text"><em>Limitless</em>, owned by Leslie Wexner, is one of the world’s largest private superyachts. She was built in 1997 by German shipmaker Lürssen, with the exterior designed by Jon Bannenberg and the interior by François Catroux. Her overall length is 315 feet, the width 41 feet. She is powered by two engines of 5420 kW each, reaching a speed of 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph), and the first yacht to feature a combination of diesel and diesel-electric propulsion.</figcaption></figure><p>Leslie Wexner was long a member of the Board of Trustees of Ohio State University and served as the board’s chairman from 2009 to 2012. In 2011, he made a donation of $100 million to Ohio State — the largest donation in the university’s history — funding a Wexner Center for the Arts and supporting a massive expansion of the university’s medical center. Today it is known as Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.</p></body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 1990 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.business">Business</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.entrepreneur">Entrepreneur</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> September 8, 2017 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p>As a young man, Leslie Wexner worked in his family’s small clothing store in Columbus, Ohio. Despite his parents’ long experience, Leslie believed he had a better idea for running a retail clothing business. While the then-dominant regional department stores — and neighborhood shops such as that of his parents — carried clothing for the entire family, Leslie Wexner decided to focus on high-turnover items for a single segment, young women. With a small loan from his aunt, he started a shop of his own — The Limited — and grew the business into a national chain.</p> <p>Through ingenious innovation and strategic acquisitions, he built a family of enterprises, buying and selling companies such as Lane Bryant, and Abercrombie and Fitch. In 1982, he acquired a struggling San Francisco lingerie store called Victoria’s Secret for $1 million and built it into the world’s leader in intimate apparel. Today, Wexner’s L Brands, centered on Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works, is a $12-billion international company, with more than 80,000 associates focused on lingerie, beauty and personal care products.</p> <p>Wexner himself has long been the richest man in the state of Ohio, renowned for his generosity to local and national institutions. He is the leading benefactor of Ohio State University and a major benefactor of the Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus, as well as Harvard University’s Center for Public Leadership. Thanks to Leslie Wexner, thousands of men, women and children receive life-saving care every year at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/BF_jZdignxQ?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.01_21_46_24.Still013-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.01_21_46_24.Still013-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">Victoria's Other Secret</h2> <div class="sans-2">Columbus, Ohio</div> <div class="sans-2">February 10, 2017</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>How did you come to open your first store?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/7ojhC21svaE?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.01_19_59_15.Still012-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.01_19_59_15.Still012-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Leslie Wexner: Mom and Dad had a neighborhood store. I had gone to law school. I really hated law school. In fact, I hated school generally. My dad said, “Why don’t you just hang around the store for a few months before you begin your life?” And I said, “Okay, what do you want?” and he said, “Well, if you hang around for a few months, you’ll learn how to open the store and close the store.” It was a little neighborhood store. It was like 15 feet wide, but that was the source of their income.</p> <p>And I said okay. And he said, “Because after Christmas…” he said, “your mom and I would like to go on a vacation.” And he said, “You know, we’ve never had one.” And I said okay. He said, “I’ve never asked you for anything, but I would trust you to open and close the store and take the money to the bank.” You know, just do simple things. So I said okay. And they did take the week off in January. Columbus had a blizzard and their vacation was driving from Columbus to Miami, spending three days in Miami, and then driving back. So that was their big vacation after a lifetime.</p> <p>And — kind of happenstance — had a blizzard in Columbus. I went to the store and there was like 18 inches of snow so there was no traffic, and I felt very obligated to be there, because I was kind of guarding the fort, and there was just nothing to do. So you know, you dust the floors, you’re prepared, but obviously no one’s going to come to the store.</p> <p>I got bored, so I was curious to see what categories of merchandise my dad and mom made money in, and I could sort out the invoices, and they kept track of sales by category of merchandise, shirts and pants and skirts. I would look through the invoices to see, and I figured out that in what my dad called sportswear they were making substantial profits, and in the big ticket items — then dresses and coats — they were making no money.</p> <p>When he came back from their vacation, we sat down in a Woolworth’s coffee shop and I gave him the big “ta-da,” and he said, “It’s impossible.” He said, “We make money on the big-ticket items.” I said, “No. You see them as big tickets, but you’re taking big markdowns and there’s no profitability.” And from that we got into a very classic father-son argument. So he’d say, “Go get a job! Your mom and I have struggled all our lives to have this small business and we’re going to run it the way we want to run it and you don’t know what you’re talking about.” And I said, “Dad, here’s the numbers. They don’t lie.”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/1bweqCfJWaA?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.01_19_15_00.Still011-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.01_19_15_00.Still011-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Leslie Wexner: We had a number of arguments back and forth. He’d throw me out of the store and say, “Go home and go find a job.” I’d pout for a week or two and my mom would make peace with my dad. I’d go back to the store and he’d throw me out. As I look back at it, and didn’t see it at the time, it was a classic father-son kind of argument about merit and manhood or value.</p> <p>I had decided quite subconsciously that I was going to prove to my dad that I had real worth and I could do something, but the only language he understood was the business he was in. So I thought “his business was wrong. I’m going to do one that’s right,” and I invented one in my mind and began playing with it and making sketches of stores and fixtures and thinking about things that I might sell.</p> <p>I had a spinster aunt, and I don’t think she knew what was going on in terms of what I was imagining. She just knew that my dad and I weren’t getting along and I didn’t have a job. My Aunt Ida said, “I’ve got $5,000,” which was her whole net worth, a spinster aunt. And she said, “I’ll give you the $5,000, but you have to put it in the bank and promise not to spend it. But banks will loan money to people that have money, I think.” And she said, “So if I give you the 5,000, you put it in a savings account and you have to promise never to spend it because that’s all I have.” My parents couldn’t have contributed. They had nil.</p> <p>So I did, waited a couple of months, and went to the neighborhood bank, and I said, “By the way, I’m thinking about starting a business,” and the loan officer at the branch said, “How much money do you have?” and I said, “Well, I’ve got $5,000 in your bank.” And he said, “Well, what do you want to do?” and I said, “Well, I don’t know, but I’ve got $5,000. Would you make me a loan?” And he says, “If you have 5,000, I’ll loan you ten, but why don’t you come up with an idea?” I said, “Oh.”</p> </div> </div>          <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/IL3dAlnbbRg?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.01_18_39_10.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.01_18_39_10.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>The store was successful, and by the time I was 30 years old, I was several times a millionaire. I knew it, but I can remember, just as an example, it wasn’t very important to me. I remember saying to my administrative assistant, “Do I have any money?” and she said, “Why do you ask?” and I said, “Because I want to buy a car.” And she said, “Well, of course you have money. How much do you want to spend on a car?” Maybe it was $3,000. “Yeah. No question. You could afford that.” So how I kept score was the growth of the business, but it wasn’t about score in terms of how much money I was making. I felt good about what I was doing. I knew I was employing people. I was growing the business. It was just tons of fun. It would probably be analogous to how an athlete would feel that just enjoys the sport and the fact that you get paid. I think Tiger Woods loves playing golf and he loves winning, and the fact that he got paid just made it all the better.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_39027" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39027 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-582956648_master.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39027 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="3110" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-582956648_master.jpg 2280w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-582956648_master-279x380.jpg 279w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-582956648_master-557x760.jpg 557w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-582956648_master.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">2014: Under Les Wexner’s leadership, L Brands has evolved from an apparel-based domestic specialty retailer to an approximately $12 billion international company and segment leader with more than 80,000 associates focused on lingerie, beauty and personal care product categories. (Stephen Webster/Forbes Collection/Corbis)</figcaption></figure><p><strong>What is it about the retail game that you love?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I think the retail game — I tell my kids this, I tell people that I’m recruiting — it’s just wonderful because it’s all about people. If you like accounting, you can do accounting. If you want to do money and banking, you can do money and banking. There’s a tasteful part that comes in the selection of merchandise, store design, systems design. So everything, all aspects of business come together in retailing.</p> <p>And it’s really tough because it’s relentless. We’re not building jet engines, we’re guessing what young women are going to want to buy next week and three months from now. So the fickle fashion, the challenge of it, you have to be in the game every day because it’s changing. We don’t have a book of orders like GE does, making jet engines, and they design a new one every decade, and the order book lasts for three years and they’re managing to it.</p> <p><strong>How is it that this guy from Ohio was able to know what young women wanted to buy?</strong></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/8zq1RBgziek?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.01_15_50_12.Still009-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.01_15_50_12.Still009-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Leslie Wexner: I knew the young women I knew, and I knew what kind of clothes they bought, so I thought I would just buy clothes like I thought they would buy, and then they did. As I got older, still focusing on young women, I had to pay attention to what young women were buying and make guesses about what they would do. But I think the question about purpose — to get back to that — is to say, “Okay, you made a million dollars,” or you’ve made 10 million or maybe you could make 100 million, and I’d say, “Well, why? I’m just running this business. I started this business. It’s a ton of fun. Tons of fun for me. I really love what I do and I’m kind of racking up a financial score.” And it’s kind of, but why?</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>In those days, clothing retail was really a local business, but you built a national chain. How did that come about?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/l4Abzt9Awe0?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.01_14_22_29.Still008-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.01_14_22_29.Still008-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Leslie Wexner: I kind of backed into it. I opened the store and it was successful, and I said, if I had one, I probably could have two in the city. And if you have two in the city, you could have three. And I would think, “How many stores could you have?” If you could only have — let’s say the size of the market — the city of Columbus, I could have four stores.</p> <p>So I said, “But if you went to two cities, you could have eight stores.” So that was kind of the amateur — the 27-year-old or 26-year-old — talking to himself. And I’d say, but people didn’t have stores in multiple cities. Department stores were locally owned. Specialty stores were locally owned. There were no regional or national businesses.</p> <p>So I thought, when we lived in Chicago, my dad would commute an hour from the North Side to the South Side to work every day. It was an hour going and an hour coming. And I said, “Jeez, I could open a store in Dayton. It’s an hour to Dayton, an hour back. Dayton is kind of like Columbus. So if I lived in Chicago, I’d be commuting, so I’ll just commute to Dayton.” So that was the idea. I told my dad I was going to do that, and he said, “The merchants in Dayton will eat you alive. You’re lucky to be successful in Columbus.” I said, “Well, I think it’s the same and if the store doesn’t work, I could afford one failure.” And it worked.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/rJ4CxaMQIEk?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.01_14_15_02.Still007-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.01_14_15_02.Still007-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>The idea of leverage is like, if I had one store and I opened two; if you have two stores, how you could get to four? If you had four, could you get to eight? So I was just playing, just like scribbling on a napkin, and saying to you, “Is this pretty interesting?” But how do you get from one community, Columbus, if I’m going to get to a larger number of stores? I’d have to be in multiple cities.</p> <p>Everybody knew that people didn’t have stores in multiple cities. And I said, “Well, I could try it.” Maybe I didn’t see it was leverage, but it was a way to get to scale, but I recognized — probably intuitively, couldn’t articulate it — we had a merchandise plan, we had a store design, we had a name of our store, we had a lot of things that were replicable. So if I could open a store, and then I could open another one just like it, and then you could open another one in another city just like it, calling it leverage, you have a replicable model that’s repeatable, and there’s also financial leverage and human scale.</p> <p>So I recognize if I had four stores, then I’d probably have four assistant managers. Those four assistant managers have career opportunities to become store managers if I open more stores. If I’m picking a style for one store or a color of garment, why couldn’t I pick the same style for eight or ten stores? You’re just writing a bigger number. So what I tried to do is say, “What is what I’m doing? Could I copy it?” I really didn’t see it as leverage. It’s like McDonald’s building more golden arches. I could open more stores and I could try them in different cities and it kept expanding.</p> <p>So Columbus and Dayton, then I said, “Well, Dayton is an hour away to drive and Milwaukee is an hour away to fly. I remember thinking, “What’s the difference between driving an hour to Dayton, or flying an hour to Dayton, or flying an hour to Milwaukee? It’s time and distance the same.” I got a map, and I said, “It’s far away, but the characteristics of Milwaukee, Columbus, Dayton are similar.” So you say, “Wow, that does work. You could actually open stores in Milwaukee. Then I went to an office supply store, got a map of the U.S., and got a compass and a wax crayon, and I drew concentric circles out 200, 300, 400 miles out of Columbus. And I said, “My God! Atlanta, New York!”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p><strong>At that time, clothing sales were mostly in department stores, but you decided to focus on clothes for one segment, younger women.  How did you decide to specialize?</strong></p> <p>When I started the business, I said, “What could I do?” and I said, “I don’t know very much.” So I probably heard this when I was in college, specialization was very popular. Friends that were going to be doctors weren’t going to be <em>doctors</em>, they were going to be dermatologists, they were going to be cardiologists. No one was just going to be a doctor.</p> <p>So I was probably influenced by that and said, “I can’t compete with all these other guys, because they have more resources and they know a lot. So if I know a lot about a little, maybe I could find my way.” So that idea of being a specialist — businesses that are focused on young women and clothing and what they wear, and really knowing that customer and being very focused. I said, “Now I don’t have to compete with all the resources that let’s say a department store has. I’m just competing with one merchant.”</p> <figure id="attachment_39025" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39025 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-672458524_master.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-39025 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1945" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-672458524_master.jpg 2280w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-672458524_master-380x324.jpg 380w, /web/20181020025305im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-672458524_master-760x648.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-672458524_master.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">April 19, 2017: Victoria’s Secret store at the main waiting area in Terminal 1 of Humberto Delgado Airport in Lisbon, Portugal. L Brands operates more than 3,000 company-owned specialty stores in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Greater China, and its brands are sold in more than 700 franchised locations worldwide.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>When you eventually decided to branch out, you could have chosen any area, but you chose intimate apparel and bought the Victoria’s Secret stores.  Why lingerie?</strong></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/tIShOJkub-Y?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.00_44_02_24.Still006-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.00_44_02_24.Still006-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>The funny story I like telling is I was driving to Dayton to visit the store, and I was thinking about what other businesses I could start. I said, “Well, I don’t know anything about the shoe business. Half the people in the world are men. So maybe we could start a men’s business. I’m a man. Men don’t buy as much as women. But if our skill is in women, and stores and everything that women buy or wear.” You know? Shoes weren’t interesting. I didn’t think much about accessories then.</p> <p>And I remember saying, “All the women I know wear underwear most of the time. All the women I know would like to wear lingerie all of the time.” And I’m just driving down the highway laughing my butt off and thinking what a funny thought that is. I’m driving back from Dayton and I’m laughing more to myself. “What does that mean? What’s the difference between lingerie and underwear?” Lingerie has emotional content. You know, men wear underwear, women wear underwear, but lingerie is… you know.</p> <p>So I said, “I wonder why no one’s done that.” So I spent about two or three years as I was traveling around in Europe, Asia, department stores, specialty stores, and I said, “I can’t find a lingerie shop.” In my mind I said, “There must be this wonderful lingerie shop in Paris, or maybe in Zurich, or maybe in Berlin, or maybe in Vienna or just…” They don’t exist. And I said, “Wow!” So I had this imagination that there’s this wonderful lingerie store, except I can’t find one in Paris.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>How did you first learn about Victoria’s Secret and decide to buy the business?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/CaOI-wt-_RU?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.00_42_33_19.Still005-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.00_42_33_19.Still005-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Leslie Wexner: We open a store in San Francisco. I’m there for the opening and pre-opening and design and setting up the store. And about a block away there’s a small lingerie store, and the ladies in the store say, “You have to go see it. It’s really kind of interesting.” I went down there and it was interesting. It was probably 800 square feet, and it was kind of Victorian. It was like velvet sofas and — it wasn’t Victorian from England. It was American Victorian. So it’s a Tiffany lampshades kind of a place.</p> <p>But it was interesting, and I just never had seen anything like it, and I called the owner up. I said, “Gee, next time I’m in San Francisco, I’d like to meet you.” And he said, “What do you do?” and I told him I had the store down the street. And he said, “I don’t want to meet you because you just want to understand my secrets, and you’d probably want to start a business and put me out of business.” I said, “No, I’m just curious,” which I was.</p> <p>And about a year later I get a phone call. The guy says, “This is Roy Raymond. Remember, we had the phone conversation?” I said, “Oh, yeah.” And he said, “Would you be interested in buying my business?” So it was his idea, not mine. I said, “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about the lingerie business but we haven’t done anything. We’re very busy doing things.” And he said, “Well, if you want to buy it, you could buy it, but you have to come right away.” And I said, “Well, maybe I’ll be out in a week or two.” He said, “No, the sheriff’s going to shut me down tomorrow. So if you want to buy the business, you got to come out right now.”</p> <p>So I said okay and just went out and met him. The first time I met him, he told me about his business. He’d started it as a master’s project, not unlike the way Fred Smith started Federal Express. And he was going broke. He said, “If you want to buy the business, here’s what I have and if we can come to an agreement, I’ll call the sheriff and tell him not to shut me down.”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>What made you think you could make a success out of this? He was going broke.</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: We knew how to run stores and he had no experience. This was a 3D real-life model of what he had written about in his master’s project while he was at Stanford. It makes sense that, you know, people buy lingerie. I didn’t know what the margin was. I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t know about fits, constructions, all this stuff. I had to figure it out.</p> <p>So I bought the business, and we were a public company, so I called our board, and I said, “I bought this business.” And the response was, “Well, everybody can have a toy. So if this is something you want to play with, it’s okay, but it could never be a business.” So that was kind of daunting, and we were very busy with other businesses.</p> <p>So we said, “Roy, we won’t bother you. Here’s some cash so you can pay your bills. Just run the business and we’ll talk every three months.” I wasn’t much engaged. The real risky business is… You grow a business by starting a business, starting other businesses. You could buy a smaller business or you could acquire a larger business.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/JksBmCLSgew?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.00_34_05_23.Still014-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.00_34_05_23.Still014-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>One Friday morning I was looking at the <em>Wall Street Journal,</em> and it said the management of a company called Lane Bryant was going to buy the company. And I thought, “Jeez, this is kind of interesting. If it’s a public company and the people that are running the company are going to buy the company…” And the article went on to say that the company had tried to sell itself and there weren’t any buyers so the management of the company decided they were going to buy it. Well, if that’s a good deal for them, it might be a good deal for us. Got some public information, called the president of the company and said, “We want to bid,” and he said, “I’m running the company and I’m a bidder…” So you know, “Fry ice.” We called their lawyer, who’s mentioned in the paper — the company lawyer. I said, “We’re real bidders.” And went to New York on a Friday afternoon, got a little bit of information about how many stores and how much business they had done, no financials. Met with Manufacturers Hanover Trust on a Saturday morning and arranged for a loan, bid on the company, and Monday night we owned it.</p> <p>So I get home around three in the morning from New York and the net worth of our business was about $120 million. We borrowed $150 million from Manufacturers Hanover to buy Lane Bryant. The story was I get home, you know. I’m back at my house in Columbus. I go in the refrigerator. It’s three in the morning. Pour myself a big glass of white wine, and I remember looking in the window and seeing my reflection and sipping the wine and saying, “You just bet the ranch.” Six months later we paid off all the debt.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>What gave you the confidence to bet the ranch?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I was working with good people. We thought we had good business practices. We didn’t think they had very good practices, whether it was sourcing, how they ran stores, even how they collected cash from their stores, how they paid bills. I said, “I’ll just bet that they’re really screwed up and if we put our practices on their business, good things will happen.”</p> <p><strong>And how do you know when to get out of a business that’s not working?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: One of the things I’ve probably absorbed when I was in business school — and didn’t know I was learning it — was about life cycles, that things begin, and they peak, and then they decline. So whether you look at life cycles of fashion, or you look at life cycles of things that people buy, designs, everything is in a life cycle. So looking at things and saying, “Okay, where is this in the life cycle? Is it the beginning? Is it the harvest time? Or is this the part where it now becomes obsolete?” That thinking about the businesses that we’ve sold, it’s like my instinct. My thought was, it was about time in the life cycle, and move on. So getting out of the apparel businesses and into beauty and lingerie, those were very big bets, but they were very deliberately thought about and tested over time.</p> <p><strong>You modified the concept of Victoria’s Secret when you took over the stores. Where did you get that idea?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181020025305if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/XkNyf57csyY?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.00_18_03_14.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wexner-Les-2017-MasterEdit.00_18_03_14.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I like to know about people. I’m curious about leadership. I’m curious about biography and history, and reading biography from a historical point of view, and reading history to understand how people behaved. One of the things that influenced the business was Emile Zola’s book <em>The Ladies’ Paradise</em>. The notion of Victoria should be a ladies’ paradise. If men like Victoria’s Secret, that’s kind of a bonus, but in my imagination they should feel uncomfortable when they’re in the store, if there’s no mahogany paneling, there’s nothing that’s welcoming. This is a ladies’ paradise. And that thinking goes into the design of the store, the fitting rooms, the fabric, the display. It’s all from the lady’s point of view. It has nothing to do with men. Every so often somebody will say, “You know, if we had a men’s corner, we’ll have some nice Ralph Lauren wing chairs and a place where guys can feel comfortable when they’re in the store…” and I say, “No. This is a ladies’ paradise.” It’s all about her.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>What surprised you the most about the success of Victoria’s Secret?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I think probably it’s the universal appeal of lingerie. We’re selling the same things in Columbus, Ohio at the same time we’re selling them on Bond Street in London, Fifth Avenue in New York, and the Mall of the Emirates in Dubai, and in Hong Kong and in Shanghai. It’s the notion of sexuality, sensuality, how women feel about lingerie — it’s a universal thing. That’s surprising to me. Happily so.</p> </div>    <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>When you were growing up, did you know that you wanted to be a retail legend?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: No, I never thought I wanted to be a retailer at all growing up. I came from a very modest circumstance. My father was born in Russia. My mother was the first child in her family born in the United States. No one had gone to college and everybody worked hard and pretty much struggled. I think I went to eight or ten different schools in different cities before I went to college.</p> <p><strong>Why were you moving around?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: My dad’s job moved him around. He worked for different companies in different cities. So I started working probably when I was nine or ten years old, because if I wanted toys or jeans or whatever — there was no money in the family — so if I wanted stuff I just knew I had to shovel snow or cut grass or do something. I look back at my career, I was always self-employed. I’d invent businesses or jobs.</p> <p><strong>What other kinds of businesses did you pursue as a kid?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: The first business I think is interesting. You know, kids do babysitting. So let’s say you’re babysitting and you’re getting paid 50 cents an hour, or whatever I was getting paid then, and I figured out that if I could take ten kids to the park on a Saturday, I could get 50 cents a kid for two hours, and so I could make $5 an hour or $10 for two hours. Babysitting one-on-one, I’d only make $1 for two hours. So I look back and I understood leverage even then.</p> <p><strong>How old were you?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Ten or 11 years old. Then I was in high school looking for a summer job. I figured I could cut grass, because I had a lawnmower and I wanted a job. People would say, “What does it cost?” and whatever the minimum wage was, say $3 an hour, I’d look at a lawn, and if I thought I could cut the lawn in an hour, I’d say $3. If I thought it would take two hours, I’d take six.</p> <p>So I’d “just price.” Then I figured out there was elasticity. I didn’t have those words then. And people would say, “Gee, that’s not very expensive,” so the next lawn that was the same size I’d say $5. So I think by the time I got to college I was making two or three thousand dollars a summer — when the minimum wage was 50 cents an hour — just cutting grass. Then I got a second lawnmower and hired one of my friends to push a lawnmower, and I did other things.</p> <p><strong>Did you get a cut?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Well, I paid <em>him</em> by the hour. <em>I</em> got paid by the job.</p> <p><strong>How would you describe yourself as a child?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Pretty quiet, a terrible student, really wanted to be an adult. I felt terribly constrained by the family circumstance and wanted to be successful, whatever that meant. “Successful” might have been — when I was at high school — maybe one day I’d have a car. When I got out of college, one day I’d have a new car, pretty modest goals.</p> <p><strong>You say you felt constrained. In what way?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: This is probably very deep. I’ve never been to a psychiatrist. I probably should go see one, but I just wanted to be an adult because I didn’t like being a kid. I didn’t think my parents really knew what they were doing. I knew they loved me, and I loved my parents, but they weren’t providing direction. I knew if I was an adult, I could probably do better. They even reinforced that, because my mom and dad would say, “Your dad’s got a new job offer. What do you think he should do?” Or “Which house should we live in?” And it wasn’t being polite. They put real adult judgments on me. I can remember maybe at the age of 10 or 11 going to bed crying and saying, “They won’t let me be a kid,” and “I can’t be an adult. They’re giving me adult questions and adult problems to solve, and I’m a kid, so I’ve got to grow up as fast as possible.”</p> <p><strong>Were you the only child?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: No. I had a younger sister, and she really was a child. She still is. But I was the adult in the family from probably the time I was seven, eight, ten years old, at least in my own mind. I have a son who’s a senior in college and he was an adult when he was six years old. My wife said, “You must have been like that.” Because you could tell him anything. He has good judgment. If you said this is a secret, he’d never give it up, and he could do that because that’s just how God made him.</p> <p><strong>What was your relationship like with your father?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: My dad was really tough. Loving, but tough. If I said I had a problem, he’d say, “Well, what do you think?” and he’d make me produce the answer. I remember one time I had started the business and interest rates were very high and I owed the bank a lot of money. And my dad came over and he said, “I bet you’re really worried,” and I said, “Oh, I’m <em>really</em> worried.” And he says, “You’re worried about the bank, you have all this debt,” and I said, “Yeah, I’m worried about the economy.” “You may not be able to pay your bills…” and I said, “Yeah.” And he says, “Why don’t you go home and go to bed, turn off the lights, put a pillow over your head, and really worry?” And I said, “Dad, that’s crazy!” and he says, “Why are <em>you</em> worried?” He said, “Let the banks worry. It’s their money. You worry about the solution. You’re just worrying about worry.” That was the kind of coaching he gave me.</p> <p><strong>Was that good advice?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: It was great advice. I give it to people now.</p> <p><strong>You took some really big risks in your career, betting the farm so to speak. Where did the confidence to take those risks come from?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I don’t know that it was confidence. I’ve thought about that question. People ask it. I think it was more a fear of failure. I wanted to be successful, whatever that meant. I wanted to be independent. I remember I was dating somebody. I was 23 or 25 years old, and they said, “What’s success?” and I said, “I don’t know. Making $15,000 a year at some point in my life and having a new car every three years.”</p> <p><strong>What does success mean to you now?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I think success is more about purpose. People ask about success at different points in your life. As I look back, I think people that are successful feel good about what they are doing, and they can look back at what they’ve done and they feel good about it. People sometimes ask about success and they say, “What’s your legacy?” and I say, “I think it’s really a dumb question.” I think the question is: What am I doing now? Do I feel good about myself? Am I proud of myself? Whatever purpose there is in life, I think success is about purpose. It’s not about material things.</p> <p>I remember thinking and really struggling in my mid-30s and early 40s and just saying, “Gee, it must be a funny God that makes people have financial fortune.” What’s the purpose of success? What does success mean? What is your purpose? It’s like when you buy more stuff. You could have one house; you could have two houses. You could have a car, you could own two cars — four cars.</p> <p><strong>And how did you answer that?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: God must have a great sense of humor if he can make this kid from Columbus, Ohio so successful, and I’m just racking up the score in doing well. I bought a ski house in Vail. I moved to Aspen. I got myself a Mercedes — toys if you would — and things, because I thought as long as I’m working so hard, I ought to play hard too and enjoy the things of success.</p> <p>And I didn’t feel rewarded. I got to thinking about what would make me happy, and I thought — I didn’t describe it as purpose — I said, “What would make me happy?” and I said, “Maybe I should try to make the world a better place,” and played around with that idea. I said, “How would I do it?” One of my acquaintances who really had a great influence in my life suggested that I sell the business and go to public life. John Glenn, a great man.</p> <p>One night in Vail, John Glenn sat me down, and he said, “You could retire.” I was about 40 years old, and I said, “Yeah, John. I could.” And he said, “I want you to, and I want you to run for the Senate.” I said, “John, I’m a Republican.” He said, “I know that.” And he said, “And I’m a Democrat. But I want you to run for the Senate because Ohio is pretty well split, half Democrats, half Republicans. You be the Republican. I’ll be the Democrat. We’ll do great things for Ohio.“ I said, “John, I’ve never run for public office. I wouldn’t even know how.” He said, “I’ll run your campaign.” He said, “You’ll get elected. When a sitting Democratic senator named John Glenn, the astronaut, sponsors a Republican, you’ll get elected and we’ll do great things.”</p> <p><strong>Why didn’t you do it?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: It wasn’t my calling. John just passed away, but a year-and-a-half ago John and Annie Glenn came out. We’re working on a project in Columbus, the National Veterans Memorial, and it’s under construction. And John — by that time he’s in his early 90s — he comes in the office, and he said, “Driving out here with Annie, we calculated that if you had taken my advice way back then in Vail, you would have just been finishing your second term as President!”</p> <p><strong>Do you think you could have been President?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Possible. I never aspired to that. I was very lucky to find a career which let me travel, sourcing stores in other countries, just the opportunities of the career in design and finance and all the things that make retailing — my career — interesting to me. So I started looking at community responsibility. Maybe I should give of myself.</p> <p>As I began to inventory my good fortune, my skills and talent, I said, “You’re creative, you’re a problem solver. You can organize people.” People would say to me, “Les, you’re a leader,” and I’d say, “When I look in the mirror, I don’t see a leader. I just see the founder. I got here first and I was lucky, but I’m not really a leader.” And they said, “No, you’re really a very good leader.”</p> <p>So I thought about this. Now thinking over about a five-year period, I’d say, “If I’m a leader, I just want to test the credit that people are giving me. People are saying that I’m a leader, but I don’t feel like one.” So if I was really a leader, if I took a job in the community with United Way, with my synagogue, took a responsibility at the university, something outside of business, could I apply the same kind of organizational skills?</p> <p>That’s how I described it, leadership skills — creativity presumably that I have in my business. Are these skills transferrable? And even though people are saying, “You are a leader.” I said, “I’m not a leader.” So in this process, one of the things I began doing is reading books about leadership. From then until now — a period of 30, 40 years — I’m probably pretty well-read on the subject of leadership. I read biography.</p> <p><strong>Who’s your favorite leader?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: George Washington.</p> <p><strong>Because?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Because George Washington came from very modest circumstances. He wasn’t the son of a plantation owner. He was the son of a farmer whose farm happened to be near a plantation. He had no formal education, very frustrated. He started writing a diary when he was in his teens, and he wrote things like, “When I grow up, I want to be respected. When I grow up, I want to be successful. When I grow up, I want to know things.” He never had the opportunity to go to college. Probably was homeschooled.</p> <p>What I find fascinating about Washington is he wanted to make something of himself. And to his imagination, when he’s in his early 20s, being an English gentleman was kind of the standard in America. Obviously the country hadn’t been founded. Most English gentlemen were officers. So he goes to the Governor of Virginia and volunteers to become a British officer and there, essentially the Governor throws him out of his office and says, “Go do something in the militia. You’re not an English officer.” And he keeps his day job as a surveyor earning his living helping his brother run the farm.</p> <p>He starts following things, and then the English general is going on an excursion into the West. “Can I tag along? I want to see what you do.” And then as he progresses, he wants to be well-regarded in his own community so he runs for some kind of public office, but what he really wants to do is be a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and he gets that.</p> <p><strong>How did reading so deeply about George Washington influence you?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I thought, “Boy, there’s somebody like me.” I didn’t grow up on a farm, but he grew up in modest circumstances. And I have ambition and he had ambition. So at some point when you’re full of ambition, you feel very guilty and your friends say, “Well you just want to be successful.”</p> <p><strong>Why guilty?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Because you’re escaping a little bit of your friends, maybe the circumstances, the farm you grew up in. Your friends, your playmates growing up are farmer’s children, and now you aspire to be in the House of Burgesses and you’re with the aristocrats.</p> <p><strong>How does that relate to your experience?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Well, John Glenn is my friend and people are inviting me to be on the board of the Whitney Museum, the American Ballet Theatre. The university is inviting me to head their endowment campaign. I can’t believe that people are seeing me in this light, and my friends are saying, “Why are you doing these things? No one’s asking <em>us</em>.” I think I had a very difficult period.</p> <p>A man named John Galbreath from Columbus was a very successful international real estate developer, and I called him up. Didn’t know him. Went down to his office, and I said, “I don’t want any money. I just want to talk to you for a few minutes. You were raised on a farm in Mount Sterling, Ohio. And you went to college but kind of couldn’t afford it during the Great Depression. And then as a mature man you’re doing real estate developments all over the world. You own the Pittsburgh Pirates. You own Kentucky Derby winners. On your farm outside of Columbus you have your own airport. The Queen of England flies in because you’re a horse breeder. You’re in this society. How does this happen? How do you go from Mount Sterling, Ohio to the Queen of England as your friend?”</p> <p>He said, “Just pursue the things that interest you. You’ll meet some dead ends and blind alleys. Some things that you think will interest you will bore you, but you’re a curious person. Pursue the things. Don’t prejudge them.”</p> <p>And I said, “But I’m having a difficult time with my friends because I’m going to Hong Kong, I’m going to Europe, doing all these things and I’m not like them anymore.”</p> <p>He said, “I’m not like my boyhood friends either, but I go back to Mount Sterling once or twice a year and sit and have a cup of coffee or a beer with my high school buddies. I can’t tell them about the Queen of England and winning the Kentucky Derby, but they’re still my friends. So you never want to leave your friends behind. You never want to leave your past behind, but don’t let that keep you from exploring the possibilities that you have.”</p> <p><strong>What’s been the hardest thing about the journey from when you began to now, almost 80? What’s the hardest thing about that journey?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I think finding the way is the hardest part. At every stage of life, every trial, every success, you know, you’re going into some kind of fog. There isn’t a plan that suddenly reveals itself, and you go, “Ta-da! Now I understand.” So I was in my mid-50s and I fell in love. I was single for most of my life. The best thing that happened to me is my wife. I’ve got four kids. All of them go to Harvard. Much better than their dad. They’re really bright kids.</p> <p>So how does a wife and a young family fit into a career and things that you’re doing? I think I have terminal curiosity. So I always think that the future will be better and different than the past. As I look back and take inventory of myself, I’m very open-minded and flexible. People say the older you get, you get set in your ways. I don’t think so.</p> <p><strong>How do you guard against being set in your ways?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: You have to keep being curious. The notion that the present is different than the past, and the future will be different than the present, and the present is past, as we say it. I think I, by nature, am an optimist. Maybe I was driven to escape from my childhood and to be something, create my own world or career the way I wanted it to be. And I keep doing that in very interesting ways.</p> <p>One of my business professors from Ohio State, Arthur Coleman, he said, “What you should do is plan to redecorate your office every five years.” Because you have to plan to change, and you have to change your environment, and you have to find different stimulation. Mental skills are like physical skills. If you don’t exercise, if you don’t stretch, you become inflexible. He said what you want to do is keep that mental flexibility, and that was really a big idea.</p> <p><strong>Is your office different now than it was a few years ago?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Yes. I’m thinking about remodeling it again too.</p> <p><strong>So do you do it every few years?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Yeah. I change things. Try to learn a new sport, learn about a new subject, plan that kind of planned creativity the way one would plan exercise.</p> <p><strong>What’s your latest sport?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Well, about 15, 20 years ago we took up shooting. My wife had never played with guns, so we became clay target shooters. And we took up boating.</p> <p><strong>Is there something particular that you like to have in your office? Do you like inspirational sayings or anything like that?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Yeah. I like that. So one of the ones I’ve got now, a saying above my desk is — I found it’s an Einstein quote: “I’m still learning.” At that time when I was struggling with being successful in a financial way, people would say, “You should be very happy. Look how well you’re doing financially,” and I was struggling to find purpose, if you would. There’s another quote from Einstein that said, “Happiness and well-being are the ambitions of a pig.” And I thought, “Boy, that’s exactly how I feel.”</p> <p>My friends don’t understand, whether it’s belonging to a country club or playing golf, or whatever a vacation is, that should make you happy. And it’s like, “No, happiness is much deeper.” I think people have to struggle to find things that give them purpose, the real meaning. Why am I alive? Why did God bless me with these skills or these resources? What am I to do with them? If God just lets some person be very fortunate, let’s say financially, it’s kind of a funny God.</p> <p><strong>Why did God bless Les Wexner?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I think God helps those that help themselves, as I remember my <em>bubbe</em> — my grandmother — saying. In the same crucible period, maybe in my 40s — which is another story — I was in Aspen, or Vail rather. I’d go out in the summer like boot camp by myself to think and read, and it was always a struggle because I enjoyed the exercise, I enjoyed getting away from work and just being by myself in that atmosphere.</p> <p>I liked looking at the mountains and thinking big thoughts. And by happenstance I decided one summer that I’d climb Vail Mountain. That’s not a technical climb, but you’re going from about 7,500 feet to 11-and-a-half thousand. So it’s a good walk. I got in shape for it by jogging a mile, two miles, five miles. By the end of two weeks I was in pretty good shape to jog — I think it was about 10 or 15 miles.</p> <p>So I drove to town, parked my jeep, and just walked up the damn mountain. And along the way a big thunderstorm came up, and I didn’t want to go back because I was about two-thirds up the mountain and I was never in danger. So it was some thunder, some lightning, but I said I had this objective, I’m going to climb the mountain. I get to the top, and I remember it so vividly, standing on the top of Vail Mountain. I’m looking on one side, and it’s dark and cloudy and the rumble of the thunder. In the other direction it’s just blue skies and sunshine. I’m thinking I’ve got to remember this.</p> <p>I start walking down the hill, and I said to myself, “What if I slipped and fell?” I could have broken a leg, I could have broken an arm. No one knew I was there.</p> <p>It wasn’t a traffic place. I could have had hypothermia. I could have died. I could have been hit by lightning and all this stuff. So I’m thinking that. And then I’m thinking, “Okay, when you get to the bottom, you ought to get yourself a treat. Is it an ice cream cone or do you have a beer?” And I said, “Gee, I could have killed myself.” I didn’t take any water. I didn’t take a jacket. I was really naïve about being in that kind of geography, completely unprepared, not even taking a bottle of water or telling somebody where I was. Nobody even knew that I went out into kind of the wilderness.</p> <p>And I said, “I wonder, if I had died, what would have happened?” And I said it would really be a catastrophe for my mom. My dad had just passed away. She depended on me. This would really be tough. Then I got to thinking, “What would people say about you when you’re gone?” Which really to me was a very important question. I thought about that for a couple of years and said, “What people say about you when you’re gone doesn’t matter. You’re gone.” What really matters is, “What do you say about yourself in the here and now? Are you proud of what you’re doing?” If you had a short lease and it ended today, or it ends tomorrow, what would you wish you would have done? You better do it, because you could fall out of the sky, you could have an illness, you could have an accident. And then it was at least five years of looking for purpose.</p> <p><strong>What are you most proud of that you’re doing now?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Well, I think I’m obviously most proud of my family. I like my work. I’m very proud of the thought that I should tithe in time and money. Out of this challenge that I put to myself, about feeling proud about myself, I said, “Let’s make a five-year plan financially of how you think you’re going to do. I’m 40 years old. And I want to give away ten percent of my pretax income every year, and some share of net worth.”</p> <p>I said, “That would make me feel good about myself. If I’m capable, and I’m a leader, and I’m organized — the nice things that people say about me — then I should be efficient with my time, and I might be lucky, in that I can make more money, but no one can make more time.”</p> <p>So the discussion I had with myself was, “You’re working 70 or 80 hours a week. Say it’s 80. If you’re going to tithe in time, you’re going to spend 8 hours a week, 400 hours, 500 hours a year on something that’s important outside of yourself. So you’re going to give money and you’re going to give time. And if you’re going to give 500 hours a year to something, over a decade you’re going to spend 5,000 hours. What do you pick?”</p> <p><strong>What did you pick?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I picked my religious community, the City of Columbus, and my alma mater.</p> <p><strong>How important is your faith to you?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Very important. I think the notion that there’s this greater force outside of ourselves that’s created the universe, created challenges, creates opportunity, the notion of man’s responsibility to man. I’m particularly unhappy with the President. I don’t like his behavior, and I’m a Republican, and I don’t like his policies because they’re almost the antithesis of the American character of generosity, of charity, of welcoming, of helping, of taking risks. You think of the lives that were expended in World War I and World War II to help others, and they say now we’ll draw up the bridge and we’ll protect ourselves. We won’t have a broader role in humanity.</p> <p><strong>Speaking of immigration, let’s talk about your father for a moment. By the time you were 30 years old you had a store that was doing profoundly better than the store that your immigrant father had.</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I had six of them actually.</p> <p><strong>Was there a moment that he recognized your success, or told you what he felt about it?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: My dad never said much. He would smile, and he’d say, “Are you doing a good job?” or “Tell me how business is.” Pretty superficial stuff. I came back from a trip to Hong Kong and flew to Florida. They had by then a little apartment in Hallandale. I think I slept about 18 hours because I remember being very tired.</p> <p>And when I woke up, he was all dressed and waiting for me. He said we have to go for a walk. It’s one of those walks along the ocean. We talked about nothing, my trip, what I had done and how business was. And then on the way back, he said, “I’m very realistic about my age and my own health. I want you to know that I’ve lived the proverbial three score and ten, so I’ve won. So I’m very happy. All the rest is gravy. That’s just how I feel about things. But your mom, you think, is very strong and you really don’t understand. She really needs you because she’s really needed me. You have a responsibility. So when I’m gone, don’t worry about me. I’ll be in another place and I’m not sorry about it, but you have a real responsibility.”</p> <p>So I said, “Dad, come on. You’re talking nonsense.” And he said, “You have a lot of ability, much more than I ever thought you had. What I’m worried about you is you’re optimistic. You think the world is full of goodness. I just want you to be careful, because you’ll have adversity. You’ve been so lucky, and so blessed, but you really have to think about things, and I hope you beat the odds and get the three score and ten, but you really have to think about the disappointments that people can have. You’re kind of like Lochinvar — you’re just optimistic and naïve.” I think he was right. To a degree I like that, the notion that you can make the world a better place.</p> <p><strong>Describe your reaction when he said, “You’re actually more clever than I thought you were.” That’s an interesting thing for a father to say.</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I was complimented. Part of it was he said, “You’ve made a big success of the business. The business will grow tenfold more, way beyond what you’re imagining now. You have real ability, and very few people have.” It went further, and he said — as I’m telling you this story, I’m remembering.</p> <p>He said, “I’ve worked with a lot of young people, and see young people, and as you’re developing and maturing, you’re actually developing and maturing more and more capacity. I’ve never seen that with anybody I’ve trained. I’m really surprised that you’re kind of blossoming in ways that are surprising to me. It’s very unusual. You have to realize that about yourself. You have more ability than I thought you have. You have more ability than you think you have.”</p> <p><strong>That must have been powerful.</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: It was very emotional, because it’s kind of a scene from a movie of a father and son walking on the beach, and the father saying, “I’m not going to be here, so this is what I want you to know.” I think in real time I didn’t really absorb what he was saying. After my dad was gone, I said I wonder why he did that, because it was so deliberate.</p> <p><strong>Why did he?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Well, I think obviously he had time to think about it. I think part of it was he wanted me to know that he was proud of me. I think he wanted me to make sure that I understood my responsibilities to my mom. I think he also wanted me to think about the ability, what I would describe as good fortune, because<strong> </strong>I’m just really a lucky ducky, and my dad said, “You have real ability and just be careful how you use it. Don’t get hurt, but you have real ability. Pay attention to it.”</p> <p><strong>You named the art center at Ohio State after him, didn’t you?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Yes.</p> <p><strong>What would he say now if he knew one of the world’s great collections of art is named after this humble immigrant?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I think he’d laugh. He would think it’d be pretty funny, but I think he’d really appreciate it. For once he’d know for sure that I really appreciated him. A major force in my life because that notion of, I think there’s some people you coach by telling them the answers, and then I think there’s other people that you coach better by asking them questions, and he was that kind of coach. When I said he was tough, he didn’t tell me answers. He’d say, “Well, you could do it this way or you could do it that. This could happen or that could happen. What do you think?” And I’d say, “I don’t know,” and he’d say, “You better think about it.”</p> <p><strong>Your mom, what was your relationship with her?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: My mom was terrific. I described my mom once. If fear was a color, she was color blind. Nothing frightened her. If I told her that I was going to take over General Motors, she’d say, “You can do it. “ Just the most preposterous things, ambitious things, she said, “You can do it.”</p> <p><strong>Did you inherit that?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I think so. I’m not easily daunted. Scale — my wife observes, which is a very important thing. She knows me better than anyone. She says, “It’s funny. You have no trouble with scale. You can imagine things and the size doesn’t daunt you.” Like New Albany, the community. I say, “I think I’m going to plan a city. This would be a fun project, and it’s going to be 12,000 acres. Let’s just start planning it.” And she says, “That’s just really unusual.” Or you plan a business to double, or whatever it is you’re planning. She said, “If you imagine it and it’s fun for you to imagine and you start playing with it, then you’ll engage, and the scale doesn’t daunt you.” The flip side and her insight is helpful to me, because I think she sees me better than I see myself. She’s like, “Sometimes you’ll say things, and there’s a risk implied in the scale of what you’re doing or what you’re attempting. But you have an enormously active risk calculator, and you think about things for a long time before they kind of pop out.” So people will say, “Oh, we just had this idea.” She said, “I might know that you’ve been thinking about it for several years.”</p> <p><strong>Do you sleep much?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: That’s really interesting. I tried not to sleep because I thought sleep is kind of a waste of time, so I tried to train myself to sleep three hours because I heard people could do this. So I’d say, “Okay, I require eight hours of sleep so I’ll set up a schedule. For one week I’ll sleep seven hours and 45 minutes. Then I’ll move it back to seven-and-a-half and I’ll pick up all this time because there’s all these things I want to do.” I sleep eight hours. I couldn’t do that. I have a very normal sleep cycle. But the interesting thing Abigail would say — she says, “Do you know that when you wake up, you’ll say, ‘I’ve been thinking…’?” and I’ll say no. And she’ll say, “Oh yeah, very common.” She says — as we began to know each other — she says, “It’s really unusual. Do you know that you say that?” and I said no. She said, “You process, your subconscious is working out things, and in the morning you’ll say you’ve been thinking.” She’d ask, “Do you ever write things down in the night or in the morning?” And, “No.”</p> <p><strong>Do you remember ever waking up with a great idea?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I think I remember her saying that that’s a great idea, but it isn’t like I wake up and say, “Boy, I found the solution!” But it gets worked out and then maybe you’re in a meeting or a situation, and you say, “You know, I have an idea that I think we can do this…” and it got worked out.</p> <p><strong>How much of your business is creativity and how much is just hard work?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: My son asked me the same question, the senior in college. He says, “How do you think about all this?” I said, “You have to have good ideas, but you have to work, and if your work’s fun, then it isn’t like work.” It isn’t like, “Boy, I’m tired, I’ve got to go home.” It’s like, “I’ve got to go home because I’ve got other responsibilities.” But I think that leadership, which is a subject in itself, I think leaders lead themselves, but leaders have ideas and maybe they’re visionary ideas.</p> <p>Probably today, people would say Steve Jobs was a visionary because he invented this little gadget, the cell phone. But he didn’t invent cell phones, and he didn’t design the cell phone. He just took a couple of ideas and put them together, and no one else put those same ideas together as successfully as he did. But he had something that he was trying to do that intrigued him, and he could do it very well.</p> <p><strong>Today, with online shopping killing a lot of stores, how do you see the future of Victoria’s Secret?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Well, our online business, you know, we started with a Victoria’s Secret catalogue, which is very successful, and then catalogue mail order became catalogue phone order, then it became catalogue digital entry of order — e-commerce. Our e-commerce business is about 20, 25 percent of the business, and it’s the most profitable part.</p> <p>So the customer in the channel — whether it’s store, or how e-commerce markets the brand, or communicates or satisfies customer needs — the role of technology will change retailing, whether it changes it at stores because stores can be more entertaining, whether you can provide different kinds of services, distance learning for store managers and sales associates.</p> <p>What I talk about in the business is the greatest change in technology that impacted retailing was the train, because people didn’t have to just shop in their market village. They could actually get on a train and go to a big city. Goods could be distributed efficiently with trains.</p> <p><strong>In your lifetime now, what’s the biggest change that you’ve seen in retail?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: One was electricity, because air conditioning. The retailing was very different in any kind of store experience, whether it was a restaurant or a bookstore. It was very different without air conditioning. So electricity and lighting and all the things that — escalators, elevators — that made a big change in retail. The mobility. Shopping center. People being able to have access to all kinds of things, if you would — in their neighborhood, rather than a central business district — was an important change.</p> <p><strong>We’ve read that in any group of 100, 41 of those women are probably wearing bras that you sell. What’s that like?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Well, I hope it’s more than that, but the notion of a specialist — the challenge — is, “Can we be best in the world in a category? Can Victoria know more about bras, technically, functionally, emotionally, design characteristics? Can you be the best in the world?”</p> <p>If you can be best in the world, with globalization, you really can be best in the world, like Starbucks, like McDonald’s. So transportation, communication — not only transportation of goods and services, but the mobility of people — has created what… When I began, everybody had a store in a city. Then people said, “You could have stores in a region, you could have national business. You could have global businesses.”</p> <p><strong>A lot of men probably envy the research you’ve done in the field of lingerie. Beautiful, scantily dressed models and so forth. What’s that like?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: To me it’s just business. The model part just doesn’t interest me. I think the idea of inventing a fashion show for lingerie, the idea of supermodels came out of my imagination. But this year the fashion show, the Victoria’s Secret show, was in Paris. I didn’t go because I was busy. Next year it will be in Shanghai. I might be busy.</p> <p><strong>How much of Victoria’s Secret’s success — or your whole retail success — is about the product, and how much is marketing?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: My view is that everything begins with the customer. If you know the customer, then you can match the merchandise and then you can market it. The marketing is kind of the icing. The foundation is the cake. That’s the merchandise. Then the question is, “Do the customers want cake, or do they want cupcakes or donuts. What is it?”</p> <p>The intriguing thing to me is, that as I get older and older, staying in touch with what society — young women — want, and whether it’s listening to music, going to movies, just watching people, saying, “Gee, I bet this is a trend we should think about, and this is something we should stop.”</p> <p>By the way, everyone connects what we do with Victoria’s Secret, which is pretty damn important, but half of our business is beauty products, Bath & Body and Victoria’s Secret beauty. It’s half the business. So we’re the largest specialty retailer of beauty products in the world.</p> <p><strong>How do you keep current? You are the longest-running CEO of any Fortune 500 company. How do you keep knowing what the customers want?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Well, I think that story that I told you about Arthur Coleman — “You have to keep flexibility, because the world changes and you have to change with it…” — is that I really like change. People might wear thongs or might not wear thongs, or they might like lemon soap or maybe they’re going to want orange, or thinking about whole foods and natural healthy food is becoming more and more important. What does this mean to beauty products, natural ingredients? Because what people are putting in their bodies is important, and maybe it’s what they’re putting <em>on</em> their bodies that’s important in cosmetics and beauty. So I look for patterns of behavior and opportunities to change the business.</p> <p><strong>So much of your philanthropy is dedicated to fostering leadership. What has your experience taught you about leadership?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: The foundation of leadership is your own moral compass. I think the best quality leaders really know where their moral compass is. They get it out when they are making decisions. It’s their guide. People talk about, not only do you have to have a moral compass and take it out of your pocket, it has to have a true north. In every culture there’s a standard of behavior, if you would. People have it individually. Groups have cultures, their own moral compass, what is right, what is wrong, what are the characteristics of what they do.</p> <p>When it comes to individual leaders, I had a thought, and I worked with Warren Bennis, and he wanted to write a book with me. I told Warren it was bad for his brand, because I think he’s the guru of the subject of leadership. And he didn’t think so, but I’m happy that I didn’t corrupt his brand. But the aspect of leadership that I find is most important is — and I think it’s under-researched — is that leaders lead <em>themselves</em> effectively.</p> <p>When you think about leadership — I try to teach it, and coach myself and others — when you sell leadership, most people think about <em>them</em>. It’s like you’re the leader and how do you influence <em>them</em>. Clearly, leaders do take their followers, their flock, their enterprise, their business — whatever — hopefully to a better place. But I think the foundation of what makes really great leaders is they lead <em>themselves</em>, and they’re conscious about knowing themselves and coaching and leading themselves in a very profound way. The simplest of us talk to ourselves. The question is, “Do we really <em>lead</em> ourselves?”</p> <p><strong>When you lead yourself, how do you balance self-interest with other values?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I think it’s good to have your own selfish interests, whether it’s liking chocolate ice cream or wanting a new car. It’s just human nature is that. We have our own selfish interests. I think we have interests that go beyond our self to friends, to family first, maybe to friends, maybe to community. I think that’s important to think about those spheres of influence that radiate from you.</p> <p>Then I think the question is, “How important are these things?” If your lease was canceled tomorrow, what would you wish you had done? What are the things you would like to impact? Start on those and you can change the world. Maybe you can only make your neighborhood a little bit better, or make someone’s life a little bit better. Isn’t that the kind of purpose?</p> <p><strong>Have you ever experienced failure? You’re such a serial success story.</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: There’s some times where I bet the ranch and I lost the bet, pretty lonely moments. Now I have a pretty good risk calculator. My dad said, “If you always stand on the windowsill of a tall building, eventually you will fall off.” So the notion is, “Where’s the edge?” But if you’re going to get ahead, part of change is taking the risk to change, recognizing the skills or point of views or ideas that might be obsolete.</p> <p><strong>What’s the future of retail? Is everything going to end up online? <em>The Wall Street Journal</em> says Amazon is going to take a run at the lingerie business.</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Humans are pack animals. In Biblical times, the great market cities in Europe or the United States, people want to be with other people. And in a way, the more that we’re isolated, whether we’re living on farms and we’re only talking to our cell phone, the greater the need we have for group experience. So, I think shopping goes in cycles where the stores are dull or maybe the marketplace isn’t that interesting. But foundationally, just basically human nature, we like to be with other people.</p> <p>So while people are saying that no one is going to go shopping because it’s just inconvenient, and it’s not as easy as buying online, why are people going to concerts? Why are people going to museums? Why are they going to sporting events? Why would you spend three or five thousand dollars for a ticket to go to a Super Bowl game when you can watch it at home for free? And a beer won’t even cost a dollar. Why do people go to restaurants? Between frozen food, food that’s delivered, and microwave ovens, no one should ever go to a restaurant. It doesn’t make any sense. You have to travel there.</p> <p><strong>So ten years from now?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: It will be the same. The question is what the shopping environment will be like. Will it be more like Disneyland? Will there be big screen TVs? When you go to a shopping center, will there be waterslides or will there be virtual reality? When you go to a shopping center, is it all fashion stores or is it health food stores, yoga parlors and Whole Foods?</p> <p>If you look at shopping — I read something interesting. We were talking about the great shopping streets in England. In the 17<sup>th</sup> century somebody figured out that calicoes — the kind of print in fabric which came from India — were colorful, but if you couldn’t see them, you wouldn’t know about it. So the idea of putting merchandise in a window — so when people walk past your store they could actually see things — somebody invented that and that changed shopping, because people could actually go window shopping. It didn’t exist.</p> <p>Shopping, you went to a shop, an office, if you would. It’s like in the Western movies when you go to the general store and, “I need a dress. I need a pound of coffee,” and somebody goes in the back room and brings it out. It’s like the idea of display shopping, self-service, all those were inventions. I think technology is going to aid retail much more dramatically than technology is just you buy it online.</p> <p><strong>When you’re gone, how do you want to be thought of? You’ve done so many different things. What’s at the top of the list?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I think what I’ve tried to do is make the world a better place. I think that’s what’s really important. Nobody remembers who sold the most togas in Rome. In terms of legacy, people remember the great villains more than they remember the great heroes. So I think how you feel about yourself. What do you say about yourself when you put your head on the pillow? Are you really proud of what you’re doing and the way you’re doing it? I think it’s really a fundamental question.</p> <p>So when I went through those formative years in my 20s and 30s and I got to be 40, and everyone’s saying, “Boy, you’re a big success,” and I’m saying, “You’re measuring it in numbers of stores or income, and I’m not Silas Marner. There’s more to it.” Everybody has to solve that “meaning of life” and purpose question for themselves.</p> <p>Everybody does it their own way. I think you have to be thoughtful about the way that you’re doing it. So I describe it as purpose. If you can think about leading a purposeful life — not just an accumulation but you actually make the world a better place — then I think in the grand scheme of the universe, that that explains our existence.</p> <p>If not, we’re just passing through. We’re grains of sand and we’re blowing in the breeze. I think different societies, cultures, individuals, teams of people, make the world a better place. The founding fathers, they made New England, they made those 13 colonies. I don’t know if they thought they were changing the world or just changing <em>their</em> world, but they did make the world a better place.</p> <p>Doctors that cure patients or cure diseases or make discoveries, they’re making the world a better place. Can I make the world a better place by selling underpants? Not really. That’s just the means. That gives me resources to try to make the world a better place.</p> <p><strong>You’ve done an enormous amount right here in Columbus. Why did you decide to stay here and not go to New York or somewhere else?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I think that notion of making the world a better place — “Could I have an impact?” This is the question that a 35- or a 40-year-old asks. If you’re going to impact things, could I impact America? John Glenn says you can if you’re a senator. I didn’t think I could. I admired what he did, but that’s the purpose that he found. I said, “I think I could make my community a better place.”</p> <p>The community was very good to me. I was raised here, started the business here. It’s a pretty good place. So I felt an obligation to try to make my hometown a better place. Not much obligation to the state, but I’ll put some effort there, but it was measurable and important to me. My alma mater was important to me. My religious community. And so those three things are kind of the areas.</p> <p>And I tell my children I’m really lucky that I picked those areas, because having worked them for 40 years, I’m really happy that I picked those areas. I’m also happy that I picked my wife and I’m happy that I picked the business I’m in. But the place where you put purpose — because if time is time and material resources — there’s all kinds of demands on time. There’s all kinds of committees and places, nationally and internationally. And I’d say no. And every year I’d say, “Okay, these are the areas. What am I doing? What have I done? Do I have a five-year plan?” I’d review the hindsight, the plan. Am I still happy in these areas? And I said, “Yeah, these are really important things.”</p> <p><strong>Do you collect the Picassos and the Ferraris just for fun? What is that for?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Those are kind of just toys. Those aren’t the things that matter. What matters in the car collecting or the art collecting is to learn about it, and then actually not the acquisition but to put them into a collection that I think is curated. You know, so something of me in the collection that the artist actually created the work.</p> <p>But a lot of people, say, “example collect” art, collect one of these and one of those. And it’s like — and it’s like it didn’t interest me. If I was going to collect art, it had to be something of me, my eye, things that appeal to me so when I looked at it, it would really look like a collection, not just an accumulation of stuff.</p> <p><strong>Steve Jobs said that people didn’t know they wanted an iPod, but once you built it, they wanted it. Do you think you provided women with something they already wanted, or invented a market for things that women didn’t even know they wanted?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I don’t think I’ve invented anything. You know, Henry Ford really didn’t invent the car, and Steve Jobs didn’t invent the cell phone, and he sure as hell didn’t invent the digital revolution, but he could adapt, put things together in creative ways.</p> <p>I can remember being in the UK and reading a London newspaper, and they were saying that Marks & Spencer sold 80 or 90 percent of all the lingerie and underwear sold to women in all of England. And the remarkable thing was that among women of all ages, the most popular single garment they sold was the thong. And I said, “Gee, that’s really interesting about English women, that that could be it.” So I said maybe we should sell thongs. And the ladies that were running Victoria’s Secret said, “Oh, that’s really trashy.” And I said, “Let’s just try it and see.”</p> <p>So I think in what we do there’s a lot of “let’s try it and sees,” whether it’s a new color or a new style. But we didn’t invent cosmetics, we didn’t invent lingerie. How we market them — style, color — those are the things that we do, but it isn’t pure creation. It’s putting together ideas. I truly believe there’s nothing really new in the world.</p> <p><strong>Victoria’s Secret, you know, is not trashy. How do you keep it that way? What is the guiding principle in the marketing?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: In Victoria, the question you ask is really a hard one to express, because most people say, “This is sexy and appropriate, and <em>this</em> is just skank, trash, vulgar, really terrible.” But where’s that line? Because what’s sexy to some person might be trashy to somebody else, whether it’s words or let alone lingerie.</p> <p>So the question is how do you gauge that? What we try to do is watch movies, watch language, watch TV, and see what’s in and out. So we’ll get all crazy about watching the Academy Awards and say, “Boy, they’re showing a lot of cleavage. And this is on network TV! What does that mean to us?”</p> <p>When photographing — I’ve never been on a photo shoot, by the way, for Victoria — but I always ask the people that run it, “What are the supermodels saying? What do they wear? What’s sexy to them?” One example of a simple commercial success would be we would send samples of things that were either produced for the stores, or lingerie we have in the stores, regularly to supermodels and tell them thank you. It’s just a nice thing.</p> <p>We sent them some bralettes. And within a week, two or three of them were at Coachella and they wore the bralettes. So from the time we sent them the garments, within a week customers were coming in the store that had seen them on the Internet and were asking about the Coachella bra. There was no ad, but it was our supermodels wearing bralettes and showing up in public and women seeing them and then coming in the store— say with their phone — saying, “I want that bra.” And we say, “Okay. This must be a big thing.”</p> <p><strong>Do English women or European women wear anything different than American women?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: No. We know now — now we know because now we have stores all over the world. Women in the Mideast, women in Asia, women in Europe, women all over America buy about the same things at the same time. Really quite interesting.</p> <p><strong>You called your business The Limited and your yacht <em>Limitless</em>. Which word are you more like?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I think it’s “limited” in terms of doing a few things well. I think that’s fundamental. What are the core concepts of the business and can you stay within those cores? The limitless part is, “How big can it be?” You don’t want to do a lot of things. You just want to do a few things — hopefully — the best in the world. And then how much opportunity does that give you?</p> <p>So if we could be the best in the world with The Limited store that I opened in Columbus, Ohio, in that neighborhood, that was pretty good. And then if we could have the best store of its kind in Columbus, and then Dayton, and then in the Midwest, and in the country, and now you can have a lingerie store that’s the best in Columbus, but it also has global potential and global sales, that’s the limitless part.</p> <p><strong>Given that another businessman has made it to the White House, do you ever regret that you didn’t listen to John Glenn?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: No. I’d be terrible. I’m just not very good at being on a committee and being patient and I don’t have political skills. So if you ask me what I’m thinking, I’ll tell you, and you won’t get a political answer. I don’t know if that shows. My dad, he’d say, “You’d rather be right than President.” Maybe I was 14 years old the first time he said it, and I look back and said yeah, he was right. It’s like, “This is what I think, and if you ask me, I’ll tell you.” I’ll just tell you bluntly what I think.</p> <p><strong>If you were writing a story about yourself, how would you describe yourself? Are you stubborn?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: That’s a frequently asked question. I think I’m determined. And I think if you’re determined, you’re right. Your behavior is exactly the same when you’re stubborn, except then you’re wrong. And so, you know, there’s times when I’m wrong, and I’d say, “Well, you were the dark side of determined.” But I think determination, you know, it’s like have an idea, think about the idea, you know, the risks involved. What does it take to get from here to there? And then once you make the choice, you just keep going.</p> <p><strong>How did you teach your own children? They didn’t grow up with the same challenges you did and might have been less motivated to succeed.</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I think the question about determination, just so you know, I can explain it to you, but I can’t think it for you. I think in polite ways it was always for the kids. It pays to have a good education, but I can’t make you study. I can lock you in your room. I can tell you it’s important, but this is really important because how the things that you know, and whether it affects the kinds of grades you get in junior high school, high school, college, and your career, this is something that you’re going to make yourself.</p> <p>You have to process this. You have to be proud of yourself and you have to achieve. And the discussion with the kids was that it’s the risk of leadership — personal risk — because if you say you’re going to get A’s and you don’t get A’s, you’re going to be disappointed. It’s much easier to go to school and say, “I’ll just try hard and I’ll get what I get. “ So, and everybody might not be an all-A student. Not everybody is going to be a great athlete. Not everybody is going to be a great dancer or whatever. But what are the things that you’re going to do? You have to take the risks, and this was prepping that began probably when they were in third or fourth grade.</p> <p>The risk of failure is a very personal thing. One of the quotes I like, I think this came from the famous basketball coach from California — John Wooden — is that, “Successful people — winners — do everything necessary to prepare to win, without the certainty of winning.” Everybody would do everything necessary to prepare to win if winning was a certainty. So you’re willing to put yourself out publicly and privately and say, “I’m going to do this.”</p> <p>Some of the things only you know that you didn’t. There are some things you set out to do that only you know you did, and some things your family, your friends, your community may know. But how you think about that, doing everything necessary to prepare to win, just have the chance, and then how do you think about it. And I think we tried hard with our children to say you really got to process this. This isn’t a silver platter situation.</p> <p><strong>You’re the richest man in Ohio, but you’ve said that it’s really not about having money. It’s more about <em>not</em> having it. Does it get your competitive juices going if somebody’s coming up to overtake you?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Oh, sure. The short answer would be, “Yes, but if somebody was more philanthropic or somebody was a better leader or somebody did more to help their community, I’d be challenged.” Because virtually everything I do, I like to be the best parent of somebody, I’d like to be the best husband. What’s really important isn’t that. Does it get your competitive juices going? Yeah, it does. But that isn’t something that would get me out of bed any morning and say, “Boy, I’ve slipped to number two. I’ve got to work at this.” You can’t help but notice the score, but that never motivated me to say, “One day I will be…” It’s more like, “One day I’ll be the best I can be, but I don’t know what that is.”</p> <p><strong>Your father was so key in your life. Did he have any parting words for you?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I think the key thing my dad said to me, he said, “You have more ability than I thought you had, and your ability is going to grow and you’ll develop in ways that are unimaginable to you and to me. Be patient with yourself. Just be aware of that.”</p> <p><strong>There’s a statistic that perhaps 80 percent of women don’t wear the right bra size. How did you know that?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I didn’t. I don’t even know if that’s true!</p> <p><strong>Half the people going into your store want to get measured because they may have shifted size and want something that fits. That helps your stores, doesn’t it?</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: Yes. But people that buy jeans want them to fit, and you want your shoes to fit. Obviously, how you want your figure to look and how it changes and what you want your silhouette to be is a pretty personal thing, and there’s a lot of ego involved. So it’s always as perfect as possible, and if it’s good, you’d like it to be better. Everybody would like to be more beautiful, or blonder, or richer, all those kinds of things. It’s kind of a nice thing.</p> <p><strong>When people see that you’ve created this billion-dollar empire, that you basically cornered the market on lingerie in the world, are there any funny things that other guys say to you? I think a lot of guys want your job.</strong></p> <p>Leslie Wexner: I don’t know. I think a lot of people would assume that it’s more about supermodels and naked ladies and all that, and no, it’s just really about fashion, merchandise and customers. So the obviously sexy parts — you get to go to the fashion show and all that stuff. It’s really just business. That’s my story. I’m sticking to it.</p> <p><strong>Fantastic. Thank you for talking with us.</strong></p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Leslie H. Wexner Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>18 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.49342105263158" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/1985-press-photo-the-limited-store-at-great-northern-mall-95ea8f41f793e3fc.jpg" data-image-caption="1985: Press photo of The Limited store at Great Northern Mall in North Olmsted, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland." data-image-copyright="1985-press-photo-the-limited-store-at-great-northern-mall-95ea8f41f793e3fc" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/1985-press-photo-the-limited-store-at-great-northern-mall-95ea8f41f793e3fc-380x187.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/1985-press-photo-the-limited-store-at-great-northern-mall-95ea8f41f793e3fc-760x375.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5800415800416" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/nrm_1409087196-09957_1986-01-vsc-jansale-1-1-x-h_122_909lo.jpg" data-image-caption="Victoria's Secret's iconic catalogue." data-image-copyright="Victorias-secret-catalog-1980s" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/nrm_1409087196-09957_1986-01-vsc-jansale-1-1-x-h_122_909lo-241x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/nrm_1409087196-09957_1986-01-vsc-jansale-1-1-x-h_122_909lo-481x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.85263157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-672458524_master.jpg" data-image-caption="April 19, 2017: Victoria's Secret store at the main waiting area in Terminal 1 of Humberto Delgado Airport in Lisbon, Portugal. L Brands operates more than 3,000 company-owned specialty stores in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Greater China, and its brands are sold in more than 700 franchised locations worldwide. (Photo by Horacio Villalobos - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Humberto Delgado Airport" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-672458524_master-380x324.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-672458524_master-760x648.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-wexner-blackbgd.jpg" data-image-caption="Les Wexner (Ricky Rhodes)" data-image-copyright="“What I have thought about, and continue to think about, is that we are specialty merchants and our primary skill is knowing about women.”" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-wexner-blackbgd-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-wexner-blackbgd-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-681638744.jpg" data-image-caption="May 10, 2017: Victoria's Secret's Angels Stella Maxwell (L) and Josephine Skriver attend a celebration of Victoria's Secret's Bombshell fragrance at Victoria's Secret on Fifth Avenue in New York City. (Photo by Michael Stewart/FilmMagic)" data-image-copyright="Victoria's Secret Angels Josephine Skriver & Stella Maxwell Celebrate Bombshell Fragrance" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-681638744-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-681638744-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-627869510_master.jpg" data-image-caption="November 30, 2016: (L-R) Adriana Lima, Elsa Hosk, Alessandra Ambrosio, Taylor Hill, Martha Hunt, Sara Sampaio and Lais Ribeiro walk the runway during the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in Paris, France. (Photo by Kristy Sparow/WireImage)" data-image-copyright="2016 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in Paris - Show" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-627869510_master-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-627869510_master-760x506.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.496062992126" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Leslie_Wexner_receives_woodrow_wilson_award.jpg" data-image-caption="2008: Leslie Wexner speaking at the Woodrow Wilson Award ceremony." data-image-copyright="2008: Leslie Wexner speaking at the Woodrow Wilson Award ceremony." data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Leslie_Wexner_receives_woodrow_wilson_award-254x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Leslie_Wexner_receives_woodrow_wilson_award-508x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/2016-gettyimages-538742650.jpg" data-image-caption="June 7, 2016: Elizabeth Musamanno, Les Wexner, and Stella Maxwell pose at the 2016 Fragrance Foundation Awards presented by Hearst Magazines in New York City. (Photo by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for Fragrance Foundation)" data-image-copyright="2016 Fragrance Foundation Awards Presented by Hearst Magazines" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/2016-gettyimages-538742650-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/2016-gettyimages-538742650-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65526315789474" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-wexner-center.jpg" data-image-caption="The Wexner Center for the Arts is Ohio State University’s multidisciplinary, international laboratory for the exploration and advancement of contemporary art. Through exhibitions, screenings, performances, artist residencies, and educational programs, the Wexner Center acts as a forum where established and emerging artists can test ideas, and where diverse audiences can participate in cultural experiences that enhance understanding of the art of our time. In its programs, the Wexner Center balances a commitment to experimentation with a commitment to traditions of innovation, and affirms the University’s mission of education, research, and community service. The Wexner Center opened in November 1989, named in honor of the father of Limited Brands founder Leslie Wexner, who was a major donor to the Center. The Wexner Center is a lab and public gallery, but not a museum, as it does not collect art. However, when the Center was constructed, it replaced the University Gallery of Fine Arts, and assumed possession and stewardship of the University Gallery's permanent collection of roughly 3,000 artworks. The collection serves a secondary role in the Center's programs in the visual, media and performing arts. While it is made available to University students and scholars for study, and occasionally drawn upon for exhibitions at the Center or elsewhere, it is largely dormant." data-image-copyright="wp-wexner-center" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-wexner-center-380x249.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-wexner-center-760x498.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wexner-medical-center-ohio-state-university.jpg" data-image-caption="The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, located in Columbus, Ohio, was completed in 2014." data-image-copyright="wexner medical center ohio state university" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wexner-medical-center-ohio-state-university-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wexner-medical-center-ohio-state-university-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66842105263158" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-121196442_master.jpg" data-image-caption="July 12, 2011: Leslie Wexner, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Ltd Brands Inc., left, stands for a photograph with his wife, Abigail Wexner, and son Harry Wexner during the Royal Shakespeare Company performance of <i>Romeo and Julie</i>t at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. The Royal Shakespeare Company produces the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, as well as new work from living artists, and develops creative links with theatre-makers from around the world. (Photographer: Amanda Gordon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Royal Shakespeare Company Performance At The Armory" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-121196442_master-380x254.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-121196442_master-760x508.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.70789473684211" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-2014-WexnerExhibit2.jpg" data-image-caption="September 19, 2014: Retail mogul Leslie Wexner, left, and his wife, Abigail, tour the "Transfigurations" exhibit at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio. The "Transfigurations" exhibit, from the Wexners' private collection, marks the 25th anniversary of the Wexner Center for the Arts. The curator is Robert Storr, a former senior curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, who is now dean of the Yale University School of Art. After acquiring works of mid-20th century New York abstract expressionists, particularly Franz Kline, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning, Wexner gravitated toward the many periods of Pablo Picasso, the cubist and surrealist sculptor Alberto Giacometti and the often-childlike abstractions of Jean Dubuffet. A dancer of Edgar Degas and several Susan Rothenbergs are also among works on display. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)" data-image-copyright="Leslie Wexner, Abigail Wexner" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-2014-WexnerExhibit2-380x269.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-2014-WexnerExhibit2-760x538.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66973684210526" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-2014-wexner-walkthrough3.jpg" data-image-caption="September 19, 2014: Les and Abigail Wexner walk through the Wexner Center looking at the "Transfigurations" exhibit, selected from their personal art collection. (Dispatch photo by Eric Albrecht)" data-image-copyright="wp-2014-wexner-walkthrough3" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-2014-wexner-walkthrough3-380x254.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-2014-wexner-walkthrough3-760x509.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.67894736842105" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-2014-wexner-walkthrough6-2014.jpg" data-image-caption="September 19, 2014: Les Wexner walks by a graphic of the artist Giacometti at the Wexner Center while looking at the "Transfigurations" exhibit, selected from his personal art collection. (Dispatch photo by Eric Albrecht)" data-image-copyright="wp-2014-wexner-walkthrough6-2014" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-2014-wexner-walkthrough6-2014-380x258.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-2014-wexner-walkthrough6-2014-760x516.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.71447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-2014-wexner-walkthrough13.jpg" data-image-caption="September 19, 2014: Les and Abigail Wexner walk through the Wexner Center looking at the "Transfigurations" exhibit, selected from their personal art collection. In the foreground is a sculpture by Giacometti, and in the background is a painting by Rothenberg. (Dispatch photo by Eric Albrecht)" data-image-copyright="wp-2014-wexner-walkthrough13" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-2014-wexner-walkthrough13-380x271.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-2014-wexner-walkthrough13-760x543.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-AP_110216083854.jpg" data-image-caption="February 16, 2011: Limited Brands Inc. Chief Executive Leslie H. Wexner, left, and Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee talk before an audience at the Ohio Union in Columbus, Ohio. During the talk, the two discussed the $100 million gift to Ohio State from the Limited Brands Foundation, and Wexner and his experiences at the university. (AP Photo/The Columbus Dispatch, Fred Squillante)" data-image-copyright="Les Wexner, E. Gordon Gee" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-AP_110216083854-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-AP_110216083854-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3644524236984" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-582956648_master.jpg" data-image-caption="Les Wexner, circa 2014. (Photo by Stephen Webster/Forbes Collection/Corbis via Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Les Wexner" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-582956648_master-279x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wp-GettyImages-582956648_master-557x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Limitless-yacht.jpg" data-image-caption="Limitless is one of the world's largest private superyachts. She was built in 1997 by German shipmaker Lürssen. The overall length is 96,25 m (315 ft 8 in), the width 12,50 m (41 ft). She is powered by two engines of 5420 kW each, reaching a speed of 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph), and was the first yacht to feature a combination of diesel and diesel-electric propulsion." data-image-copyright="Limitless-yacht" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Limitless-yacht-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Limitless-yacht-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-twitter" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Twitter"><i class="icon-icon_twitter-circle"></i></a></li>  <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-email" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever via Email"><i class="icon-icon_email-circle"></i></a></li> </ul> <time class="editorial-article__last-updated sans-6">This page last revised on July 30, 2018</time> <div class="sans-4"><a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/how-to-cite" target="_blank">How to cite this page</a></div> </footer> </div> <div class="container interview-related-achievers"> <hr class="m-t-3 m-b-3"/> <footer class="clearfix small-blocks text-xs-center"> <h3 class="m-b-3 serif-3">If you are inspired by this achiever’s story, you might also enjoy:</h3> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever business build-or-create-things curious resourceful start-a-business " data-year-inducted="2001" data-achiever-name="Bezos"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jeffrey-p-bezos/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/bez0-007a-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/bez0-007a-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Jeffrey P. 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Carter Brown</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/linda-buck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linda Buck, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carol-burnett/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol Burnett</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-h-w-bush/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George H. W. Bush</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/susan-butcher/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Susan Butcher</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-cameron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Cameron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/benjamin-s-carson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Benjamin S. Carson, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-carter/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Carter</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/johnny-cash/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Cash</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/william-j-clinton/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William J. Clinton</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/francis-s-collins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/denton-a-cooley/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Denton A. Cooley, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/francis-ford-coppola/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis Ford Coppola</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ray-dalio/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Dalio</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/olivia-de-havilland/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Olivia de Havilland</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/michael-e-debakey-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael E. DeBakey, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/michael-dell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael S. Dell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ron-dennis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Dennis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/joan-didion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joan Didion</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-herbert-donald-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Herbert Donald, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-doubilet/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Doubilet</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/rita-dove/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rita Dove</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sylvia-earle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sylvia Earle, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/elbaradei/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mohamed ElBaradei</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/gertrude-elion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gertrude B. Elion, M.Sc.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-j-ellison/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry J. Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-ghosn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Ghosn</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/itzhak-perlman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Itzhak Perlman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/venki-ramakrishnan-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Venki Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lord-martin-rees/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Martin Rees</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony Romero</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-rosenquist/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Rosenquist</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pete-rozelle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pete Rozelle</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/bill-russell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bill Russell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/albie-sachs/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Albie Sachs</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jonas Salk, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-b-schaller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George B. Schaller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. 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Smith</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Sondheim</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sonia-sotomayor/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonia Sotomayor</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wole-soyinka/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wole Soyinka</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/esperanza-spalding/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Esperanza Spalding</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/martha-stewart/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martha Stewart</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral James B. Stockdale, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/hilary-swank/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hilary Swank</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/amy-tan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Amy Tan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dame-kiri-te-kanawa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Kiri Te Kanawa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-teller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Teller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/twyla-tharp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Twyla Tharp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wayne-thiebaud/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wayne Thiebaud</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181020025305/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lt-michael-e-thornton-usn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. 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