Designing a better approach to life:

Melissa Shin Mash, co-founder of Dagne Dover came up with the idea for Dagne Dover while leading the turn-around at Coach’s first UK/EU location in 2009, where she saw the opportunity for a culturally-relevant, digitally-native bag brand that paired performance materials with smart design.

Today, Melissa is always thinking about ways to live smarter and better – through the products and services we use – to the workplace policies that push our society forward. Melissa and her co-founders are passionate about setting a new standard of leadership, company culture, and workplace norms in hopes of creating a better society. She is a graduate of New York University (BA) and The Wharton School of Business (MBA), where she net her co-founders. 

This conversation included:

• Identifying the market gap for Dagne Dover as a brand that offers fashion and function

• Business school as a ‘breeding ground’ for ideas and where she found her co-founders

• Prioritizing meaningful innovation over simply producing more ‘stuff’

• Retail physical store as community hub and testing ground

• Setting a new standard for leadership, company culture, and workplace norms.

• The reality of being an entrepreneur vs. the trend toward glorification of founders

Melissa was professionally jealous of Melissa Waller, founder of Beyond Yoga for being a lovely, amazing person, who also just sold her business to Levis after boot-strapping for 18 years.