July 10, 2024 • 31 mins
Emily Hikade led a secret life for many years. As a diplomat turned CIA officer, Emily engaged in dangerous counterterrorism work, even as she built a family. But a life-altering, near-death experience changed her perspective, leading her to eventually pivot out of the CIA and create Petite Plume, a wildly successful pajama company. On this episode of She Pivots, Emily talks about being in a field dominated by men, how she leveraged her skills as a negotiator in the pajama business, and the role of her family in the career decisions she’s made.
She Pivots was created by host Emily Tisch Sussman to highlight women, their stories, and how their pivot became their success. To learn more about Emily Hikade, follow us on Instagram @ShePivotsThePodcast or visit shepivotsthepodcast.com.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to she Pivots. I'm Emily Hinkat.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome to she Pivots, the podcast where we talk with
women who dared to pivot out of one career and
into something new and explore how their personal lives impacted
these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. Welcome back
she Pivots listeners today, I'm delighted to have Emily Hakati,
(00:36):
the CEO and founder of Fetite Plume, the sheekhest pajama
brand you ever did see. Even Prince George wears them.
But Emily's career didn't start dressing royals and luxury sleepwear.
She started in a much different place as a CIA
officer working abroad encounter terrorism. Growing up with big dreams
(00:58):
of seeing the world and a knack for picking up languages,
Emily found herself in the Foreign Service after working at
the White House straight out of college, and she loved it.
She met her husband at the agency, had four kids,
and built a life around the career she had dreamed
of since she was a kid, until she went through
a near death experience that changed her life. Before she
(01:21):
knew it, she was making her pivot, leveraging her skills
from the CIA, but now negotiating with factories and suppliers. Soon,
Petite Plume was born and has seen success after success.
What started as a small business has now grown into
a multimillion dollar household name. And I have to admit
for good reason, her pajamas are everything they promised to
(01:43):
be my kids and I love them. Emily's story and
pivot is truly one of a kind. We're so lucky
to have her with us today. Hope you enjoy.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
My name is Emily Patte and I am the founder
and CEO of Petite Plum.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
And what did you used to do?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I used to work as a operations officer for the
Central Intelligence Agency.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Oh so CIA to pajamas the natural path.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Another one is what you're thinking, right? Ah, can we
get a guest that doesn't have that background exactly?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Here? We get so many pitches the ciaa pajamas. Yes,
it's a saturation at this point. Well, so I want
to go back, even even free and get a little
background here to understand, you know, what led you to
this point, what led you to these decisions? So let's
just start when you look where did you grow up?
Speaker 1 (02:38):
I grew up in Central Wisconsin, a little town called
Stephen's Point. It was a fantastic place to grow up.
It really is. We you know, I was told to
come home when the street lights turned on. It was
really that sort of a very idyllic upbringing where we
sort of had the run of the neighborhood. And yeah,
but I always knew that there was a bigger world
out there, and from a very young I wanted to
(03:01):
explore beyond. I think it was a big goal of
mine to get out of Steven's Point, Wisconsin. As wonderful
as it is, my mom said, I used to pretend
I was speaking foreign languages in the backyard. I really
don't know where that came from. I'm sure it must
have come through the television.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
There was a big world out there, and I couldn't
wait to see it. What did you think you were
going to do when you grew up? Besides get out?
I always wanted to do something international. I think there
was a little while I dreamt of being a veterinarian.
I think because I always had a passion for animals
and whatnot. I think at one point I wanted to
be an actress, and then my path definitely veered toward overseas.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
So did you go to college in state or you left?
Speaker 1 (03:37):
I went to a Notre Dame. I had a scholarship
for Notre Dame and I went there, and then I
had a postgraduate scholarship for Princeton, which I didn't take
because I was just anxious to see the world and
to get out and experience life. There was a point
I remember thinking I just don't want to study anymore,
and I thought I could go back and do the
scholarship later on, but I was on such a trajectory
(03:58):
with the Foreign Service exam and humming a diplomat. So
I went originally to the White House. So it was
sort of either go to Princeton for graduate work or
go to the White House. And I was like, oh,
I'm going to go to the White House.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
I mean, even just to go to the White House
right out of college is a huge accomplishment.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
It is not the glamorous paycheck or anything. A lot
of the people at the White House are making barely
above the poverty. I think it's the privilege of working there.
I think the turnover rate at the White House with
something like ten months I was working as a waitress
in the evening, White House by day, waitress at Union
Station by night. So that tells you. I mean, I
was barely getting paid, and I was there for such
(04:35):
a short amount of time. I was a fly on
the wall. I already spoke three languages by the time
I was there. I had already lived in France, I
had already lived in Austria, so I spoke French, English,
and German. So I was sort of brought in. I
did what most people at that junior level, did whatever
they asked me to do. So I would read through papers,
I would deliver stuff. I would help if the correspondence,
(04:58):
the White House Correspondent section needed help, go help there.
We all kind of flexed around a lot. While I
was at the White House, my clearance came through and
I passed the Foreign Service exam, so I went to
the State Department. And then while I was at the
State Department, I got tapped on the shoulder, and that's
where I joke that I went over to the dark side.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
The Foreign Service was a seamless transition. After Emily had
lived abroad in both high school and college. The experience
allowed her to become fluent in both French and German.
Building her toolkit that would become essential to realizing her
dreams of working abroad.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
I think the key to picking up a language is
immersing yourself in it without a doubt. I think the
first time I went and lived in France, I lived
there for a month and I heard absolutely no English.
So it's very easy to pick up a language when
you were completely surrounded by another language. Then I started
studying German, and I went and I lived in Austria,
and I was living with a bunch of other Americans,
(05:50):
and you're much more prone to hang out with the Americans.
Birds of a feather flock together, and then you're speaking English.
So it took a lot more effort than to learn
to speak German fluently. You know, you get to a point,
certainly I did in France when I was dreaming in
French because that was all I was hearing. But if
you're constantly speaking your native language, then it kind of
(06:10):
inhibits the progress.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
And did you do all of these things with a
goal in mind that you wanted to be a foreign
service officer? Like were you working towards a goal or
did these opportunities kind of come to you as you
were working.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Through I knew I wanted to do something overseas. I
wasn't quite sure what that was yet I was interested
in I would have learned Russian, Notre Dame. I was
very interested in that. It was like the vestiges of
the Cold War when I was little, like we still did,
you know, air rag drills and hide under our desks,
thinking that that would you know, protect us from a
nuclear war or a nuclear bomb. And I was very
(06:42):
much moving toward that. I didn't end up learning Russian
in college, but then I did actually start taking I
had one Russian lesson and it was on September tenth,
two thousand and one. So I started heading toward a career.
I thought I was hired sort of for the government
to sort of speak Russian, et cetera, et cetera. And
eleven happened, and now my fourth language is Arabic.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
How drastically I can imagine it did change your trajectory.
How drastically do you think it changed your immediate circumstances.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
I think I was already veering into counter terrorism work.
I started out I think sort of focused on we
were still again, I think as a government, we were
still in the vestiges of the Cold War, and everything
changed on nine to eleven. Everything became counter terrorism sort
of protecting us against threats sort of. I can't underscore
how much everyone's life changed from the side of certainly
(07:32):
the government and counter terrorism and everything. We didn't have
enough Arabic speakers, we didn't have enough people getting through
the clearance process and so on to surge as we
needed to all the embassies overseas. It was about protecting
Americans going forward, and we have to be right one
hundred percent of the time. It's about working with the
CIA and sa FBI. There was a lot going on
(07:52):
then if you remember, and we have to be right
one hundred percent of the time and the terrorists only
have to be right once. To really create that impact.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I imagine that it must come at a lot of
personal sacrifice to you to be working in those kinds
of roles. Did you feel like that kind of urgency
increased on nine to eleven, Like, did you personally change.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
One hundred percent? Another thread throughout my life is I
wanted to create impact, and I went sort of toward
the White House to create impact than the State Department.
And after nine to eleven, there was no doubt that
our mission was clear. We were going to go to
protect you know, US citizens. We were going to go
help you get rid of Saddam Hussein. There was this
real clear mission. And as much as I was in
(08:36):
Baghdad after the invasion, for me, the mission was clear.
It didn't feel like a sacrifice to me because I
was doing something that was really impactful. And there's another
part of it that's important. When I was in Baghdad,
I didn't have kids yet. I think I was fearless.
I wanted to make an impact. We were doing really
good work. I was there before there was a green zone.
(08:57):
You know, Saddam Musin was still around. There was so
many unknowns that we were working to fill in that
I feel like the mission was really pure. I remember
getting ready for a mission and even we were out
at the Bagden International Airport before the way there was
a green zone, and just to go meet someone downtown,
you had to go down this road that exited the
(09:19):
airport and it was called RPG Alley, and it was
called that because there were apartments on both sides of
the road and people would line up there with shoulder
held missiles and they could shoot them at your armored vehicle,
and there's no armored vehicle that's a high enough level
that could sustain that without injury. So you're taking a
risk every time you leave the doors of just to
go to your meeting. So I remember standing there getting
(09:40):
ready to go out on this meeting, and there was
a new officer who had arrived in country and he
was shaking. And he's somebody I really respected, I'd done
through training with, and he was absolutely shaking like a leief.
And I looked over at him and I remember thinking, God,
I should be really nervous right now, but I wasn't.
I wasn't. I knew what I had to do. I
knew where we were going, I knew the mission. And
the interesting parts of that is that when you are
(10:02):
doing an operation for the agency, you prep for it,
you make sure everything is lined up. Then you do
this operation where you're probably really it's very stressful. You're
moving at one hundred miles per hour. It's really intense,
maybe that's the best word. And then whether it's one
day or a few hours or whatever the operation is,
(10:23):
then you're back at the embassy or wherever you are,
and you're writing up really boring cables, so you're all
of your stress levels go way way down.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
When we come back. Emily gives us a peek behind
the curtain of her day to day life as a
CIA officer, especially as a woman in the field of men.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
First of all, there are so many different jobs within
the agency. You know, there's the analyst jobs, and there's
the targeting jobs, and there's all kinds of things. I
happen to be one of the ones that you know,
we handle assets, we spot assessed, develop and recruit espiena,
we commit espina. We're the case officers, are the ones
who are out there doing the street work when you're
let's again take bag Dad out of it, because bag
(11:10):
Dad was very different. It's a war zone. All the
other locations are much more traditional where you're doing much
more traditional espionage, you know, which is sort of I mean,
you can read about it in some of the books
and so on, but you're working your local environment to
hopefully spot, assess, develop, and recruit. You know, more Russians
are recruited on the continent of Africa than anywhere else,
you know, So I mean there are a lot of
these things happening outside of Moscow or outside of Pyongyang
(11:31):
or outside of you know that sort of thing. There's
really valuable work being done all over the world.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
I think there's been, like over the past I don't
even think the recent years, but you know, maybe like
the decade before that. I think a lot of discussion
about like women on the in the private sector, like
in business, women being not like purposely not supportive, sort
of like crabs in a barrel like of other women
in business. That was never my experience working in politics,
I always had very supportive women bosses, women mentors, like,
(11:59):
very so portive of me. Did you feel like the
vibe was one or the other that women were purposely
supporting one another.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, women are very supportive of each other to the
best that we can. That god, we're in war zones.
There weren't a whole lot of women to be supportive of.
When I was in Begdad, I think I was one
woman in like a thousand men. And then I certainly
have every step of the way made it very purposely,
tried to help any other junior officers and stuff to
that extent. Who are women Because there are a lot
(12:28):
of challenges being a woman. I think in any career,
and certainly at the agency, where you would be remissed
not to know the different challenges of being a woman
versus being a male case officer, which is you can
probably get some of the meetings that your colleagues can't,
but then you also have to you have other challenges.
I feel like women were purposely supporting one another, but
(12:50):
I think largely, especially case officers, there were so few
of us that I think there was a I felt recently.
I met up with one of my mentors there and
she was she was incredible, and she was there were
even less women case officers when she was there, and
it was this idea of really helping develop and how
the agency has to do better of also helping be
(13:10):
flexible enough for women who want to have children and
be flexible enough with their careers. It is very difficult
to continue to move forward, and you know, a lot
of it, as I mentioned, happens outside of that nine
to five, So that starts getting trickier when you have
a family and you have other obligations.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
And things were trickier. Even dating was a challenge. She
traveled constantly and was often on dangerous missions. Still, she
eventually met her husband at the agency the perfect match,
as they both understood the flexibility needed to succeed in
this field.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
And given the nature of the work, it is difficult
when you're traveling as much to date outside of the agency.
I think, because you are traveling, how many men are
there that can move every three years, right, I mean
if you don't kind of get somebody who can travel
around you, I mean there are definitely seriously challenged, serious challenges,
and a lot of women I think who have fallen
(14:04):
through those fallen into those challenges. I mean, it's just
challenging and you're moving constantly and you're traveling, and there's
a lot of pressures of work.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yeah, So talk us through your mindset as you decided
to start having kids. Did you decide to start having
kids and how did you think about staying in your
career at that point or did you think of it.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
I was a little older when I started having kids.
I was already pushing thirty, so I already knew I
was good at my job. I already knew, you know,
life overseas, I'd been through some of the tougher ones.
I think, certainly with the agency, some of your toughest
assignments are when you're also youngest, you know, you have
to cut your teeth. I think it's like that to
be a journalist as well, as you sort of have
to cut your teeth in some of the tougher areas,
and then you know, you get to a certain point
(14:44):
where you know maybe you're not doing the more dangerous
things and so on. It was very intentional to start
having a family, and it was challenging. I was in
the Middle East when I had my first one. I
was an Asia when we have our second. I was
in East Africa when I had we had our third
and fourth, so it was, you know, it was very different.
It was a very different feeling to be constantly on
(15:06):
the move. We were metavacked with my third and my
husband was just getting back from Iraq, and I had
him on a Friday, and we packed out on Wednesday
and we were in DC by the following Friday getting
ready for our overseas. The soonest we can fly out
with a newborn is six weeks, so instead of working
on a nursery, I was packing out. Think about it.
(15:27):
I had a baby on Friday and the mover showed
up on Wednesday, four days five days later. A week later,
I was already in DC, living, you know, in an airbnb,
and then at six weeks we flew into East Africa,
you know, and you don't even think about it because
everybody you know is working for the government and they're
kind of in that same mindset as like, Okay, you know,
you are doing your metavac, You're you know, this is
(15:50):
just how it goes. That is who is surrounding you
at the embassy, and I'm talking about the embassy in general.
And it's very interesting. The State Department all the way
up until the birth of our last son, which is
only seven years ago, did not consider it essential to
have the husband at the birth. So you had to
use your home leave. You had to pay for your
own flight to get the husband to the birth, which
(16:10):
is crazy, right with all their in this era of
maternity and paternity, and I believe it's so important for
a lot of these family initiatives and to really give
paid leave to mothers and fathers. I think that it
was just such a throwback to see how even the
State Department was treating it up until recently. There were
so many things when even the old cable system was
(16:32):
from world War two. When we first started, it didn't
even allow like capital letters and small letters, and that changed,
you know, maybe ten years ago. But there were just
a little things that are just like the government is
on the cutting edge of some things and very much
not in other things.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
After the break, Emily shares the harrowing story of the
near death experience that made her pivot out of Foreign services.
So tell us about what made you leave.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
So I very much enjoyed my job and the impact
it was making. I enjoyed the people I was working with.
Some of the very best and brightest are There are
people who are really hard working, dedicated, you know, frontline
for sure. But I was on there was a particular
day where everything sort of was called into question. And
(17:25):
it's tough to live overseas, especially with three four small children. Anyway,
I was on my way to a high threat mission
and I was on a plane heading over the Indian Ocean,
and we hit a storm and the plane started to
spin out of control and the lights went out and
(17:46):
people were screaming, and the plane was literally heading toward
the water. And as I was getting ready to almost
feel the impact, all I could see were the faces
of my three little boys at home, and the youngest
one wasn't a year old yet, and all I could
(18:07):
think about was I felt this wave of profound sadness
that they were going to grow up without a mom.
And that was a really pivotal moment for me, when
you suddenly think they didn't sign up for this, They
didn't sign up to have a mom encounter terrorism. So
from that moment on, you know, the plane corrected. I'm here,
but it was very clear to me that I had
(18:29):
made an impact in that line of work, and now
I wanted to find something else that could keep me safe.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Emily started slowly, one step at a time, but was
still living in East Africa at the time.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
There's no great time to start a business, but certainly
not when you're living in East Africa. You have a
full time job and you have three little kids at home.
But there's never a good time. And you just have
to do that because you owe it to yourself and
you owe it to your family to put one foot
in front of the other and sort of start and
matchal And that was sort of how Petitpoon started.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
In a sun drenched living room in suburban Chicago, decades
old government secret hidden behind carefree smiles in family photos.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Feel that's fashion.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Entrepreneur Emily Hiccaate now ready to share her story.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
You had a prior, so was the decision to try
to find a different professional, like a different occupation, and
then you tried different products. But was it always product
funded or was it always product focused or was it
always pajamas?
Speaker 1 (19:33):
I think as I started looking at the market, I
think a few things played into hand. One as I
had these wonderful memories when I was a little girl,
My grandmother always used to gift us every Christmas pajamas.
I think all the grand kids got pajamas, and they
were the ones with lots of ruffles and frill nightgowns
and everything. And those are really special memories when I
look back at those gifts that she gave to all
(19:54):
of the cousins and so on, and you'd have a
moment where everybody would put them on and it was
you know, I have really warm memories of that. And
when I looked at the I looked at the market,
I thought I saw a white space for you know,
children's pajamas that were very classic. We started out just
in children's sleepwaar and nightgowns and so on, and I thought,
(20:15):
I saw a gap in the market, and I thought, Okay,
I don't need to, you know, reinvent the wheel. I
just needed to sell enough pajamas to be able to
replace my government salary. Was how I was originally thinking
of it. I wasn't thinking of launching a multimillion dollar
company that was going to bring me here and sitting
here in front of you. At the initial start, I
was just thinking that I wanted to keep myself safe
from my kids.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Ever, the savvy woman Emily leveraged her skills as a
negotiator and the power of the Internet to make it happen.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
So I knew how to go in, get samples, make
sure the samples were good, negotiate price points, negotiate shipping, landing.
You know. It was just one step at a time,
one step at a time, but man, it was a lot.
I was involved in every single piece of it. I
was the only employee for several years. We eventually moved
back to the US in twenty eighteen, and that's where
(21:06):
we really decided to give it a go and customer service.
I would put my kids to bed and then I
would respond to customer service calls through my Skype, you know,
I mean it really was. The early days were really something.
We kind of made it to the other side.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Yeah, and how did you scale?
Speaker 1 (21:21):
I think I always set it up to scale, insofar
as I didn't. I wasn't fulfilling out of my house.
That would have been very difficult given the location. But
we had a fulfillment center early on. The delivery was
coming in from various places overseas. We have stuff made
in Peru, Portugal, Spain, Asia. Everything goes to our fulfillment center.
And then we got a one eight hundred number that
(21:43):
was staffed by a messaging service, which was also critical
because now they could provide twenty four hour customer service.
Because occasionally I did have to sleep, sure or it's
a weakness I have, but sleep is occasionally required to
do it all. So I think that that was It
was a lot easier when I was local. And you know,
there was something else that was sort of missing. When
I was in East Africa. I felt like I was
(22:05):
the first person starting a company. I didn't have friends
I could talk to. I couldn't say hey, did you
run into these challenges. One of the big things that
opened up for me was networking and the power of networking.
I went to I think we went to our first
trade show in I want to say twenty seventeen, and
that just started opening doors. And I started listening and
(22:27):
asking people what's working for them, what's not. You have
to be really cautious, and I think one of my
strengths is that I don't have the hubris of thinking
that I know at all. But I know what my
strengths are and what my weaknesses are. And I listened, Hey,
what are the challenges. You know, people who companies who
have almost gone out of business because they went into
the majors without checking the terms. You know, that's really important.
(22:48):
And I think early on I joke that I might
have sold my grandmother up a river to get into
Even Marcus. But in the end, when we did go
into Even Marcus, we did it very strategically. You know,
we did drop ship only so that we negotiated terms.
We were very care which is the way to approach it,
because sometimes if you're not reading that you can get
you know, the returns at the end of the season.
Companies have gone out a business because they get millions
of dollars of returns that show up in their warehouse
(23:10):
and they've already spent the money on the next season.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
What do you consider your strengths and weaknesses.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
I think on my feet. I think I know what
I'm good at and what I'm not, and I hire
into my weaknesses. You know, I cannot design a website,
Please don't ask me to. But then you can hire
people to design your website, you know. I think branding
is something that I think is really important to a
company and quality. We've really focused on the quality of
(23:37):
the sleepwear. There was nothing about my story on the website.
You still can't find anything about it. I really built
a brand that I wanted the quality of the sleepwear
to stand for itself. I think that it was this
idea of home. When we're in our pajamas, we're home,
we're safe, we're with our family, We're with the things
(23:59):
that matter most to us. I think that was something
that was really compelling for me, coming from a job
where you weren't always safe and you were taking risks.
As I got more into it, I learned about all
of these flame retardant rules that are I'm not sure
everybody realizes, but you have to children's pajamas from the
age of nine months all the way to fourteen have
to sustain a direct flame for three seconds without igniting.
(24:22):
And what some companies can do is put one hundred
percent cotton on the label and then dip them in chemicals,
a lot of chemicals enough to sustain one wash and
then fifty washes, and they don't have to put anything
about the chemicals on the label. So I early on
had learned about this, and I committed myself to making
children's pajamas without any chemicals. You know, we didn't cut
(24:45):
any corners. We did yarn died. We figured out our
first pajama prototypes were made in the same factory as
fireman's uniforms, and then we started perfecting it. And what
we did was we blended an inherently flame retardant fiber,
think of a tweaked roll, and we blended it with cotton,
which allowed us to pass some of these strict laws
without using any chemicals. And I'm really proud of that,
and so that was something else that I could bring
(25:06):
to the market. It was really tough, it was really expensive.
We have to test everything before we import it, but
we created something really special and in the first year
we were in two hundred stores. But I think it's
really important that we use natural ingredients as much as
we can and then avoid all chemicals.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
How did you get Prince George to wear your pajamas?
Speaker 1 (25:27):
It's this wonderful thing called serendipity. I honestly it was
a very That was a very dark another very dark
moment in my life when I had had my fourth son.
But in the end I ended up getting metavacked early
back to the US and I ended up spending what
was the last Christmas with my dad. So my dad
(25:47):
passed away two weeks after my fourth son was born.
So at this time my husband had used up his leave,
he was back in Africa. I had four small children
and my had just died, and I was on my
own in Wisconsin. And it was hard. It was really hard.
There were moments where you know, I was just just
(26:08):
keep putting one foot in front of the other. I
was still running a company, a little baby company at
that time too, and I remember sort of in those
darkest moments, then you know, I got a head called
and I was like, oh my god, what else can
possibly happen? And somewhere along the way I get home,
I collapsed into bed, exhausted. After I got all the
kids to bed. I woke up the next morning and
(26:29):
Prince George was wearing our pajamas.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Prince George meet the Obama's The first family made a
surprise appearance to Kensington Palace on Friday to have dinner
with the royal family is.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
The cutest moment of international diplomacy. Prince George was introduced
to sitting President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama
in twenty sixteen. Not only was the two year old
a little shy when meeting the president, but he just
so happened to be wearing his pajamas and a tiny
white robe.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
That was how we got the jama's different stopt. I
feel like there's karma involved in this somehow, because we
really weren't gifting the royal family. We weren't there yet.
But it was a big moment.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
What is something that at the time you saw as
a negative, a low point, something that was not going well,
and now in retrospect you see it as having really
been a positive and potentially launched you.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
I would go back to the plane. It was one
of the worst moments of my life, but it was
also one of the most pivotal. And sometimes it takes
something like that to sort of shake you and get
you going on a different path because there's a different
journey ahead for you. In hindsight, I wish it would
have been a little less dramatic, because I tend to
now relive it when people ask me that pivot moment,
(27:44):
and it's hard to talk about it without being right
back on that plane. Do you think you'll pivot again?
I love the journey. I love knowing every time what's
around the corner, and so I'm sort of open to this.
I love running this company, and I think we're just
getting started. I want to say that this is the
great thing about running a company. I certainly am not
going to get bored, because running a company that is
(28:07):
at one million is so different than ten million, than
twenty million. Then every couple of years even less, it
feels like you're running a whole different company, because now
it's not about me arranging shipping, it's not about me
dealing with customers anymore. It's much more management. It's much
more inspiring. It's getting the right people in the right seats.
It's a very different job than it was early on,
(28:29):
which was just jack of all trades. You just did everything.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
We have been purveyors, customers of yours. My kids have
your pajamas and they love it. They love the very traditional,
like the button pajama. Look, my kids and I wear
matching pajamas every night. Oh my god for it.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Well fantastic.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
We wear matching pajamas every night. It was when we
started during the pandemic of like which kid got to
choose what we would all wear that night? And it
has continued.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
And these are memories your kids are going to have forever,
that you're going to have forever. Seem like, mom, remember
when we were little and we used to dress up
in matching pajamas the same way that I hold those
memories that my grandmother gave you know, us pajamas years ago.
But those are really special and I feel very privileged
to have a small small piece in those memories, to
(29:17):
create those moments where you can dress up together. And
you know, we do bridal and so now we're at weddings,
we do a maternity so mommy matching from maternity. We
do giftables, you like sort of your gift as you
go off to the hospital. We have this tiny little
piece and these wonderful memories that really are the fabric
of what life is all about. And that's what I
(29:38):
love is it's really there's those big moments, but really
it's those small moments that put us all together, not
just you know, it's every night. It's that you guys
are reading stories and matching pajamas every night while mom
falls asleep reading a book. I absolutely love that.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Well, thank you so much, Emily. It's been so great
and so interesting to have you on.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Thank you so much, Thank you so much. I loved
every minute of it.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Emily lives a much quieter life in the Chicago area
with her husband and four sons and continues to build
Petite Plume. Channeling her fearless energy into her business has
clearly worked as the company continues to grow. Be sure
to check out all of their amazing and adorable pajamas
at petit dash plume dot com, and you can stay
(30:24):
up to date with Emily on Instagram at Emily Hacati.
Talk to you next week. Thanks for listening to this
episode of She Pivots. If you made it this far,
you're a true pivot so thanks for being part of
this community. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and if
you did leave us a rating, please be nice.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Tell your friends about us.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
To learn more about our guests, follow us on Instagram
at she pivots the Podcast, or sign up for our
newsletter where you can get exclusive behind the scenes content,
or on our website she pivots the Podcast talk to
You Next Week special thanks to the she pivots team,
Executive producer Emily eda Velosik, Associate producer and social media
(31:07):
connoisseur Hannah Cousins, Research director Christine Dickinson, Events and Logistics
coordinator Madeline Snovak, and audio editor and mixer Nina pollock
I endorse che Pivots
Welcome back to she Pivots. I'm Emily Hinkat.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome to she Pivots, the podcast where we talk with
women who dared to pivot out of one career and
into something new and explore how their personal lives impacted
these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. Welcome back
she Pivots listeners today, I'm delighted to have Emily Hakati,
(00:36):
the CEO and founder of Fetite Plume, the sheekhest pajama
brand you ever did see. Even Prince George wears them.
But Emily's career didn't start dressing royals and luxury sleepwear.
She started in a much different place as a CIA
officer working abroad encounter terrorism. Growing up with big dreams
(00:58):
of seeing the world and a knack for picking up languages,
Emily found herself in the Foreign Service after working at
the White House straight out of college, and she loved it.
She met her husband at the agency, had four kids,
and built a life around the career she had dreamed
of since she was a kid, until she went through
a near death experience that changed her life. Before she
(01:21):
knew it, she was making her pivot, leveraging her skills
from the CIA, but now negotiating with factories and suppliers. Soon,
Petite Plume was born and has seen success after success.
What started as a small business has now grown into
a multimillion dollar household name. And I have to admit
for good reason, her pajamas are everything they promised to
(01:43):
be my kids and I love them. Emily's story and
pivot is truly one of a kind. We're so lucky
to have her with us today. Hope you enjoy.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
My name is Emily Patte and I am the founder
and CEO of Petite Plum.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
And what did you used to do?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I used to work as a operations officer for the
Central Intelligence Agency.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Oh so CIA to pajamas the natural path.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Another one is what you're thinking, right? Ah, can we
get a guest that doesn't have that background exactly?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Here? We get so many pitches the ciaa pajamas. Yes,
it's a saturation at this point. Well, so I want
to go back, even even free and get a little
background here to understand, you know, what led you to
this point, what led you to these decisions? So let's
just start when you look where did you grow up?
Speaker 1 (02:38):
I grew up in Central Wisconsin, a little town called
Stephen's Point. It was a fantastic place to grow up.
It really is. We you know, I was told to
come home when the street lights turned on. It was
really that sort of a very idyllic upbringing where we
sort of had the run of the neighborhood. And yeah,
but I always knew that there was a bigger world
out there, and from a very young I wanted to
(03:01):
explore beyond. I think it was a big goal of
mine to get out of Steven's Point, Wisconsin. As wonderful
as it is, my mom said, I used to pretend
I was speaking foreign languages in the backyard. I really
don't know where that came from. I'm sure it must
have come through the television.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
There was a big world out there, and I couldn't
wait to see it. What did you think you were
going to do when you grew up? Besides get out?
I always wanted to do something international. I think there
was a little while I dreamt of being a veterinarian.
I think because I always had a passion for animals
and whatnot. I think at one point I wanted to
be an actress, and then my path definitely veered toward overseas.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
So did you go to college in state or you left?
Speaker 1 (03:37):
I went to a Notre Dame. I had a scholarship
for Notre Dame and I went there, and then I
had a postgraduate scholarship for Princeton, which I didn't take
because I was just anxious to see the world and
to get out and experience life. There was a point
I remember thinking I just don't want to study anymore,
and I thought I could go back and do the
scholarship later on, but I was on such a trajectory
(03:58):
with the Foreign Service exam and humming a diplomat. So
I went originally to the White House. So it was
sort of either go to Princeton for graduate work or
go to the White House. And I was like, oh,
I'm going to go to the White House.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
I mean, even just to go to the White House
right out of college is a huge accomplishment.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
It is not the glamorous paycheck or anything. A lot
of the people at the White House are making barely
above the poverty. I think it's the privilege of working there.
I think the turnover rate at the White House with
something like ten months I was working as a waitress
in the evening, White House by day, waitress at Union
Station by night. So that tells you. I mean, I
was barely getting paid, and I was there for such
(04:35):
a short amount of time. I was a fly on
the wall. I already spoke three languages by the time
I was there. I had already lived in France, I
had already lived in Austria, so I spoke French, English,
and German. So I was sort of brought in. I
did what most people at that junior level, did whatever
they asked me to do. So I would read through papers,
I would deliver stuff. I would help if the correspondence,
(04:58):
the White House Correspondent section needed help, go help there.
We all kind of flexed around a lot. While I
was at the White House, my clearance came through and
I passed the Foreign Service exam, so I went to
the State Department. And then while I was at the
State Department, I got tapped on the shoulder, and that's
where I joke that I went over to the dark side.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
The Foreign Service was a seamless transition. After Emily had
lived abroad in both high school and college. The experience
allowed her to become fluent in both French and German.
Building her toolkit that would become essential to realizing her
dreams of working abroad.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
I think the key to picking up a language is
immersing yourself in it without a doubt. I think the
first time I went and lived in France, I lived
there for a month and I heard absolutely no English.
So it's very easy to pick up a language when
you were completely surrounded by another language. Then I started
studying German, and I went and I lived in Austria,
and I was living with a bunch of other Americans,
(05:50):
and you're much more prone to hang out with the Americans.
Birds of a feather flock together, and then you're speaking English.
So it took a lot more effort than to learn
to speak German fluently. You know, you get to a point,
certainly I did in France when I was dreaming in
French because that was all I was hearing. But if
you're constantly speaking your native language, then it kind of
(06:10):
inhibits the progress.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
And did you do all of these things with a
goal in mind that you wanted to be a foreign
service officer? Like were you working towards a goal or
did these opportunities kind of come to you as you
were working.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Through I knew I wanted to do something overseas. I
wasn't quite sure what that was yet I was interested
in I would have learned Russian, Notre Dame. I was
very interested in that. It was like the vestiges of
the Cold War when I was little, like we still did,
you know, air rag drills and hide under our desks,
thinking that that would you know, protect us from a
nuclear war or a nuclear bomb. And I was very
(06:42):
much moving toward that. I didn't end up learning Russian
in college, but then I did actually start taking I
had one Russian lesson and it was on September tenth,
two thousand and one. So I started heading toward a career.
I thought I was hired sort of for the government
to sort of speak Russian, et cetera, et cetera. And
eleven happened, and now my fourth language is Arabic.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
How drastically I can imagine it did change your trajectory.
How drastically do you think it changed your immediate circumstances.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
I think I was already veering into counter terrorism work.
I started out I think sort of focused on we
were still again, I think as a government, we were
still in the vestiges of the Cold War, and everything
changed on nine to eleven. Everything became counter terrorism sort
of protecting us against threats sort of. I can't underscore
how much everyone's life changed from the side of certainly
(07:32):
the government and counter terrorism and everything. We didn't have
enough Arabic speakers, we didn't have enough people getting through
the clearance process and so on to surge as we
needed to all the embassies overseas. It was about protecting
Americans going forward, and we have to be right one
hundred percent of the time. It's about working with the
CIA and sa FBI. There was a lot going on
(07:52):
then if you remember, and we have to be right
one hundred percent of the time and the terrorists only
have to be right once. To really create that impact.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I imagine that it must come at a lot of
personal sacrifice to you to be working in those kinds
of roles. Did you feel like that kind of urgency
increased on nine to eleven, Like, did you personally change.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
One hundred percent? Another thread throughout my life is I
wanted to create impact, and I went sort of toward
the White House to create impact than the State Department.
And after nine to eleven, there was no doubt that
our mission was clear. We were going to go to
protect you know, US citizens. We were going to go
help you get rid of Saddam Hussein. There was this
real clear mission. And as much as I was in
(08:36):
Baghdad after the invasion, for me, the mission was clear.
It didn't feel like a sacrifice to me because I
was doing something that was really impactful. And there's another
part of it that's important. When I was in Baghdad,
I didn't have kids yet. I think I was fearless.
I wanted to make an impact. We were doing really
good work. I was there before there was a green zone.
(08:57):
You know, Saddam Musin was still around. There was so
many unknowns that we were working to fill in that
I feel like the mission was really pure. I remember
getting ready for a mission and even we were out
at the Bagden International Airport before the way there was
a green zone, and just to go meet someone downtown,
you had to go down this road that exited the
(09:19):
airport and it was called RPG Alley, and it was
called that because there were apartments on both sides of
the road and people would line up there with shoulder
held missiles and they could shoot them at your armored vehicle,
and there's no armored vehicle that's a high enough level
that could sustain that without injury. So you're taking a
risk every time you leave the doors of just to
go to your meeting. So I remember standing there getting
(09:40):
ready to go out on this meeting, and there was
a new officer who had arrived in country and he
was shaking. And he's somebody I really respected, I'd done
through training with, and he was absolutely shaking like a leief.
And I looked over at him and I remember thinking, God,
I should be really nervous right now, but I wasn't.
I wasn't. I knew what I had to do. I
knew where we were going, I knew the mission. And
the interesting parts of that is that when you are
(10:02):
doing an operation for the agency, you prep for it,
you make sure everything is lined up. Then you do
this operation where you're probably really it's very stressful. You're
moving at one hundred miles per hour. It's really intense,
maybe that's the best word. And then whether it's one
day or a few hours or whatever the operation is,
(10:23):
then you're back at the embassy or wherever you are,
and you're writing up really boring cables, so you're all
of your stress levels go way way down.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
When we come back. Emily gives us a peek behind
the curtain of her day to day life as a
CIA officer, especially as a woman in the field of men.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
First of all, there are so many different jobs within
the agency. You know, there's the analyst jobs, and there's
the targeting jobs, and there's all kinds of things. I
happen to be one of the ones that you know,
we handle assets, we spot assessed, develop and recruit espiena,
we commit espina. We're the case officers, are the ones
who are out there doing the street work when you're
let's again take bag Dad out of it, because bag
(11:10):
Dad was very different. It's a war zone. All the
other locations are much more traditional where you're doing much
more traditional espionage, you know, which is sort of I mean,
you can read about it in some of the books
and so on, but you're working your local environment to
hopefully spot, assess, develop, and recruit. You know, more Russians
are recruited on the continent of Africa than anywhere else,
you know, So I mean there are a lot of
these things happening outside of Moscow or outside of Pyongyang
(11:31):
or outside of you know that sort of thing. There's
really valuable work being done all over the world.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
I think there's been, like over the past I don't
even think the recent years, but you know, maybe like
the decade before that. I think a lot of discussion
about like women on the in the private sector, like
in business, women being not like purposely not supportive, sort
of like crabs in a barrel like of other women
in business. That was never my experience working in politics,
I always had very supportive women bosses, women mentors, like,
(11:59):
very so portive of me. Did you feel like the
vibe was one or the other that women were purposely
supporting one another.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, women are very supportive of each other to the
best that we can. That god, we're in war zones.
There weren't a whole lot of women to be supportive of.
When I was in Begdad, I think I was one
woman in like a thousand men. And then I certainly
have every step of the way made it very purposely,
tried to help any other junior officers and stuff to
that extent. Who are women Because there are a lot
(12:28):
of challenges being a woman. I think in any career,
and certainly at the agency, where you would be remissed
not to know the different challenges of being a woman
versus being a male case officer, which is you can
probably get some of the meetings that your colleagues can't,
but then you also have to you have other challenges.
I feel like women were purposely supporting one another, but
(12:50):
I think largely, especially case officers, there were so few
of us that I think there was a I felt recently.
I met up with one of my mentors there and
she was she was incredible, and she was there were
even less women case officers when she was there, and
it was this idea of really helping develop and how
the agency has to do better of also helping be
(13:10):
flexible enough for women who want to have children and
be flexible enough with their careers. It is very difficult
to continue to move forward, and you know, a lot
of it, as I mentioned, happens outside of that nine
to five, So that starts getting trickier when you have
a family and you have other obligations.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
And things were trickier. Even dating was a challenge. She
traveled constantly and was often on dangerous missions. Still, she
eventually met her husband at the agency the perfect match,
as they both understood the flexibility needed to succeed in
this field.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
And given the nature of the work, it is difficult
when you're traveling as much to date outside of the agency.
I think, because you are traveling, how many men are
there that can move every three years, right, I mean
if you don't kind of get somebody who can travel
around you, I mean there are definitely seriously challenged, serious challenges,
and a lot of women I think who have fallen
(14:04):
through those fallen into those challenges. I mean, it's just
challenging and you're moving constantly and you're traveling, and there's
a lot of pressures of work.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yeah, So talk us through your mindset as you decided
to start having kids. Did you decide to start having
kids and how did you think about staying in your
career at that point or did you think of it.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
I was a little older when I started having kids.
I was already pushing thirty, so I already knew I
was good at my job. I already knew, you know,
life overseas, I'd been through some of the tougher ones.
I think, certainly with the agency, some of your toughest
assignments are when you're also youngest, you know, you have
to cut your teeth. I think it's like that to
be a journalist as well, as you sort of have
to cut your teeth in some of the tougher areas,
and then you know, you get to a certain point
(14:44):
where you know maybe you're not doing the more dangerous
things and so on. It was very intentional to start
having a family, and it was challenging. I was in
the Middle East when I had my first one. I
was an Asia when we have our second. I was
in East Africa when I had we had our third
and fourth, so it was, you know, it was very different.
It was a very different feeling to be constantly on
(15:06):
the move. We were metavacked with my third and my
husband was just getting back from Iraq, and I had
him on a Friday, and we packed out on Wednesday
and we were in DC by the following Friday getting
ready for our overseas. The soonest we can fly out
with a newborn is six weeks, so instead of working
on a nursery, I was packing out. Think about it.
(15:27):
I had a baby on Friday and the mover showed
up on Wednesday, four days five days later. A week later,
I was already in DC, living, you know, in an airbnb,
and then at six weeks we flew into East Africa,
you know, and you don't even think about it because
everybody you know is working for the government and they're
kind of in that same mindset as like, Okay, you know,
you are doing your metavac, You're you know, this is
(15:50):
just how it goes. That is who is surrounding you
at the embassy, and I'm talking about the embassy in general.
And it's very interesting. The State Department all the way
up until the birth of our last son, which is
only seven years ago, did not consider it essential to
have the husband at the birth. So you had to
use your home leave. You had to pay for your
own flight to get the husband to the birth, which
(16:10):
is crazy, right with all their in this era of
maternity and paternity, and I believe it's so important for
a lot of these family initiatives and to really give
paid leave to mothers and fathers. I think that it
was just such a throwback to see how even the
State Department was treating it up until recently. There were
so many things when even the old cable system was
(16:32):
from world War two. When we first started, it didn't
even allow like capital letters and small letters, and that changed,
you know, maybe ten years ago. But there were just
a little things that are just like the government is
on the cutting edge of some things and very much
not in other things.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
After the break, Emily shares the harrowing story of the
near death experience that made her pivot out of Foreign services.
So tell us about what made you leave.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
So I very much enjoyed my job and the impact
it was making. I enjoyed the people I was working with.
Some of the very best and brightest are There are
people who are really hard working, dedicated, you know, frontline
for sure. But I was on there was a particular
day where everything sort of was called into question. And
(17:25):
it's tough to live overseas, especially with three four small children. Anyway,
I was on my way to a high threat mission
and I was on a plane heading over the Indian Ocean,
and we hit a storm and the plane started to
spin out of control and the lights went out and
(17:46):
people were screaming, and the plane was literally heading toward
the water. And as I was getting ready to almost
feel the impact, all I could see were the faces
of my three little boys at home, and the youngest
one wasn't a year old yet, and all I could
(18:07):
think about was I felt this wave of profound sadness
that they were going to grow up without a mom.
And that was a really pivotal moment for me, when
you suddenly think they didn't sign up for this, They
didn't sign up to have a mom encounter terrorism. So
from that moment on, you know, the plane corrected. I'm here,
but it was very clear to me that I had
(18:29):
made an impact in that line of work, and now
I wanted to find something else that could keep me safe.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Emily started slowly, one step at a time, but was
still living in East Africa at the time.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
There's no great time to start a business, but certainly
not when you're living in East Africa. You have a
full time job and you have three little kids at home.
But there's never a good time. And you just have
to do that because you owe it to yourself and
you owe it to your family to put one foot
in front of the other and sort of start and
matchal And that was sort of how Petitpoon started.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
In a sun drenched living room in suburban Chicago, decades
old government secret hidden behind carefree smiles in family photos.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Feel that's fashion.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Entrepreneur Emily Hiccaate now ready to share her story.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
You had a prior, so was the decision to try
to find a different professional, like a different occupation, and
then you tried different products. But was it always product
funded or was it always product focused or was it
always pajamas?
Speaker 1 (19:33):
I think as I started looking at the market, I
think a few things played into hand. One as I
had these wonderful memories when I was a little girl,
My grandmother always used to gift us every Christmas pajamas.
I think all the grand kids got pajamas, and they
were the ones with lots of ruffles and frill nightgowns
and everything. And those are really special memories when I
look back at those gifts that she gave to all
(19:54):
of the cousins and so on, and you'd have a
moment where everybody would put them on and it was
you know, I have really warm memories of that. And
when I looked at the I looked at the market,
I thought I saw a white space for you know,
children's pajamas that were very classic. We started out just
in children's sleepwaar and nightgowns and so on, and I thought,
(20:15):
I saw a gap in the market, and I thought, Okay,
I don't need to, you know, reinvent the wheel. I
just needed to sell enough pajamas to be able to
replace my government salary. Was how I was originally thinking
of it. I wasn't thinking of launching a multimillion dollar
company that was going to bring me here and sitting
here in front of you. At the initial start, I
was just thinking that I wanted to keep myself safe
from my kids.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Ever, the savvy woman Emily leveraged her skills as a
negotiator and the power of the Internet to make it happen.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
So I knew how to go in, get samples, make
sure the samples were good, negotiate price points, negotiate shipping, landing.
You know. It was just one step at a time,
one step at a time, but man, it was a lot.
I was involved in every single piece of it. I
was the only employee for several years. We eventually moved
back to the US in twenty eighteen, and that's where
(21:06):
we really decided to give it a go and customer service.
I would put my kids to bed and then I
would respond to customer service calls through my Skype, you know,
I mean it really was. The early days were really something.
We kind of made it to the other side.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Yeah, and how did you scale?
Speaker 1 (21:21):
I think I always set it up to scale, insofar
as I didn't. I wasn't fulfilling out of my house.
That would have been very difficult given the location. But
we had a fulfillment center early on. The delivery was
coming in from various places overseas. We have stuff made
in Peru, Portugal, Spain, Asia. Everything goes to our fulfillment center.
And then we got a one eight hundred number that
(21:43):
was staffed by a messaging service, which was also critical
because now they could provide twenty four hour customer service.
Because occasionally I did have to sleep, sure or it's
a weakness I have, but sleep is occasionally required to
do it all. So I think that that was It
was a lot easier when I was local. And you know,
there was something else that was sort of missing. When
I was in East Africa. I felt like I was
(22:05):
the first person starting a company. I didn't have friends
I could talk to. I couldn't say hey, did you
run into these challenges. One of the big things that
opened up for me was networking and the power of networking.
I went to I think we went to our first
trade show in I want to say twenty seventeen, and
that just started opening doors. And I started listening and
(22:27):
asking people what's working for them, what's not. You have
to be really cautious, and I think one of my
strengths is that I don't have the hubris of thinking
that I know at all. But I know what my
strengths are and what my weaknesses are. And I listened, Hey,
what are the challenges. You know, people who companies who
have almost gone out of business because they went into
the majors without checking the terms. You know, that's really important.
(22:48):
And I think early on I joke that I might
have sold my grandmother up a river to get into
Even Marcus. But in the end, when we did go
into Even Marcus, we did it very strategically. You know,
we did drop ship only so that we negotiated terms.
We were very care which is the way to approach it,
because sometimes if you're not reading that you can get
you know, the returns at the end of the season.
Companies have gone out a business because they get millions
of dollars of returns that show up in their warehouse
(23:10):
and they've already spent the money on the next season.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
What do you consider your strengths and weaknesses.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
I think on my feet. I think I know what
I'm good at and what I'm not, and I hire
into my weaknesses. You know, I cannot design a website,
Please don't ask me to. But then you can hire
people to design your website, you know. I think branding
is something that I think is really important to a
company and quality. We've really focused on the quality of
(23:37):
the sleepwear. There was nothing about my story on the website.
You still can't find anything about it. I really built
a brand that I wanted the quality of the sleepwear
to stand for itself. I think that it was this
idea of home. When we're in our pajamas, we're home,
we're safe, we're with our family, We're with the things
(23:59):
that matter most to us. I think that was something
that was really compelling for me, coming from a job
where you weren't always safe and you were taking risks.
As I got more into it, I learned about all
of these flame retardant rules that are I'm not sure
everybody realizes, but you have to children's pajamas from the
age of nine months all the way to fourteen have
to sustain a direct flame for three seconds without igniting.
(24:22):
And what some companies can do is put one hundred
percent cotton on the label and then dip them in chemicals,
a lot of chemicals enough to sustain one wash and
then fifty washes, and they don't have to put anything
about the chemicals on the label. So I early on
had learned about this, and I committed myself to making
children's pajamas without any chemicals. You know, we didn't cut
(24:45):
any corners. We did yarn died. We figured out our
first pajama prototypes were made in the same factory as
fireman's uniforms, and then we started perfecting it. And what
we did was we blended an inherently flame retardant fiber,
think of a tweaked roll, and we blended it with cotton,
which allowed us to pass some of these strict laws
without using any chemicals. And I'm really proud of that,
and so that was something else that I could bring
(25:06):
to the market. It was really tough, it was really expensive.
We have to test everything before we import it, but
we created something really special and in the first year
we were in two hundred stores. But I think it's
really important that we use natural ingredients as much as
we can and then avoid all chemicals.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
How did you get Prince George to wear your pajamas?
Speaker 1 (25:27):
It's this wonderful thing called serendipity. I honestly it was
a very That was a very dark another very dark
moment in my life when I had had my fourth son.
But in the end I ended up getting metavacked early
back to the US and I ended up spending what
was the last Christmas with my dad. So my dad
(25:47):
passed away two weeks after my fourth son was born.
So at this time my husband had used up his leave,
he was back in Africa. I had four small children
and my had just died, and I was on my
own in Wisconsin. And it was hard. It was really hard.
There were moments where you know, I was just just
(26:08):
keep putting one foot in front of the other. I
was still running a company, a little baby company at
that time too, and I remember sort of in those
darkest moments, then you know, I got a head called
and I was like, oh my god, what else can
possibly happen? And somewhere along the way I get home,
I collapsed into bed, exhausted. After I got all the
kids to bed. I woke up the next morning and
(26:29):
Prince George was wearing our pajamas.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
Prince George meet the Obama's The first family made a
surprise appearance to Kensington Palace on Friday to have dinner
with the royal family is.
Speaker 5 (26:40):
The cutest moment of international diplomacy. Prince George was introduced
to sitting President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama
in twenty sixteen. Not only was the two year old
a little shy when meeting the president, but he just
so happened to be wearing his pajamas and a tiny
white robe.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
That was how we got the jama's different stopt. I
feel like there's karma involved in this somehow, because we
really weren't gifting the royal family. We weren't there yet.
But it was a big moment.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
What is something that at the time you saw as
a negative, a low point, something that was not going well,
and now in retrospect you see it as having really
been a positive and potentially launched you.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
I would go back to the plane. It was one
of the worst moments of my life, but it was
also one of the most pivotal. And sometimes it takes
something like that to sort of shake you and get
you going on a different path because there's a different
journey ahead for you. In hindsight, I wish it would
have been a little less dramatic, because I tend to
now relive it when people ask me that pivot moment,
(27:44):
and it's hard to talk about it without being right
back on that plane. Do you think you'll pivot again?
I love the journey. I love knowing every time what's
around the corner, and so I'm sort of open to this.
I love running this company, and I think we're just
getting started. I want to say that this is the
great thing about running a company. I certainly am not
going to get bored, because running a company that is
(28:07):
at one million is so different than ten million, than
twenty million. Then every couple of years even less, it
feels like you're running a whole different company, because now
it's not about me arranging shipping, it's not about me
dealing with customers anymore. It's much more management. It's much
more inspiring. It's getting the right people in the right seats.
It's a very different job than it was early on,
(28:29):
which was just jack of all trades. You just did everything.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
We have been purveyors, customers of yours. My kids have
your pajamas and they love it. They love the very traditional,
like the button pajama. Look, my kids and I wear
matching pajamas every night. Oh my god for it.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Well fantastic.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
We wear matching pajamas every night. It was when we
started during the pandemic of like which kid got to
choose what we would all wear that night? And it
has continued.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
And these are memories your kids are going to have forever,
that you're going to have forever. Seem like, mom, remember
when we were little and we used to dress up
in matching pajamas the same way that I hold those
memories that my grandmother gave you know, us pajamas years ago.
But those are really special and I feel very privileged
to have a small small piece in those memories, to
(29:17):
create those moments where you can dress up together. And
you know, we do bridal and so now we're at weddings,
we do a maternity so mommy matching from maternity. We
do giftables, you like sort of your gift as you
go off to the hospital. We have this tiny little
piece and these wonderful memories that really are the fabric
of what life is all about. And that's what I
(29:38):
love is it's really there's those big moments, but really
it's those small moments that put us all together, not
just you know, it's every night. It's that you guys
are reading stories and matching pajamas every night while mom
falls asleep reading a book. I absolutely love that.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Well, thank you so much, Emily. It's been so great
and so interesting to have you on.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Thank you so much, Thank you so much. I loved
every minute of it.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Emily lives a much quieter life in the Chicago area
with her husband and four sons and continues to build
Petite Plume. Channeling her fearless energy into her business has
clearly worked as the company continues to grow. Be sure
to check out all of their amazing and adorable pajamas
at petit dash plume dot com, and you can stay
(30:24):
up to date with Emily on Instagram at Emily Hacati.
Talk to you next week. Thanks for listening to this
episode of She Pivots. If you made it this far,
you're a true pivot so thanks for being part of
this community. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and if
you did leave us a rating, please be nice.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Tell your friends about us.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
To learn more about our guests, follow us on Instagram
at she pivots the Podcast, or sign up for our
newsletter where you can get exclusive behind the scenes content,
or on our website she pivots the Podcast talk to
You Next Week special thanks to the she pivots team,
Executive producer Emily eda Velosik, Associate producer and social media
(31:07):
connoisseur Hannah Cousins, Research director Christine Dickinson, Events and Logistics
coordinator Madeline Snovak, and audio editor and mixer Nina pollock
I endorse che Pivots
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