m, intently focused on her audience. Her sharp vision and executive confidence shade her soft, youthful look and beaming smile. A career built on values Few CEOs embody the cross-section of brand heritage and retail reinvention as clearly as Gass does. Her career spans three of America’s most recognizable retail companies – Starbucks, Kohl’s, and now Levi Strauss & Co. Yet there’s a common thread. “It’s important for me to work for and with organizations that are values-based,” Gass told Inside Retail. “They are all consumer-focused companies, in different ways, but the consumer is always at the center.”  Gass’s own professional journey began at Procter & Gamble, where she learned the rigor of brand management and consumer insights. But it was at Starbucks, where she spent nearly 17 years, that she made her mark, leading the launch of some of the brand’s most famous beverages, like the Frappuccino and the Pumpkin Spice Latte. Drawing from her experience during Starbucks’ growth period from the mid-1990s to 2013, she shared that her key principles are to maintain that entrepreneurial spirit and the brand’s core identity while continuously evolving. “Being consumer-focused means you’re serving the needs of the consumer today, but you also need to serve the needs of the consumer tomorrow. And as a brand, as a company, you have to lead them there,” she said. “All of those innovations came from both a consumer obsession and the ability to think differently and step outside the box.” That entrepreneurial spirit became central to her next chapter at Kohl’s, the $15 billion US department store chain she led for nearly a decade. During her early years there, Gass served as chief customer officer and chief merchandising officer before assuming the CEO role for her final five years with the company. Operating in an industry under pressure, especially with pandemic-era disruptions, activist pressure and changing consumer behavior, she focused on finding ways to stand out and give customers compelling reasons to choose Kohl’s. Her strategy centered on several major initiatives, particularly developing Kohl’s digital presence. She transformed the company’s e-commerce operations from minimal revenue to $6 billion by her departure. “Probably the boldest move we made during my time at Kohl’s was bringing Sephora into the concept. That was a fantastic partnership to forge. They now have a Sephora in every Kohl’s, and it’s been a successful venture for them,” she shared. But perhaps the most critical lesson came not from strategy, but from execution. “The last piece about Kohl’s that leads me to this chapter is that during that decade, I really learned what it means to be a retailer. Starbucks is a retailer, but of a different type. At Kohl’s, I learned hardcore apparel retail. The combination of those two experiences leads me to Levi’s, which is a global icon with so much opportunity,” she continued. Unconventional transition Gass’s transition into the role was unusually deliberate by corporate standards. In late 2022, Chip Bergh personally recruited Gass, then CEO of Kohl’s, as his successor as CEO of Levi’s. She joined Levi’s as president in early 2023, spending more than a year working alongside him. “I was running the commercial operations and the Levi’s brand. But it’s rare to have that kind of opportunity, to say: “We’re going to have this partnership for 13 months so that once Bergh retires, I’m ready to go,” she said. “I spent a year learning the business, learning the brand and, most importantly, learning the people and the culture. That allowed me to craft the agenda for this next chapter.” Gass entered that legacy with both respect and resolve. “I was walking into a brand and a business that was already successful. It’s very different walking into something successful versus something that needs a turnaround. This was not a turnaround. This was a healthy business. Yet what the board and Bergh wanted in the next CEO was someone who was a retailer, who could bring new capabilities,” Gass explained. For Gass, after spending years leading two of America’s most consumer-centric companies, the move to Levi’s was both a homecoming and a challenge. When Gass arrived at the San Francisco office in early 2023, Levi’s had regained its cultural footing, yet the global retail landscape was shifting fast. Consumer behavior post-pandemic had fragmented, costs were rising, and global retail felt the ripple effects of economic and geopolitical uncertainty. The evolution blueprint From her first days in the CEO seat, Gass has focused on three interconnected pivots: premiumization, category expansion and channel shift. Premiumization “When I think about what’s going to fuel our growth from where we are today to $10 billion, it’s going to be outperformance in women’s, outperformance in our lifestyle categories, DTC accelerating at a faster pace from a channel perspective, and then international. That’s a big opportunity. Those, in a nutshell, are going to be really instrumental in helping us achieve our long-term goals,” Gass said. One of her biggest strategic choices was the sale of Dockers. “That brand had been part of our portfolio since the ’80s. We created it at the time to serve a very specific purpose – to create this whole khaki lifestyle orientation. If Levi’s is about jeans, Dockers is about khakis and casual workdays, servicing that key consumer need,” she said.  “Over time, the world has gotten even more casual. People are wearing jeans to work, and Levi’s can play in that space. Now, 35 per cent of our business is non-denim bottoms as it relates to Levi’s.” Gass added the company is on the journey shifting the culture to operate like a retailer. “For me, the first year was about focus, making big decisions, and editing. You can see those principles play out across all aspects of the business,” Gass said.  The most talked-about design initiative under Gass is Blue Tab, Levi’s premium denim and lifestyle capsule, launched in Tokyo early this year. Blue Tab is described on the Levi’s site as “the most elevated and sophisticated expression of denim leadership to date”. This premium push is a deliberate halo strategy. By positioning Blue Tab in select high-potential markets and stores, Levi’s aims to lift brand perception and justify premium pricing elsewhere. Still, Gass knows the balancing act: Premium lines must not cannibalize or alienate core offerings. “I think this is where art and science come together. The science tells you the specifics – sell-through, what’s resonating – but the art is the vision of a merchant, the vision of a retailer,” Gass said. “What’s important when you think about the premium end of the line is that it has a significant halo effect on everything you do. It really boils down to assortment architecture. If we’re talking Blue Tab, where are the right places for it to show up? We talk about our Tier 2 stores, which are largely our mainline stores. Which stores should get it? Not all stores will get Blue Tab. “The more specific we can be in our assortment at a store level, that’s where science helps us drive where and how Blue Tab shows up. You’d expect to see it in our Tier 2 mainline stores, and then our Tier 3 product, which is also extremely high quality, but you’ll find it in many of our wholesale channels, in our outlets, in some online retailers,” she continued. “They all work together as we think about which consumer we’re serving. But what is constant is the quality, the durability, and all the values of the brand that you can expect wherever you find Levi’s.” Womenswear push Then, the women’s business became her next big push. Historically underweighted at Levi’s, it now represents one of the company’s fastest-growing categories. “It means winning with women. We’ve made great strides over the last couple of years, implementing strategies that support this head-to-toe denim lifestyle while maintaining our leadership in bottoms and completing the wardrobe.” To Gass, it always starts with denim: denim skirts, denim tops, denim Westerns or truckers. “But then you can expand from there, as long as it goes through the lens of the Levi’s brand,” she said. In stores, that expansion is being expressed physically. Levi’s has begun testing new store flows that prioritize women’s collections at the entrance. “We realized men often come in on a mission for their 501s,” Gass says. “Women are still discovering us. So we want to make that discovery immediate and visible from the moment they walk in.” Womenswear makes up 38 to 39 per cent of the company’s product assortment and is expected to grow to 50 per cent in the near future. DTC At its core is a shift toward a direct-to-consumer (DTC) first model, designed to put Levi’s in closer contact with its audience while sharpening control over brand experience and pricing. Over the past year, Levi’s has quietly restructured its operations to prioritise its own stores, e-commerce platforms and data capabilities. “It’s never going to be 100 per cent globally directed, but we’ve shifted dramatically. When I started, less than 10 per cent was globally common. Now it’s approaching 50 per cent. There’s a lot of good that comes from that.” In Q2 2025, DTC comparable sales growth hit double digits globally, marking the 13th consecutive quarter of DTC strength. “When we talk about the DTC mindset, it’s also thinking like a merchant. It’s being obsessed with the fan experience, while always being the unequivocal leader in denim and maintaining that brand relevance at the centre of culture,” she continued. Gass said the wholesale business is still important, but the greatest growth will come from DTC: new stores, growing the existing store base and accelerating e-commerce. “We’re seeing success across all three,” she said. Business progress Under Gass’s leadership, Levi Strauss & Co has demonstrated consistent financial traction across recent quarters. For the full fiscal year 24, Levi’s posted net revenues of $6.4 billion, up roughly 3 per cent from the previous year. Adjusted EBIT margin expanded to 10.2 per cent from 9 per cent and the company generated $671 million in free cash flow and returned $289 million to shareholders. Momentum continued into fiscal 2025. In the first quarter, Levi’s delivered a 3 per cent increase in reported net revenues. The DTC segment grew organically by 12 per cent globally, while the broader Levi’s brand advanced 8 per cent. By the third quarter, Levi’s was continuing to build on this momentum, reporting net revenues up about 7 per cent, both reported and organic, compared with the same period a year earlier. “There’s a direct correlation between the areas we’re focused on and what’s driving the business. As you might recall, that’s largely our big pivot to become a true best-in-class retailer, DTC-first, and evolve from being a denim bottom or jeans company to a head-to-toe denim lifestyle company,” Gass said. What she heard reinforced a truth she already knew from Starbucks: Culture is strategy. “Levi’s had an incredibly special culture before I arrived, and my responsibility is to continue to maintain and grow that,” Gass said. “I want to be the kind of leader who is accessible, who listens, and who people know is here to serve them, not the other way around. “Servant leadership, as they call it. Those values were instilled in me many years ago, especially during my early days at Starbucks, and they’ve stuck with me. My values and leadership approach are very aligned with the culture of Levi’s, which is rooted in authenticity and creating an environment that embraces diversity, where people feel like they can be their truest, most authentic selves and do their best work.” Levi’s has long considered Asia a growth engine, but for Gass, who officially took the helm in January after a year-long transition, the region will be a living laboratory for how a 172-year-old American icon can evolve in real time. “There’s tremendous opportunity here in Asia, and it feels like we’re just getting started,” Gass said. The retail scientist Gass’s management style is hands-on, often tending towards experimentation. A trained engineer, she frames her leadership in the language of testing and iteration. “I’m a big believer in experiments and experimentation,” Gass said. “I’m an engineer by undergrad, so I have a bit of a scientist mind, an engineering mind. The great thing about being in retail is you can run an experiment literally every single day in a store.” She refers to a metaphor she calls the “microscope-telescope”. “In retail, you have to be under the microscope every day. I want to see yesterday’s sales results across all our stores globally. You need the capability and systems for that kind of reporting. We have them now. In e-commerce, you can look at sales hourly and make decisions based on that information every day. That’s critical. Or when I’m in a store, I do this, too: “Wait, the way the product is showing up here doesn’t feel like it’s outfitting or wardrobing in the right way. Let’s change it up or move fixtures around.” That’s the day-to-day microscope view,” she shares.  “In the microscope, we should try lots of different things. Within that, we’ll get some big wins. What I’m excited about is a bold move we’re making right now – this shorter go-to-market. It’s pushing the team to be more decisive about product lines because we have a shorter timeline. That’s going to make us better. It’s going to make us more decisive, and the most important things are going to be closer to the consumer.” Gass’s first year inside Levi’s headquarters in San Francisco was spent not just in meetings, but centered on being physically present across all aspects of the business: retail stores, distribution centres, and regional offices. She shares that as a global company, the brand’s identity is expressed through its people and physical locations at every touchpoint. That’s a big part of my role as a leader,” she said. “When I come to a market, it’s so I can connect, listen, and hear the challenges people have. What can the team and I do to remove barriers? What ideas might get generated?” Gass emphasizes creating multiple channels for direct communication and maintaining a constant presence in the field. The executive holds an employee town hall dubbed ‘Ask Michelle Anything’ to facilitate dialogue. “It’s broadcast virtually, people ask questions in the chat, and I answer them completely unscripted. To me, that’s servant leadership. It’s about being the kind of leader where people feel like they have open access to ask anything or share what’s on their mind,” Gass said.It’s also in those moments that I reiterate the vision and strategy and share the proof points along the way. I also share where things aren’t going as planned and acknowledge that. We take those learnings, make changes, and share them with the teams. We also share when there might be some bumps, which is to be expected when you’re making bold moves. You’ll have expected bumps and unanticipated ones. It’s all about how the teams can come together and solve those problems.” Risk, tensions and opportunities map  Gass’s vision for Levi’s is ambitious: $10 billion in revenue and 15 per cent EBIT margins, deeply embedded premiumization and a fully realized lifestyle identity. But every horizon shift carries risk. Tariffs on Chinese imports and rising input costs could erode gains. Levi’s is aware: Its decision to limit slow-moving SKUs ahead of the holiday season is partly a defensive move against excess inventory risk. “We’ve rationalized those unproductive SKUs. We’ve reduced the total number of items we manage by about 20-25 per cent. We’re a very SKU-intensive business as you might imagine; with the number of fits, washes, and sizes, it can get complex quickly. For us to be faster, more efficient, and serve the consumer better, this has been a big move,” Gass said. Yet, the biggest challenge may be cultural: Modernizing a 172-year-old icon without losing its soul. “The most lasting impact will be that people see Levi’s not just as a jeans brand, but as an amazing apparel brand rooted in denim,” she shares. “It really is the coming together of this pivot from a jeans brand to a lifestyle DTC apparel company. When consumers think about us that way in five years, that will have been the most lasting impact of the work the team is doing right now. We’re making progress, and we’re going to look back and see that this chapter was defined in that way,” Gass said. The next chapter The tension at the heart of her role is unmistakable. On one hand, Levi’s is an iconic brand with deep roots; on the other, it must move fluidly, rewire systems, migrate into premium and always stay close to consumers. To her credit, the early financials and feedback suggest she’s getting traction. But the full test lies ahead: Can she maintain and lock down the momentum? A few years from now, consumers may browse Levi’s stores and think not just of great jeans but of a wardrobe ecosystem rooted in denim heritage yet powered by imagination. That vision, yet to be guaranteed, stands to be Gass’s own legacy. This story first appeared in the November 2025 issue of Inside Retail Asia magazine.