Ben Gorham has had a particularly interesting journey to entrepreneurship. Having spent his entire young life pursuing a career in basketball, it may come as a surprise that he ended up creating a super successful luxury and fragrance brand. But Ben's ambitions to play basketball were stifled by a technicality in international contracts, cutting his professional career short. Then, by a chance meeting Ben turned to an entirely different industry. Since setting the groundwork for a fragrance business, experimenting with smells through candle making out of his own kitchen, Ben's obsession has grown into a massive luxury brand found in huge retail stores across the globe. Nordstrom has had a lot of success doing business with BYREDO for a long time now and we're super excited that he's come to Seattle to visit and talk with our teams about even more growth. And since he was in the building, I asked him to come into my office to chat with me on the podcast. After my conversation with Ben, we're going to do something that we always talk about at the end of every episode, but we’ve yet to actually feature on the show, which is to address some of the negative feedback that we sometimes get. Former employee and long-time customer of Nordstrom, Vicki Redding, has agreed to come on the show and share her perspective on the ways in which Nordstrom has changed—and not for the better. Thanks for tuning in to episode 47. We hope you enjoy it! Did you know that YOU can be on The Nordy Pod? This show isn't just a one-way conversation. We want to hear about what Nordstrom looks like through your eyes. Share your Nordstrom experience, good or bad, by giving us a call and leaving a voicemail at: 206.594.0526, or send an email to [email protected] to be a part of the conversation!