VUE Long Island

VUE: You've had an extraordinary career across very different luxury businesses, from Ferragamo to Tumi to now Tilebar. What were the pivotal moments that shaped you into the leader and entrepreneur that you are today? Ira: I made a decision early on in my career that I would go for the uncomfortable, which was to move into classifications and product categories that I didn't know much about. I thought it would be fun and actually make work more enjoyable for me. So there was one common theme, from companies like Ferragamo, Tumi, Tourneau, and now Tilebar; there was appreciation for a foundation and quality product. It was a product that we could be proud of as a company. But usually, along with that product came the initial growth, the great foundation, and then that inflection point of how to take it to the next level. I think I was able to bring a bit of what I had learned and was learning along the way about growth to great products that consumers already appreciated but perhaps weren't getting in the best possible way yet. VUE: Do you feel like you're bringing a vision to the company that the company may not have had before you arrived? Ira: Yeah, a growth vision. Almost in every case, we had hit an inflection point. So people like both Ferragamo and Tumi; they were primarily wholesale businesses that decided to go direct-to-consumer retail and needed to figure that out. Tourneau had grown in an industry and actually been sold to a private equity firm, and then the industry started to shrink, meaning distribution of fine watches in the United States started to shrink. We needed to reinvent our version of experiential retail to bring it to consumers in a new way, in order to gain that market share back. I did it successfully. VUE: Successful careers oen look very linear from the outside. Was there ever a moment in your career where you looked and said, 'this is a significant risk,' and made a decision that other people may have questioned? Ira: I think the safer bet seems like it should be just to stick with the product category in the industry. I actually started my foundation in department stores, in the footwear business. I could have stayed in the footwear industry. I think that makes a lot of sense for people. For me, I needed that moment of stepping From Ferragamo and Tumi to Tourneau and now Tilebar, Ira Melnitsky understands how to deliver a luxury item into hands that will value it. Melnitsky shares the risks that shaped his career, the visionary spirit behind Tilebar, and how digital innovation is expanding the growth vision of companies today. V U E H A M P TO N S . C O M 7 7

• Cover