“In, in the middle of the year, and there was some discussion of pulling the IPO. I was able to deliver numbers that gave Goldman confidence on that and that they could take us public successfully, which we did.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading:
filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard
(the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Lew Frankfort
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Frankfort: Sara Lee promised Coach freedom at $1 billion valuation
“There was a handshake between me and the CEO chairman of Sara Lee that if I could get them a billion dollars, they would give us our freedom.”
Lew FrankfortMay 22, 2026▶ 18:10Scaling Coach into a global icon (former CEO Lew Frankfort) | Masters of Scale
Disclosure
Frankfort posed as a BusinessWeek reporter to do diligence on Coach
“Where I pretended to be a Businessweek reporter and spoke to the buyer from Bloomingdale's, someone from Bonwit, someone from Macy's, and went into a handbag store on 72nd Street.”
Lew FrankfortMay 22, 2026▶ 9:24Scaling Coach into a global icon (former CEO Lew Frankfort) | Masters of Scale
AssertionNot publicly verifiable
Frankfort: Coach Madison Avenue store reached $10,000 per square foot
“We ultimately did 10,000 dollars a square foot in that space.”
Lew FrankfortMay 22, 2026▶ 15:01Scaling Coach into a global icon (former CEO Lew Frankfort) | Masters of Scale
Disclosure
Frankfort rushed Coach's IPO to keep upside away from Sara Lee
“And I wanted to get out as quickly as I could before the numbers grew so that The benefit would accrue to the coach shareholders, not to the Sarah Lee shareholders, right?”
Lew FrankfortMay 22, 2026▶ 19:14Scaling Coach into a global icon (former CEO Lew Frankfort) | Masters of Scale
Insight
Frankfort: Handbag loyalty stems from opening a personal vessel 50–60 times daily
“I learned that women are particularly loyal To bags. And why were they loyal? Because it's a very personal object. It's a vessel. They open 50, 60 times a day.”
Lew FrankfortMay 22, 2026▶ 10:16Scaling Coach into a global icon (former CEO Lew Frankfort) | Masters of Scale
AssertionSupported
Frankfort: Coach's Madison Avenue store did over $1M in year one
“And we did over a million dollars in year one.”
Lew FrankfortMay 22, 2026▶ 13:07Scaling Coach into a global icon (former CEO Lew Frankfort) | Masters of Scale
Made with StarZero
Turn any episode into a week of clips.
This entire site, about 200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable,
runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the
moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.
We use essential cookies to make the site work. With your permission we
also use analytics cookies (Google Analytics and Mixpanel) to understand
usage and improve StarZero. See our Cookie Policy.