By Suzanne Kapner

A month before Hillary Super started her job as chief executive of Victoria's Secret last year, she joined a town hall meeting by video to introduce herself. "I'm an introvert," she told employees. "I am a little bit reserved and quiet by nature, and I don't want anyone to interpret that as me being aloof or unapproachable."

An introvert feels like a surprising choice to lead a brand known for its ultrasexy image that was on the wrong side in the cultural upheaval of the #MeToo movement and was tainted by its former leader Les Wexner, who was a friend and business associate of Jeffrey Epstein.

Victoria's Secret pivoted in 2019 by tapping the brakes on seduction -- and even canceled its iconic fashion show. Instead, it went for comfort to woo a new generation of younger shoppers who were tossing out their underwire bras for bralettes and embracing body diversity. The effort, spearheaded by former CEO Martin Waters, initially boosted sales and profits but then stalled out. Waters exited in August 2024 and Super was hired.

Super's answer is to try to find a middle ground, while facing down activist investors. She's retooling the fashion show and introducing new products that she says put a modern spin on sexy. A new underwire bra, for example, is encased in fabric to make it more comfortable.

Super, who knew she was an introvert from a young age, says the trait is her superpower. It means that she thinks things through before responding. She prefers face-to-face meetings so she can tune into body language. When she is in her office -- at the company's corporate headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, or New York City -- she rarely uses emails and instead tracks people down in person.

"I do more listening than talking, I ask a lot of probing questions and I try to give my opinion last," said Super, who is 53 years old, during a recent interview.

As a child in Arcadia, Calif., a suburb northeast of Los Angeles, Super spent much of her time alone, reading, drawing and painting. "I was inside my head," she said. She grew up in a loving but strict home with a younger sister.

Her mom was a homemaker and her dad started out selling Playtex bras and worked his way up to CEO of a commercial printing company. Her mom taught her that small things matter. "She would put special notes in my lunch box," she said. From her dad, who died in 2007, she learned how to hustle, and also the importance of building relationships and being true to your word.

At 15, she got a job at a local retailer -- Sweats & Surf, a now defunct mall chain that sold teens brightly colored sweats, swimsuits and boardshorts. The stores had a wall of sweatpants in rainbow hues.

"I got very good at folding," Super said. "I liked observing what makes someone like something or not like something."

Super wanted to go to art school to study figure painting, but her dad insisted she enroll at a traditional four-year college. At the University of Southern California, the natural redhead dyed her hair pink as an act of defiance. When she realized her dad would flip out if she showed up at home during a break with pink hair, she enlisted the help of her grandmother, who tried unsuccessfully to bleach it out.

She majored in humanities with a focus on women and men in society and planned to go to graduate school to become a professor.

Her trajectory changed when the father of a college friend, who was president of Mervyn's, a now-closed chain that at the time was owned by Target, suggested she join the company's executive-training program.

She enrolled and learned the financial side of merchandise buying -- how many units to purchase and how to allocate products across a store fleet.

When Super was around 22, she got extra piercings in her ears. Her dad didn't approve of the bohemian look. He asked her if that was the style of an executive, his way of telling her to dress for the role she wanted. Super, who was close to her dad despite their differences, eventually let all but one of the extra piercings close up. "He was so right about so many things," she said.

She joined Gap in 2003 as a merchandise manager and oversaw women's knits and accessories among other roles. Super also met her wife, Michele Sizemore, at Gap. The couple married in 2017 and don't have any children. Sizemore still works at Gap as head of global product development.

Super joined American Eagle Outfitters in 2007 as a general merchandise manager and got in the habit of counting how many people she saw wearing American Eagle jeans at the airport, Starbucks or wherever. "I'm always looking for patterns," she said.

She joined Anthropologie in 2017 and rose to become CEO. Her next stop was Rihanna's lingerie brand, Savage X Fenty, where she was CEO for just over a year.

In 2021, former parent L Brands changed its name to Bath & Body Works and spun off Victoria's Secret into a separate publicly traded company.

When Super joined Victoria's Secret in September 2024, the company, which also sells sleepwear and beauty products and owns PINK, a brand geared toward college-age women, she inherited a mess. Sales had fallen for more than two years and it was facing new competitors like Kim Kardashian's Skims brand and ThirdLove, which succeeded in the way that Victoria's Secret hadn't -- by pitching itself as body-positive and selling a wider range of sizes.

Her predecessor's strategy to tone down the sex appeal at Victoria's Secret was a mistake, Super said. "Decisions were made out of fear," she said of the previous leadership. The company was trying too hard not to offend anyone and the brand "got a bit watered down."

"At the time I took over, Victoria's Secret was regarded as inappropriate and off-color and we had to correct those mistakes," Waters said. "Now, times have changed and I support what Hillary is doing."

In addition, the company's research indicated that shoppers wanted more comfort at lower prices, and Victoria's Secret started focusing on those attributes in its advertising. That, Super said, was another mistake. "Comfort and value are table stakes," Super said. "What makes someone say, 'I need to try that,' is an emotional connection. That is what has been missing."

Before she had a chance to make many changes, two activist investors pounced -- BBRC International, an investment firm founded by Australian billionaire Brett Blundy and Barington Capital Group. Around the same time, Victoria's Secret was hit with a cyberattack that forced it to shut its website for three days.

Victoria's Secret remains a huge brand with $6.2 billion in annual sales and more than 1,370 stores worldwide. It sells two bras every second, according to the company.

Super has been adding more "bra fit specialists" to stores. The company recently launched the FlexFactor, a bra with an underwire that is encased in fabric to make it more cushioned against the skin. It's also rolling out new products under its "Very Sexy" line that have more bling, including double-push up bras with more padding to provide extra volume and lift. "It's unapologetically sexy," Super says of the new line.

Super's efforts are inching in the right direction. Sales have increased in all but one quarter since she took the helm. In the most recent period, which ended Aug. 2, they rose 3%.

The stock is down roughly 35% since Victoria's Secret became an independent company in July 2021, but is up nearly 8% since Super became CEO.

The fashion show returned last year for the first time since 2018 but with a new ethos.

Transgender models and models of different ages, ethnicities and body sizes walked the runway along with traditional Angels -- supermodels with giant wings attached to their backs.

Super said there will be new updates for this year's show, which will air Oct. 15, but declined to elaborate. "What is a modern Angel?" she said. "Does it have to be a supermodel? We are having those debates."

Write to Suzanne Kapner at suzanne.kapner@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 19, 2025 05:30 ET (09:30 GMT)

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