Victoria’s Secret CEO rejected ‘woke-washing’ and endless sales cycles—and it’s paying off

One year ago, Victoria’s Secret was in free fall. Since spinning off from L Brands (now Bath & Body Works) in 2021, the stock had cratered from $57 to barely $20 a share on a good day. Once the arbiter of all things sexy, with diamond-encrusted bras and winged angels, Victoria’s Secret’s brand was being buried under all things unsexy: the founder’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein, an awkward marketing pivot seen as “woke-washing,” tariffs, and a board that couldn’t stop fighting. An activist investor was beginning to encircle the board, questioning, among other things, whether the new CEO, Hillary Super, could handle running a public company.On Tuesday, with nine days to go before shareholders voted on that board, Super delivered the verdict in its first-quarter earnings: $0.60 per share, nearly double what Wall Street expected. Net sales jumped 15% to $1.56 billion, topping guidance, and the company raised its full-year outlook by $120 million, well above street estimates. Then the stock nearly doubled its share price, hitting an all-time high of $80 per share. What was Super’s secret? She had to bring sexy back to everything, even the ticker, which is no longer VSCO but VSXY (“a marker of who we are today,” she wrote in an announcement). Balancing between risque and woke Every brand has had to keep up with the culture. But few have had the times come after them quite like Victoria’s Secret.Rigid beauty standards defined Victoria’s Secret in the peak of its mid-aughts glory, with girls watching rows of extra-small, tanned models at the annual fashion show. But as millennials came of age and embraced a new era of body positivity, Victoria’s Secret struggled to rebrand. Their attempts—including a splashy rollout of accomplished celebrity women advisors meant to promote female empowerment—were too on-the-nose, widely dismissed as “woke-washing.” They failed to win back the shoppers who had left, and didn’t attract younger ones either. Super has said th