In Conversation with Chad Burkart

Tell us about your background:

I'm the founder of Gold Haven Consulting, a retail consulting firm I launched this year to help emerging brands navigate financial forecasting, inventory strategy, and revenue operations through strategic partnerships and collaborations. My approach draws on more than 20 years in retail, starting on the sales floor with brands like Aeropostale, Eddie Bauer, and, most formatively, J.Crew.

I spent 10 years at J.Crew, where I learned the front-line realities of retail: how to build genuine relationships, what real customer service looks like, and how decisions made far upstream ripple down to store employees and the customer experience. As a personal stylist in Los Angeles, I built a book of business exceeding $1.2M, managing wardrobe, events, and client cultivation from the ground up.

I then moved to San Francisco for my first corporate role, in merchandise operations at Restoration Hardware. Being there during RH's 2016 customer service crisis taught me how upstream complications cascade into stores, and gave me empathy for why leadership sometimes makes calls that aren't fully understood by front-line teams or by anyone without the full picture.

In 2016, I joined Williams-Sonoma, where I spent more than nine years in inventory strategy across Pottery Barn Teen, PB Kids, and Pottery Barn. I led multiple product categories through a run of strategic challenges: competitor store closures, sustainability overhauls of entire product lines, team relocations, and the supply chain disruptions of Covid, port strikes, and tariffs.

While at Williams-Sonoma, I got involved with the company's charity partnership with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, starting simply by helping associates make tax-free holiday donations. That grew into founding the Williams-Sonoma National Walk team across corporate and distribution locations, which raised a combined $360,000. I also led the San Francisco corporate walk team and built a national kickoff call that drew 500 associates, in person and over Zoom.

Today, I continue that partnership as a member of St. Jude's Executive Area Advisor Council for San Francisco. St. Jude is also Gold Haven's charity partner: we've committed our time and at least 1% of all revenue to their mission.

Outside of work, I'm a Cape Cod native who's happiest at the beach, and I spend my free time on the golf course.

What do you wish you’d known when you started out?

What I wish I'd known when I started out is that progress only happens when you challenge yourself and do the hard things. It's okay not to have everything figured out, waiting for the perfect plan will hold you back more than moving without one ever will. What matters is finding the footing to start and letting the doing teach you what planning alone never could.

Best career advice you've ever received?

The best career advice I ever received was from Mickey, about assortment planning: you can never have too much cheese and pepperoni pizza, protect what your customers already love, and expand around what makes you different. The second came from my dad: relationships are the business, good business means doing right by your customer while standing firmly behind the value you bring.

What has been the biggest challenge in your career so far?

I would say leaving my role at Williams-Sonoma to build my own consulting firm has been the biggest challenge of my career. Nothing prepares you for how hard it is to run your own business — to be accountable for yourself alone, with no playbook to follow, just learning to listen to what the market is telling you and finding your story along the way. But every challenge has pushed me to grow in ways a corporate role never could, and watching Gold Haven take shape on my own terms, one relationship and one project at a time, has made the uncertainty worth it.

What are your top networking tips for building strong connections in your industry?

One of my biggest networking tips is to come from a place of generosity and curiosity. We're all figuring out our own path, and a little kindness offering to help before you need anything in return goes further than most people realize.

My second tip is to think of yourself as a connector, not just a networker. This industry, especially within the same city, is smaller and more connected than it seems, so you never know where a single conversation might lead. The real opportunity isn't just what a connection can do for you, it's learning to spot how you can connect two people in your network who'd benefit from knowing each other.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadwburkart/

Website: goldhavenconsulting.net

Instagram: @goldhavenconsulting