Female Founders: Kristina Thaden, of ‘Thaden’ On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
You are going to lose money: be prepared to make mistakes, including financial ones. This cannot be avoided, do not condemn yourself for it, but learn as much and as quickly as possible from it.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kristina Thaden.
Kristina Thaden is the founder and creative director of the Swiss Luxury handbag label Thaden. Entrepreneur in life and artist at heart, she divided her career between C-level roles and her creative pursuits in the arts, including acting, singing and ballet dancing.
As a keen observer of nature, architecture, and everything around her, Kristina had the vision to design an object like no other: a bag that would inspire awe as a work of art, a wearable sculpture that adds a new meaning to the word “luxury” and elevates sophistication to a new level.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
My life path combines art and business in a beautiful and efficient way. Already at the age of 6 it was clear to me that I needed to express my creativity and that I belonged to the stage.
I started to write plays in primary school, and as I grew I played leading roles, wrote poems, and performed ballet. But most of all I loved to sing and at the age of 14, I got the lead role in one of the first radio sitcoms in Germany. Later, I completed musical education, studying acting and speaking, to then founding and directing with great joy my own political theatre ensemble.
In order to finance my temporarily unprofitable passion, I took a job in a market research company, rose to team leader and offered trainings to business leaders who needed to increase and optimise their performance. This eventually led me to the path of business, while nurturing my artistic activity. At that time, I perfected my skills in project management and did further trainings in organisational development, coaching and HR –particularly for executives. I also worked as a business developer, HR manager and in my latest position I was appointed deputy managing director in a medium-sized construction company in Switzerland. During this time, I continued working on my creations and on my design ideas.
The pandemic gave me the impetus to start the Thaden project, as I was longing for more creativity, more freedom, more artistic expression in my life again. And this is how I started this wonderful journey.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that has happened to you since you started running your company?
It was in 2021 when I was in Paris for the autumn Fashion Week. I was wearing for the first time one of my prototype signature bags: “The WHOLE”. I was so excited to carry my very own creation out in the city and see how it made me feel. What happened a few hours later still leaves me speechless. While walking in the luxury department store “La Samaritaine” I was stopped around 22 times by random people complimenting my bag and asking which brand was it from. Some even requested to take a picture of the bag. I was so surprised and humbled that I did not even say that I was actually the creative designer of it. This went on everywhere I went. That day I realised that the Thaden bag radiates a magical aura that can stop the crowd and capture their attention.
Can you tell us a story about the funniest mistake you made in your early days? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from it?
I am a very self-driven and pragmatic person, particularly in conversations I tend to be direct and goal-oriented. With time and experience I learned the importance of nurturing personal rapport in business. A genuine, informal rapport leads to a better connection with your business co-workers, ultimately resulting in achieved success. The more you get to know each other, the easier to achieve results together. When there is mutual trust, even the impossible becomes possible.
None of us are able to succeed without someone helping us to do so. Is there a particular person you are grateful to because they helped you get to where you are now? Can you share a story about that?
My husband in an inspiration to me, who believed in my idea since the start and always supported me throughout the journey of my entrepreneurship, with its ups and downs.
It all started with a drink in a bar in Palm Springs on a trip a few years ago. The moon was shining round and big. That’s when I first told him about my idea for the Little Rocket bag, inspired by the moon and the female curves — the first bag I had in mind. He was immediately open to the idea, gave it space and pushed me to think about it further.
Being an entrepreneur himself, he possesses a strong business sense. And what I continuously learn and adapt from him is his strong solution-oriented attitude when it comes to changing plans or solving issues.
He has weathered raging storms in his professional life, from the death threats he received while setting up his manufacturing plant in Northern Macedonia up to fundamental business decisions that changed his life perspective. He is also the main investor of Thaden, an important step that was taken after a thorough assessment and scrutiny of the vision I had in mind. I am incredibly grateful to him for his continuous support and professional advice.
Okay, thank you very much for that. Let’s move on to the main topic of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This is a great historical progress, but it also shows that more needs to be done to give women the opportunity to start businesses. In your opinion and experience, what currently prevents women from starting businesses?
This topic is dear to me because prior becoming the founder of my own label, Thaden, I covered an executive position in a Swiss construction company which, as expected, is a men dominated industry.
In my experience there are some behavioural norms that are so deeply rooted in a woman social behaviour that are hard to break and somehow reinforce a stigma about female entrepreneurship. Think about the use of the language, for instance. Women tend to have a softer approach in conversations and in corporate meetings. You would hear them using more words like “maybe”, “would”, “could” and get to the point less quickly, rather than clearly stating their position and stand up for their ideas and their end goal. This is not to be taken as a criticism, instead I believe this is an aspect of the feminine nature that make us incredibly successful in mediating and negotiating, but it could lead to a vicious circle in which women are seen as comparatively less authoritative than men.
During my corporate career I worked with many talented people, both men and women. Women have the great ability to work together and support each other, leaving out forms of unpleasant personal competition that often characterizes the male sphere.
It is for this reason that in my corporate career I have trained and coached female C-level for many years and I have always encouraged female leadership in my teams. Even today, my company consists mainly of women.
I firmly believe that if we had more women at C-level position and more role-models to look at over time, doors would open more easily to the next generations of young women.
Can you name a few things we can do as individuals, as a society or as a government to overcome these obstacles?
I have concrete ideas thanks to my management background. First of all, there should only be mixed-gender teams in corporate offices as they guarantee a balanced environment where ideas can thrive and communication is diversified. Secondly, more opportunities to combine family and work should be guaranteed to both men and women, particularly rethinking the social role of the woman not strictly limited to motherhood, but also as a professional with a career and ambitions. In this regard the governmental regulations are crucial to support the role of those fathers who choose their family over their career, leaving their partners the possibility to advance professionally without the guilt that society somehow instills in women.
Lastly, there should be clear laws (not quotas) for appointments at management level. In my opinion, only certain guidelines can establish a lasting change in thinking.
This may be intuitive for you as a female founder, but I think it would be helpful to elaborate. Can you give a few reasons why more women should start up?
I think women are marathon runners. We are good at pushing through things, even if it is exhausting or uncomfortable. This is inherent to our nature. We are tough, maybe not as loud or as openly self-confident, but when we start up, we do so with enormous drive and potential that is worth investing in. Because by the time women dive in a new project, they have often thought through and doubted their idea so many times, that in the end it makes sense.
What “myths” about being a founder would you like to dispel? Can you explain what you mean?
Being a founder involves a lot of “sitting at a desk” and a lot more management than creativity, particularly in the first years when you are setting up the foundations of your company.
The myth of the glorified designer who draft ideas on paper all day to then magically see them happen is unfortunately a fairy tale. The reality is very different: so many doors are closed, hundreds of emails go unanswered. You must be be able to endure that, or at least learn how to do it. But believing in your success and your product is no myth, it is an absolute necessity.
Is everyone suited to being a founder? What specific characteristics do you think increase the likelihood of becoming a successful founder and which people should perhaps look for a “normal job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
In my opinion, a founder is someone who approaches any matter in a solution-oriented way There are so many hurdles, obstacles and challenges along the way, that if you are problem-oriented, you are at risk of stagnating. Moreover, you should be able to crawl out of every low moments at a certain point. Lows and doubts are normal, but the important is that you are capable to pull yourself up again and seek support in your network. In this regard, it is crucial to have a support system that can help in times of need, both in business and in life.
Okay, great. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 things I wish someone had told me before I started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each).
You are going to lose money: be prepared to make mistakes, including financial ones. This cannot be avoided, do not condemn yourself for it, but learn as much and as quickly as possible from it.
You will cry: don’t expect a smooth road to success. It will be much harder and tougher than you thought and you will think of giving up a few times. But you will never do it.
You will work non-stop: try to build your routines as soon as possible so that you can make the marathon, otherwise you will completely burn yourself out as a founder and you won’t be able to perform at full capacity in the long run.
You need a network: invest time in good, helpful relationships. Ask for support.
You need to ask questions: ask, always ask. Any question that will help you understand your product or collection better. Ask, and never feel stupid about it.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
Every single person, every day can make the world a better place. For me, this starts with kindness. I like the saying: “You don’t know what the other person is going through, so be kind” For me, that’s true. Because even if we think we are different, at one point or another we all went through similar feelings like pain, loneliness, fear and sadness.
So, my motto is: “Be kind, don’t be arrogant. Listen. Believe you are great, but not better”. Thaden carries some of these values. We are a luxury brand with outstanding craftsmanship, but we stand for friendliness, closeness and genuineness.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring good to as many people as possible, what would it be? You never know what you can trigger with your idea.
There would be a lot to say here, but I want to keep it simple and concrete. It’s the little things in life that can cause a big ripple. The One Day idea: one day a month, be consciously kind to everyone, no matter how unkind they are to you. One day a month, be non-judgmental about others. One day a month, take care of another person. One day a month, be free from any self-criticism (the hardest task at times).These small actions can have a great impact on everyone’s existence and change the course of our lives.
We are very fortunate to have some very prominent names in business, VC funding, sports and entertainment reading this column. Is there a person in the world or in the US that you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with one day, and why? Maybe he or she will see this if we tag him or her.
Let me name a few, the idea that they might see is great:
Valter D. Longo — to talk about his latest findings on fasting.
Marina Abramovic — to experience her incredible intensity once and explore her performances.
Andrew D. Huberman — to talk about pretty much anything related to neuroscience.
Selena Gomez — to talk about social media and body positivity.
Teodor Currentzis — to talk about being a conductor and his music performances and interpretations
Juliette Binoche — I love her way of acting.
Thaden can be followed on Instagram @thadenofficial
Female Founders: Kristina Thaden, of ‘Thaden’ On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.