Future-proof and fashion forward: how Daniel Ervér is evolving H&M Group

Well, it's a pleasure to welcome Jack Simpson to the studio for The Entrepreneurs.

Jack-

Thanks, Tom

Uh, thanks for joining me on the program.

This is a first.

It is a first.

It's unprecedented.

A Monocle first.

Very exciting.

And speaking of excitement, you've been on your travels.

We shipped you off with your little case up to Stockholm.

[chuckles]

Tell me, what was on your agenda?

Well, I went to go meet Daniel.

That's, uh, Daniel Ervér to you.

He's the H&M Group CEO.

You know, well, he's managing about twenty billion euros across H&M and COS, Weekday, Arket, and the like.

And we went to go speak to him just and learn a little bit more about what H&M are doing in terms of rebranding and sustainability, and it was an, it was an interesting day out.

So up in Stockholm, you went to the headquarters, and it's interesting, you did-- you obviously spent some time with Daniel, but you met a few of his colleagues as well, and it's interesting, this sustainability angle, it's really baked into the H&M sort of raison d'être.

We know that it comes from the sort of founding owning family-

Yep

... still.

The sort of winds have changed direction a little bit, haven't they, in big retail? Ah, it must be interesting how he wrestles with that because whilst they talk a good game and deliver [chuckles] indeed-

Yeah

... on sustainability, obviously, they're under a lot of pressure, and they're doing a high volume, massive scale enterprise.