In Practice: Jess Eggert and the Art of Building What Lasts

On intuition, independence, and why the fundamentals still matter.

I first came across Jess Eggert through her Substack, Brand Person — one of those rare newsletters that immediately feels like you’re swapping notes with a peer who just gets it. Her writing cuts through the noise of brand discourse in the best way: clear-eyed, a little irreverent, and shaped by real experience building brands that people actually care about.

Jess’s career spans the kind of brands that don’t just ride trends but help set the tone for where culture moves — from the early DTC disruptors that redefined retail, to brands like Ghia that made it cool to care about non-alc before the category had a name. She’s built brands from the ground up, scaled them into retail giants, and helped teams sharpen their voice when the stakes were highest. But what stands out most isn’t just the brands she’s touched — it’s how she’s approached them: balancing intuition and analysis, creativity and commercial sense, care and ambition.

Today, Jess is forging her own path; it's a shift from being the force behind other people’s visions to creating space for her own — without losing the rigor and sharpness that got her here. She’s proof that brand building, at its best, isn’t about chasing the next big hack or trend. It’s about understanding what endures: a real product, a clear story, and the patience to build something that actually matters.

In this conversation, Jess reflects on how she landed here (spoiler: it wasn’t linear), the real rewiring that happens when you bet on yourself, and why the next era of brand building might be a return to craft, constraint, and care.

1. What’s the real story of how you got here? (Read: not the LinkedIn version)

I wanted to study performing arts in college. My parents urged me to consider journalism — “a perfect compromise”. In retrospect, I don’t know how they convinced me of that. I interned at Mashable out of college, which led to a full-time gig at Mic.com when millennial news startups were flush with VC cash. It was fun until the VC cash dried up and they had to lay everyone off in a fire sale to Bustle Digital Group.

A work friend who did branded content knew founders who were looking for a brand marketer to help launch their men’s skincare brand, and I became the first employee pre-launch. After a few years there, growing it from concept to award-winning DTC disruptor and at Target, Walmart, etc., I moved to LA to join Ghia as the first brand director. Our small but mighty team drove the brand through category-defining growth and threw a few really fun parties in the process (one of them a bake sale where I met my boyfriend — the ultimate meet-cute). Then came the opportunity to work with Sarah Hudson, whom I’d known and admired for years (she was one of Glossier’s first hires back in the day and is as sane as she is talented, a rare combo). She had joined GEM to lead a rebrand and needed a deputy. It was the first time I didn’t report directly to a founder, and I learned so much about leadership and managing up…in addition to what it takes to execute a full rebrand (a lot).

I’ve now been self-employed for the last several months, working with early and growth-stage founders and teams across brand strategy, GTM, and brand marketing. I launched my Substack, Brand Person, on a whim, through which I’ve met brilliant peers like Nikita.

Oh, and I’m building my own consumer goods brand, something I swore I’d never do…until I had an idea. After working hard full-time at startups for a decade, I’m doing me and having the most fun ever. I’m so grateful for all the experiences that led me here, and this experience for leading me to whatever’s next. But I’m learning to really enjoy the process.

2. What’s something that quietly rewired how you work?

This isn’t groundbreaking, but becoming self-employed — and SSRIs.

3. What’s a piece of media you’ve rewatched or reread an embarrassing number of times?

I don’t know if I’ve ever re-read anything…but when I do it will be Tina Brown’s memoir, The Vanity Fair Diaries. We’re reading Graydon Carter’s memoir now in my book club and it has big shoes to fill.

I’ve rewatched Mad Men, Sex and the City, Insecure and Girls several times each as ambient TV (I never claimed to be original). But most embarrassing is Ron Howard’s How The Grinch Stole Christmas starring Jim Carrey. I watch it every Christmas, and I have to exercise serious self-control to wait all year.

4. What’s an opinion or trend in the industry that makes you roll your eyes?

Any trend makes me roll my eyes — while I partake in them, of course.

On a serious note, the opinion that you can build a brand on trends, whether it’s a branding trend, social media trend or growth hack. The core tenets of building an enduring brand…endure. Sure, trends can add fuel to the fire. But there needs to be a fire. And that fire is an amazing product, product-market fit, uniquely resonant brand storytelling and sensible unit economics. On that note, I believe the consumer goods VC course-correction is healthy and overdue.

5. What’s a moment in your career that you felt totally in control? What about the opposite?

I feel in control right now, but I know that’s an illusion. I felt no control when my livelihood depended on burnout, but that was probably an illusion too.

6. What’s in your media diet right now that’s actually influencing your work?

I couldn’t even tell you because I’m consuming all day and my output is really just an amalgamation of that. But I read a lot of Substacks about brand, marketing, culture, fashion, etc. I read Puck. I skim Business of Fashion and The Times. I doomscroll on LinkedIn. I doomscroll on Instagram (my follow-to-follower ratio is embarrassing).

I force myself to doomscroll on TikTok. I’ve been loving The Studio. I’m going to see art this weekend because I need to peel myself away from the screen.

7. What’s a shift in tone, taste, or language that you think is coming—but hasn’t hit yet?

OK I feel like it’s kind of hitting already, but a course-correction on dupe culture. We’ve binged too hard on everything artificial, algorithmic etc. We’re craving real, tangible things with perspective, craftsmanship, quality, stories…make us feel something. I sound so pretentious, but it’s true.

A mentor of mine made an interesting point recently — reflecting on the early 90s, he said some of the most interesting brands are born out of a recession because building a billion-dollar business feels so impossible that people just focus on building cool shit. So there’s a silver lining I guess!

8. What’s something you wanted early in your career that doesn’t matter to you anymore?

To be a CMO.

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I hope you enjoyed meeting Jess Eggert. Catch up with her on LinkedIn.