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emily meyer, creative director and co-founder
Emily’s inspiration began at her childhood home in Texas, where the live oak trees created a dreamworld that spread as far as the eye could see. Growing up, her mother 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 at Parsons School of Design 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. Eventually she couldn’t resist her powerful vision of globally influenced and inspired clothing for children—and so began Tea. |
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leigh rawdon, ceo and 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. 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. Her friend Emily confided in Leigh about her dream for Tea and Leigh knew that was it—Tea was the big idea. |
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laura joukovski, vp of finance & operations:
Laura starts every day with “dobroye utro”. That means Good Morning in Russian. Laura is focused on raising her two little citizens of the world, Kate and Max, to embrace their Russian heritage. At the same time, Laura is focused on managing Tea to operate as efficiently and profitably as possible. She has been a strategy consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton and was most recently a Director of Finance at Levi Strauss. Laura has a CPA, an MBA from Yale, a BA in Economics from Davidson College. Now, Laura brings her extensive experience and perspective on the world to Tea Collection — for little citizens of the world. |
board of directors
And we wouldn’t be where we are without a tremendous board of directors. In addition to founders Emily Meyer and Leigh Rawdon, the board includes retail visionary Phil Schlein, lifestyle branding guru Hilary Billings, and apparel executive extraordinaire Roger Kase. |
