How I Got Here: Elk’s Co-Founder Marnie Goding on setting aside her ego
WORDS BY MAGGIE ZHOU
“We are grateful for the business we have and need to stay connected to the fact that our product is non-essential.”
Have you ever stalked someone on LinkedIn and wondered how on earth they managed to land that wildly impressive job? While the internet and social media might have us believe that our ideal job is a mere pipe dream, the individuals who have these jobs were, believe it or not, in the same position once, fantasising over someone else’s seemingly unattainable job.
But behind the awe-inspiring titles and the fancy work events lies a heck of a lot of hard work. So what lessons have been learnt and what skills have proved invaluable in getting them from daydreaming about success to actually being at the top of their industry?
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Welcome to How I Got Here, where we talk to women who are killing it in their respective fields about how they landed their awe-inspiring jobs, exploring the peaks and pits, the failures and the wins, and most importantly the knowledge, advice and practical tips they’ve gleaned along the way.
Today, we sit down with Marnie Goding, the Co-Founder and Brand Director of Elk. Established in 2004, the Melbourne label has become synonymous with structural and contemporary pieces that are made to last. Heading up this fashion brand – that employs hundreds of people – is Marnie, alongside her husband Adam.
She credits her perspective as one of her most important work skills. That, paired with her ability to leave her ego at the door, means she isn’t afraid of saying it how it is. She shares that time is her greatest obstacle, that Elk’s sustainability journey is both rewarding and endlessly tiring, and how the Australian fashion industry embracing cooperation has helped her professional life. Read on to hear more about Marnie’s career.
What do you do and what’s your official job title?
I am the Co-Founder and Brand Director of Elk. We are a contemporary, Melbourne fashion brand designing apparel and accessories. I am responsible for pushing the business forward and ensuring that we remain true to our cause, purpose and identity.
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Take us back to when you were first starting out. Did you study to get into your chosen field, or did you start out with an internship/entry-level role and climb the ladder? Tell us the story.
My career story started like so many others – in a completely different industry. I studied consumer science at university which focused on marketing and business. [I] initially worked at the National Gallery of Victoria and then at Melbourne Zoo in events.
I come from a family of small business owners and was also surrounded by talented, creative friends mostly in the fashion industry whose influence and energy guided me in a different direction where I too could be creative. My heart is not in the corporate world.
The catalyst to running my own business [was] joining my (then) partner and now husband Adam [Koniaras] in his business. He was a fine jeweller and together we worked to build his business from a one-man show into a bigger operation where we employed others and grew our customer base. His business… morphed into Elk which is now on the eve of celebrating 20 years.
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Together Adam and I have effectively built our own ladder to climb. We are proud to own and run a business employing hundreds of people and can look back and be pleased about what we have achieved and look confidently to the future as we plan out what is next.
What challenges/hurdles have you faced getting to where you are now? Can you tell us about one in particular?
It’s so important for business owners to learn from the past but always have a future-focused approach. Every hurdle and challenge has been taken as a learning. Each one has helped us build a stronger, more nimble business that has seen us ride through a Global Financial Crisis, many supply chain challenges, trade disruptions from natural disasters and more recently, the pandemic.
Whatever the situation, it is always time that is our greatest hurdle. We are, by nature, good planners but also impatient and this particularly applies to our sustainability journey. Shifting our business from a traditional model to one that is focused on reducing our environmental impact and improving our ethical trade model has been our greatest achievement but remains also our greatest challenge.
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We are working hard to reduce our environmental footprint and taking strong action on climate change is core to our values at Elk. It is a complicated, expensive and resource-heavy challenge but we are getting there… We need the support of experts outside of the business to help and guide us. These partnerships are fundamental to us achieving our goals and serve as an example [to] any owner – in any challenge, realise you cannot always solve every hurdle or challenge on your own.
What do you want people to know about your industry/your role?
The Australian fashion industry is so powerful and [in 2021], generate[d] over $27 billion for the Australian economy. It provides opportunities beyond the obvious roles of designer, stylist and maker, drawing on the skills of hundreds of different technicians and experts. So, the scope for a career in fashion is huge.
At Elk, we acknowledge the vital input these varied skills bring to help us keep the wheels turning. We have to stay innovative and require this influence to grow and develop… As an individual business, we cannot achieve such important work alone and so we [embrace how] our industry associations, educational institutions and other businesses (both large and small) collaborate together to find solutions. I think this spirit of cooperation is quite rare in other industries.
What’s the best part about your role?
I have a very broad, general view of our business where I get to work holistically [on] our direction, positioning and structure which I love. It’s a little like being a business GP – watching to make sure we look, feel and operate as a healthy and dynamic organisation.
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What I also love is the people in the business – our makers and partners plus the network of other brands I have met. I have travelled the world and had the opportunity to learn about other cultures and explore places most people would not normally go to.
What would surprise people about your role?
We focus on showcasing one collection to the public whereas we are actually working on five at a time. We have older collections [we’re] sell[ing] off, are working on two [collections] ahead of time plus selling the current one [as well as] our core range.
It takes a huge amount of coordination and effort from the whole team to be across this huge amount of product and data. Fashion is a constantly moving stream of design, production and selling and it takes a lot of lateral thinking to manage this much.
What skills have served you well in your industry?
Tenacity, curiosity, planning and perspective. You can’t ever take your foot off the pedal and even though we are super organised and plan far ahead, we also have to be open to switching and changing if needed.
We are not a fast fashion brand which allows us to work far ahead, learn from our past experiences and make better and more market-suited products. But we have to be constantly curious, working on new ways to make products, finding new designs to excite our customers and better ways to reduce our impact.
Of all of the skills though, perspective is the most important. I like to remain grounded and keep our team humble. We are grateful for the business we have and need to stay connected to the fact that our product is non-essential and acknowledge that we do have an environmental impact.
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Our products are made by humans, the materials we use are grown by farmers and the audience we make for wants to wear our products day after day, so I have always tried to remain realistic and keep ego out of the picture.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to be in a role like yours one day?
My perspective is from an owner and co-founder that has seen and lived a lot over more than 20 years. I worked for others before starting Elk because I needed real-life experience to understand how to run a business. Effectively, the fundamental skills [of] a designer or a manager don’t change but how you run a brand is hugely variable.
Whether you are starting a new company from scratch or looking to move into a director, general manager or CEO role, it takes time. These are skills and experiences you cannot rush… Take in as much as you can from different companies, seek advice from others in similar positions, and watch and listen.
What about a practical tip?
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To learn, be curious and keep your ears and eyes open. It is essential that you read, listen and watch what you can. There are more opportunities than time allows to educate yourself with webinars, media, podcasts and events that can contribute to your development.
Innovation and technology are evolving so fast and the best candidates for any role demonstrate a drive to learn, showing a willingness to go above and beyond the day-to-day. If you love something and have a true desire to develop then it’s easy – be a sponge and soak up as much as you can.
Read the rest of the How I Got Here series here.
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