People

Our people are the soul of our company, the heart of our brand. We are warm, inspired, global and exuberant (not to mention incredibly talented). We dive in to every day at Tea. We really do go there too, everyone at Tea receives an annual allowance to use toward international travel—to help each of us experience the world and bring it home. Even when we're here, we're going there too, on our bikes, on foot, by train—curiously exploring our own neighborhoods every day.

Come inside and meet Emily and Leigh, our co-founders. And while you're here, come along with us behind the scenes.

Emily Meyer Chief Creative Officer & Co-founder

With a globe-hopping grandmother and a mother who taught French and Spanish, a future filled with cultural inspiration and fashion was inescapable. Emily's inspiration began at her childhood home in Texas, where the live oak trees spread as far as the eye could see. Emily started sewing when she was 3 years old. Growing up, her mom introduced Emily and her sister to the languages, arts and cultures around the world. To follow her love of fashion, Emily left Texas to study fashion design at Parsons in New York. After spending a year living in Paris, she returned to New York to design menswear for top designers Ralph Lauren, Perry Ellis and Alexander Julian. Lured to San Francisco by love, she spent days and nights designing childrenswear at Gymboree and Esprit.

Recognizing this inspired me to design children's clothes that would be both familiar and worldly.

When her niece, Olivia, was born in Europe, Emily saw that she would undoubtedly absorb other cultures' aesthetics as part of her own family's daily life. She realized the world was a "shrinking globe," where everyone could access other cultures and places without actually traveling to them. She adds, "Recognizing this inspired me to design children's clothes that would be both familiar and worldly." So began Tea, "for little citizens of the world." And now Olivia is 10 with two new cousins—Emily's own little citizens of the world (ages 1 and 3)!

Leigh Rawdon CEO & Co-founder

Leigh's dad taught her to spell entrepreneur when she was in second grade. She was always recruiting her neighborhood friends for door-to-door bake sales or an afternoon of playing shopkeeper. In high school, she had her first business license to sell balloons for parties. After studying English at Davidson College, she returned to the business world but quickly realized she couldn't work for someone else.

At parties, I'd end up talking to Emily in the corner about her idea for a children's clothing company inspired by cultural traditions around the world.

While attending Harvard Business School, she continued to search for the big idea. It didn't arrive until she had moved to San Francisco to work in Silicon Valley. Leigh got to know Emily socially through their husbands' friendship. "Emily and I could talk for hours—over coffee, at parties—about her idea for a children's clothing company inspired by cultural traditions around the world. The mission of making the foreign familiar and the importance of bringing the world into the home and family resonated with me, and my priorities in life." The idea was right for both of them. Nearly ten years later, the business is going strong with their leadership, ranked on the Inc Magazine list of fastest growing private companies five years in a row. Leigh's passion for entrepreneurship continues at Stanford's business school where she is a lecturer, teaching a new generation of aspiring consumer and retail entrepreneurs. But her favorite start-ups of all are her two sons (ages 3 and 5).