If anyone knows about successfully making a career pivot it’s Layla-Joy Williams.
Williams had worked in the fashion industry for 23 years, designing shoes for Michael Kors, Stuart Weitzman and other major brands before eventually branching off to start her own shoe company, IYLIA. Business was good and life was busy.
But then, the Covid-19 pandemic happened.
Williams was in Europe in February 2020 for an industry show, to spend time at the factories where her shoes were made and to visit her then-boyfriend. “Then Covid exploded…and the whole world shut down,” she recounted. Williams decided to stay in Spain for what she thought would be a few weeks.
It soon became clear that there was no longer a market for luxury shoes as people around the world hunkered down in their houses for the unforeseeable future.
Williams asked her boyfriend, who is from Spain, to take her to some of the breweries and wineries nearby where they lived. She had always wanted to start an alcohol company, but had previously thought that business idea was years away.
Flash forward to today, and you’ll find Williams’ wine, IYLIA, in 80 retail locations in the United States and online at ReserveBar. In addition, one dollar from each bottle sold goes to charity. Currently IYLIA is partnered with DeliverFund, which is focused on ending human trafficking.
"You just start putting one foot in front of the other and everything just, you know, comes together,” said Williams, who still lives in Spain. During the pandemic she married her then-boyfriend and became a first-time mom at the age of 43.
Williams recently chatted with Know Your Value about her career pivot, the biggest challenges she has faced as a woman in business, juggling motherhood and more.
Below is the interview, which has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Know Your Value: Talk about a career pivot! So have you entirely left the shoe business behind for the alcohol industry?
Williams: Yes and no … I feel really fortunate because I was able to pivot seamlessly. But design and fashion are in my blood and I plan on bringing back that extension of the business maybe in two or three years from now. But right now, retail sales are weak in fashion. You know, people are really just suffering [economically]. People aren't going out like they used to. So it would be crazy to continue to manufacture footwear at this point until things start to stabilize globally. But it’s funny … I've drawn so much satisfaction from building this beverage collection, and all of those creative things that you use in one field, you can utilize them in other industries.
Know Your Value: Was it scary to leave the shoe business behind?
Williams: It was totally scary … I just thought it would happen maybe in five years from now and I'd add [the beverage business] as an extension to the brand. But it was kind of situational.
You know, I was sitting here at home. Nobody could really leave … And so it was an opportunity for me to put my energy into a new project. It really kind of saved me in a way, because I don't know what I would've done if had I had gone back to the United States and waited out everything ….
Know Your Value: What’s your advice to women who are thinking about making a career pivot?
Williams: … I don't think I'm built for doing things that I'm just not passionate about. And I feel like life is too short and tomorrow's never promised. And that's what I believe the pandemic really showed us. You know, who would've thought in 2019, as strong as 2019 was for everybody financially … a couple months later, we would've been in the middle of a global pandemic?
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I always think to myself as I get older that you only have one life. You’ve really gotta make sure that you're being true to yourself and you're doing something that makes you happy and fulfills you. And even if you can't step into it a 100 percent, if you're making strides towards it, I think there's no better way to live.
So just go for it … One of the things that I thought, even as a child, was that I never want to look back and wonder, “What if?” or “I could have,” or “Why didn’t I?”
I really wanted to make sure that I at least give it a shot, put my toe in the water. The worst that could happen is you fail, but at least you tried and you learned something.
Know Your Value: What was the biggest challenge during your career pivot?
Williams: … As a woman, and a woman of color, it’s often a challenge doing business here. I'll be honest. For the eight years I've been working here, I've always had to hire – and this is gonna sound really funny and odd – but I’ve had to hire a white man to get work done for me in the facilities that I'm working with.
That’s actually how I met my husband. Cut to the summer of 2019, and I was here in Spain trying to work with a facility, and it was taking weeks and weeks and weeks. And I'm sitting here, and the guy who's supposed to be the agent putting this relationship together with the factory, is just inappropriate, flirting, asking me out, you know. So I'm trying to just wait the time out so I can get what I need done, because at the end of the day, it's about business.
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But it got to the point where it was just untenable. So I called my friend, who was actually an old boss of mine … I was like, listen, I'm having a problem. She's like, “You need to go in there and deal with them.” I was staying in an Airbnb in another city and I called the gentleman who owned the apartment. I said, “Listen, do you have any friends? And preferably a man that I can take with me to the factory so that I can get stuff done?”
Long story short, I end up hiring a translator to help me move things along. But it wasn't until he got into that situation that I was able to move things along. And this has happened on numerous occasions.
It's an enormous challenge … because it's like suddenly you're not seen [the same as] women in New York. And yes, it's important for you to stand up [for yourself]. It’s drilled into you to speak up, sit at the table, the whole bit. But when you're dealing with different cultures, some things just don't work.
I'm still in charge. I'm still the boss, but sometimes I have to put a layer in between and that's just the truth.
Know Your Value: Has that been discouraging?
Williams: It's disappointing, but it's not discouraging. At the end of the day it's my company and whatever I need to do to get the end result done I'm going to do, and I’m not going change anybody's culture.
So you gotta kind of play the game, figure out how to maneuver the game, make the game work for you. Does it piss me off sometimes? Oh yes. But what are you gonna do? I could either fight with these guys and it could never happen. Or I could be smart about it - as women are - and maneuver my way to the end result quickly.
Know Your Value: What’s the worst and best business advice you've ever received?
Williams: The worst business advice I've ever received was from somebody that I've known for a very long time, someone I really care about, who really cares for me and really wanted to protect me.
I had my first shoe business with partners, and then it didn’t work out. So then, I started the business on my own with the prompting of my attorney. But my friend told me, “Layla, you really need to partner with the people that you're working with currently. It’s better. You’ll protect yourself.” But partnerships more often than not, don't work out. And it very quickly turned into a disaster because I was going in this direction, they were going in another direction.
So you've got to be really careful with partnerships and you have to make sure that you know who you're partnering with.
The good advice is to just keep going. Being in business is not the [hardest] work. It's dealing with people. People are a challenge …
Know Your Value: You had a baby at the age of 43. How has motherhood changed your perspective in terms of running a business?
Williams: When I was living in New York for many years, I thought that when I had a baby, I would just hand that baby to the nanny and I'm gonna go off. [Looking back], that’s just ludicrous.
And then you're pregnant and then you have the baby. It’s funny, my doctor here was like, “OK, I'm just gonna prepare you, because I think you're gonna be one of those people who's not gonna want anybody near the baby.” And I wasn't quite like that, but I was pretty close. Suddenly, you want the baby with you all the time. And it's changed me in so many ways, but more than anything, it's given so much more dimension to my life.
… I'm so grateful that I waited to have a baby, because I didn't have the presence of mind when I was younger. I was flying all over the place. I would've missed the best part of this, which is just seeing her grow … I'm so grateful that I'm in a place in my life and in my career that I can spend time with her and still do what I'm doing. I feel really fortunate.