Katrina Lake is the founder and chief executive officer of Stitch Fix, an online personal-shopping service, and one of the few female unicorns in tech today.
Born in 1982, she studied economics and pre-med at Stanford University. After graduation, she worked at management consultancy The Parthenon Group before joining private investment firm Leader Ventures. She then earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.
From the beginning, she has shown strong determination and a clear idea of where she wanted to achieve professionally. “My goal was to have a company off the ground by the time I graduated. But the worst-case scenario was I would have an MBA and a lot of opportunities ahead of me,” she once explained.
And she succeeded: Lake started Stitch Fix out of her Cambridge, Massachusetts apartment in 2011 while completing her MBA. Stitch Fix uses algorithms, data, and personal styling expertise to customize clothing and accessories based on individual size, budget, and style. Customers receive a box of handpicked items every month to try on and they decide what to keep.
She went on to push her success even further by taking the company public. In 2017, at age 34, she became the then-youngest female founder ever to lead an IPO out of the thousands of publicly traded companies to do so.
During her tenure as CEO, she has proven her commitment to a quality work culture by pushing for parental leave and pay equity. More recently, she led the business through the changing consumer preferences of quarantine and pandemic. In 2020, the company’s net revenue increased to $1.7 billion with close to 4 million clients and 8,000 employees.
This year, Lake is finally stepping down from her position but will remain as executive chairperson to focus on the company’s social impact efforts, specifically the intersection between sustainability and technology in apparel retail.
“I have always embraced the idea that every year my role has changed,” she said. “This succession has been in the works for some time, and while change can be hard, I also believe in its transformational power.”
In any estimation, Katrina Lake is one of few female founders who have followed their professional passion and ethical calling and has been successful every step of the way.