Kalyn Ponti (KP) - CEO, Humankind
When I was seven, my brother Robb and I started our first “business” selling imperfect sheet cakes to cafés in Steveston, the small Canadian village where we grew up. We called ourselves Imperfectly Yours. We even had business cards, with the “Y” in Imperfectly printed crooked; an early branding lesson, I suppose.
Imperfectly Yours was one of many. "businesses" and we thought we were moguls. Although our dad did most of the heavy lifting, those early ventures set the tone: work hard, figure things out fast, and never expect handouts.
I was sixteen when I started at North American juggernaut, Aritzia. For context, Aritzia is Canada’s premier women’s fashion retailer - a brand $3B in revenue, known as much for its commercial success as its style. I began on the shop floor and left a decade later, at 27, as a Director on the Senior Leadership Team preparing for IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Go all in in your twenties. The pace of life only gets faster, so use those years to work hard, say yes often, and build good foundational skills and experience. Aritizia gave me a commercial foundation that most people don’t get until much later. It taught me how to run a large, complex business, develop people, and build a culture of excellence.
By 23, I was running a $70M region and later mentored by the founder and some incredible leaders who shaped my career. Aritzia had an energy I loved; they hired smart, ambitious university students for their stores, creating a pipeline of talent into head office roles. As I progressed through the company, I realised this was a reflection of the culture at the top. It was high-performance and full of driven and dynamic people, which suited me perfectly.
Aritizia shaped my belief that the most successful companies are both performance-obsessed and deeply human. Performance and humanity aren’t opposites; they’re interdependent. At one point, I became too fixated on numbers and learned the hard way that leading people well is a non-negotiable, no matter what is on the line; it’s what sustains high performance and long-term value. It’s these scars on my back and ultimately a lesson that still anchors my leadership today.
When I moved here, I was interviewing with Lululemon and Uber as those were the only two brands I recognised! In Canada, Aritzia is ubiquitous and opens all sorts of doors; in New Zealand, no one had heard of it. I remember being told in a job interview that I came across as “very confident” and that it might not translate well here. This came as a shock to someone who’d always led through hard work and humility.
Those early experiences taught me how to adapt without losing myself. Over time, I’ve settled into a leadership style our team describes as deeply performance-focused and deeply personal.
I led the David Jones New Zealand business for a short stint. It’s a beautiful brand, but it quickly made me realise how exceptional Aritzia was and that I needed to find or create that same culture of excellence here.
I immediately clicked with Sam, founder of Humankind; her vision, personal values and how Humankind was helping leaders lead such a fascinating range of businesses. I worked directly with clients then started helping Sam on the business. I moved to COO and we ended up kind of switching roles - I GM'd the business while she was out in the market.
Being the 2IC has its perks. I sometimes laugh thinking back to my days as an Assistant Manager at Aritzia or COO at Humankind. You get the credit when things go well, but someone to share the heat when they don’t. I’m joking… mostly!
I’m not sure there’s such a thing as a “traditional” path to CEO. I took the shop-floor-to-boardroom route. But I was young, and the learning curve was steep. Moving countries added another layer.
Sam asked me to be CEO three times before I said yes! We were dealing with a family health issue at the time, and things were working well as they were, but she was incredibly generous and persistent. Eventually I said yes and we've been running at full speed ever since. I guess I was around 33 by the time I officially stepped into the role.
The biggest shift from COO to CEO was the responsibility. I’ve always been fixated on performance, but in a small business that means carrying the well-being, salaries, and ultimately job security of people I care about a lot. It's balancing the yes and nos and the risk / reward to keep the whole system humming; customer experience, people experience, financial sustainability. Thankfully, I’m surrounded by a phenomenal team, but at the end of the day, the health of Humankind’s finances, brand, and people sits with me. That's the role!
A CEO’s role is to build the team. This is people who are both very good at what they do and ones that you can trust and have fun with. They shouldn't be the same as you, but they should be good, trustworthy, and fun! Like our team at Humankind!
I love helping New Zealand businesses achieve incredible things. And creating an environment at Humankind where our own team can be challenged professionally in a way that enhances their lives and the lives of their families.
I worked hard at Aritzia, but I was also lucky; lucky with timing, and lucky to be mentored by an exceptional calibre of leadership. That experience shaped me profoundly, both personally and professionally, and it’s why I’m obsessed with what we do at Humankind.
