When seasoned brand marketer Karen Riley-Grant was offered the opportunity to join the growing athleisure brand Vuori last year as chief marketing officer, she was excited by the opportunity to build a lasting brand.
“It was a perfect opportunity to take my experience that I’ve had in other roles and be part of creating something new,” says Riley-Grant, “and work alongside the founder to bring his vision and values to life and amplify them in a way that’s really emotionally relevant to our consumer, but also fuels long term brand health.”
Vuori turned 10 this spring. Founded in 2015 by Joe Kudla (still the company’s fit model), Vuori was on a mission to bring high quality men’s athletic wear inspired by the coastal nature in its home town Encinitas, CA to the marketplace. Since then, the brand has expanded into women’s and has become a household name with products in major retailers like Nordstrom and its own retail stores across the country. They are currently expanding into China and the UK.
As the brand continues to expand internationally, Riley-Grant is tasked with transforming the brand into a category leader and defining the next chapter of the brand. Her approach is fueled by balancing great products with strong values, shifting from a performance focus to brand.
“In the last 10 years, we’ve really been fueled by performance marketing, which has been really key to help get the name of the brand out there and get it into the hands of our consumers, but now we are really focused on building the brand, bringing the brand story to life,” explains Riley-Grant.
Brand Innovators caught up with Riley-Grant from her office in San Diego to talk about brand building and how her experience at iconic brands like Levi’s and Converse are helping in her new mission. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How are you bringing the brand to life?
Our three core values really fuel us – making great products, being in great relationships and living extraordinary lives. That transcends the actual product that we make. We are finding stories, whether it’s through our partners or even Joe’s story. The idea is bringing content to the world that has a bit more depth and meaning and transcends products.
We are also building experiences. We use our stores as community hubs. We’ve got an exciting retail growth strategy. Our stores are incredibly important for us, but also allow us that opportunity to connect with consumers beyond a Meta ad and beyond a transaction. We use our stores as community hubs. We do classes. We have V1 leaders that are a group of health and wellness experts across the country and world now as we scale globally. That’s an incredible opportunity to bring humans together in the community and connect on something that is beyond our product.
What is your retail strategy?
Our retail strategy is DTC-fueled. E-commerce still will continue to be an incredibly important part of our commercial business. It’s been the bread and butter of our organization. But stores bring that dimension to our retail experience. Our store staff is incredible with those human interactions, creating spaces that really can also embody the aesthetic of our brand.
We’re based in Southern California, so the sense of optimism and levity and light spirit is really present in our stores. We are translating those elements and materials, whether you’re in Shanghai or Regent Street in London. There are natural elements woven into the material of the store that just transport you back here to Encinitas. We look at every element so that we can deliver that aspirational Southern California space that is unique to our brand. As we scale globally, it is about making sure that we’ve got the perfect real estate location to connect with that consumer.
Can you talk about how you’re embracing digital channels and social first storytelling?
If you’re a digitally native brand, it is important to understand the role of social-first in content whether it’s a product launch or a brand story. In the old days, you had a TV spot that launched and that was it. You waited another six months until you launched another. Now the world is different. We move at a different pace. Social has provided us with an opportunity to connect on a very regular basis with a really rich dimensional content library across product and brand and values.
Every platform is a little different. What works in TikTok isn’t always going to work on Instagram and what works in WeChat and China is not what’s gonna work in the UK. It relies on a really smart marketing team that is on the cutting edge of what’s happening for us to be really clear what stories we’re bringing out into the world that matter. When do you tell a product story and when do you actually layer in something that is not about the product?
As much as we like to think that consumers are thinking about buying a product every single day, they are not. The onus is on us to really think about how we bring value to our consumer. How do we bring them inspiration? How do we use every bit of our full funnel and every bit of digital touch point that we have to tee up the right message at the right time to the right consumer that gets them engaged? It’s something that we obsess over.
Can you talk about, are you showing up in any cultural moments?
It’s a really big part of the marketing mix these days. But where do you show up? How do you drive that cultural saliency that’s so required? It starts with understanding where your consumer is and what makes sense. Not every cultural moment makes sense for every single brand. We spent a lot of time last year getting really clear about who we are and what makes sense for us. Where do we show up in moments of sport, which is so incredibly important for us as a performance apparel brand. We did a Super Bowl moment this year. But also where are those cultural moments that may not be sport-focused? We actually popped up in Sundance.
It was really around, where’s our consumer? Even though we’re a performance apparel brand, we’re not pigeonholed into just sport. We have the opportunity and the permission to be much more versatile. And then how do we show up in those moments whether it’s a consumer activation or it’s an influencer event or a really beautiful dinner at Indian Wells. It wasn’t a big takeover in the courts. It was an intimate dinner with industry leaders and our athletes and agents. There are different tiers and levels and very complicated activation strategies.
As we continue through 2025, firing on all cylinders and making sure that we’re showing up in the right places and having the right conversations and all back to creating deep connections with our consumer or our partners or industry leaders.
Tell me about how working at brands like Converse and Levi’s helped set you up for this role.
I always say this is like my everything, everywhere, all at once moment. You don’t realize at the moment until you fast forward. I’ve been doing this marketing thing for almost 30 years. And that moment where I had that meeting with All Star here or I was part of the challenger brands at Levi’s there has helped me understand how the machine ship can operate. Understanding what operational excellence looks like – to be part of a machine that has been in existence for 170 years like Chuck Taylor or be able to work with a product like 501 that’s been in existence for 150 years – is humbling. It gives you an understanding of how an operational engine should work, but also how to build a brand.
I’m a brand obsessed human. I have a very short amount of companies on my resume because I have to be an actual consumer of the product in order to market the product. I am literally wearing my Vuori top and a pair of 501 jeans right now. In addition to operational excellence, being part of those legacy companies helped me understand the journey brands go through. Having been part of Levi Strauss & Co. for 17 years of my career where their highs were high and the lows were low, I learned about not becoming untethered from your values, not trying to chase competition, not trying to be something that you’re not. There are moments where brands have this identity crisis and you go, hold on, every brand that’s had a reboot always goes back to their core values.
The companies I’ve been part of were all about the long game. I’m not looking at 10 to 20 years. My job is to help build this brand and be able to carry it across the line to the next generation of leaders.
How is economic uncertainty and tariffs impacting your business?
It’s an uncertain time. Consumers have tough purchasing decisions to make. How do we make sure that our consumer knows that an investment in Vuori is an investment for the future? Quality matters more now than ever before. Being able to make sure that we are listening to our consumers and understanding if there is a hesitancy, how can we help ensure we’ve got a happiness guarantee associated with our products.
Consumers are looking for what product is going to last to make sure their purchasing decision is a wise one. How do you make sure that they know about the quality and the craftsmanship and the commitment that we put into our products? How do I make sure that if I don’t like it, you’ve got a great return policy to satisfy the consumer that way.
At the end of the day, there’s a transaction or product and then there are brands that stand for values. That’s where we go back to our brand story. We have the opportunity to bring those values and brand purpose more to the front so the consumers can really connect with Vuori as a brand that aligns with their values.
