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<\/a><\/p>\nRaised on a Canadian dairy farm, Kevin Thompson made his way to New York City as an educator charged with the insurmountable task of fixing a broken brand, the NYC Board of Education.<\/p>\n
Over the course of his career in education, high-end fashion and now luxury real estate, Thompson has discovered the common thread that connects everything \u2014 storytelling. And modern digital tools are giving Thompson a huge canvas upon which he can paint the Sotheby\u2019s International Realty story for a new slew of emerging consumers.<\/p>\n
BuzzBuzzNews: How did you go from being born on a Southern Ontario dairy farm to the Chief Marketing Officer for Sotheby\u2019s International, a company with a long history and significant prestige in the industry?<\/strong><\/p>\n Kevin Thompson: It\u2019s kind of an interesting journey. I was pursuing my Master\u2019s in Education at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and I was part of a program whose core mandate was about rewriting curriculum for inner-city schools. The idea was to take the old, dated curriculum and make it modern and appealing to make kids want to come to school.<\/p>\n I got recruited from that program by a Gates Foundation think tank and the New York City Board of Education to ambitiously come to NYC and solve the many problems facing the board. After my first year of teaching at one of the city\u2019s oldest schools in the South Bronx, I naively wrote a grant proposal to start a school, and it got approved. There were five of us and we started an arts magnet high school, offering introductory art, music and dance as the hook to get kids interested to show up to school.<\/p>\n At the same time I was working as a teacher, I had this idea that it would be cool if some of the fashion designers I was seeing overseas in places like Rome and Sienna in Italy were also being sold in NYC. I again rather naively picked up the phone and called one of these designers and basically said I want to help you sell your product in NYC, and they said okay. That was my transition from the Board of Education to retail and marketing, which was essentially me opening my own men\u2019s clothing shop in SoHo.<\/p>\n And that led to a role with Gucci, right after Tom Ford departed the company. They were looking for someone to help rebuild the business, a common theme in my story.<\/p>\n After being in high-end fashion for a few years, I was approached by Simon Property Group, which owns hundreds of shopping malls all over the world. And it was the same idea \u2014 how do we get people to come to our mall instead of shopping somewhere else? It presented a huge challenge, as right now there is just too much retail space. Some malls will have to close, but if you can create a brand that speaks to consumers in a way that they value, they\u2019re more likely to shop with you. Simon is a big company, and it was challenging because change is hard at big companies. Change takes time.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s how the opportunity at Sotheby\u2019s International came up. I wanted to work for a brand that wasn\u2019t trying to rebrand, relaunch or fix something. It was more about saying I want to go to a brand that has a great foundation and saying how do we hit the gas and move forward in exciting ways \u2014 and be open to that.<\/p>\n BBN: You came to New York City to work on branding for the Board of Education. How was the experience of working with the Board of Ed different or even the same as something seemingly as polar opposite as a luxury brand like Gucci?<\/strong><\/p>\n KT: Both Gucci and the Board of Ed are mammoth-sized organizations. The Board of Ed was a real challenge because it was just so broken. You\u2019re trying to shift culture. I was with Gucci when I realized the value was in the storytelling.<\/p>\n It\u2019s really been about figuring out how to create new messaging around a brand, and get people to show up. It\u2019s a common thread of what I\u2019ve done since leaving university, whether it\u2019s getting kids to show up to school or sell someone a home.<\/p>\n It all centers around brand lifestyle, and what the brand means to you as a consumer. I am fascinated with the psychology of brands and understand the role they play in people\u2019s lives. When you look at the impact of some brands, they\u2019ve changed how people live on a day to day basis. Some brands have the power to do that.<\/p>\n