James Rhee: Big P Leadership

James Rhee’s first day on the job was a shock to the system in more ways than one. James was the new CEO of the distressed US retailer Ashley Stewart serving plus-sized Black women – entering for the first time its drab head office on an industrial park in New Jersey.

No mahogany board table. No wifi even.

The firm had been losing money for twenty years.

It was a far cry from the milieu of James’ investment firm FirePine Group in Back Bay, Boston, which he had co-founded some years earlier.

Driven by a sense of wanting to apply his skill set in a meaningful way, James had persuaded a small group of investors to back his attempt to turn around Ashley Stewart’s fortunes.

His first act?

With the firm’s managers assembled, James – without knowing quite why – got out a ‘crappy laptop and speakers’ and played The Beatles’ ‘Here Comes the Sun‘. And so the journey began.

James’ story is not one of financial jiggery-pokery, or even operational excellence per se. It’s one of kindness.

A kindness that was embodied by the company’s battered refrigerator. It wasn’t part of the benefits programme. No one was assigned to manage it. But the women in the office had been quietly stocking it with food and feeding each other.

It was, as James put it, emblematic of the company’s system of care. A system that had kept the business alive.

This humble fridge became a defining metaphor for James’ seven-year tenure at the firm. 

The systemic, people-first approach resonates with our approach, so I’m delighted to tell this story, which I had the privilege of hearing first-hand in my conversation with him on the Being Human podcast late last year.

Leadership begins with presence

Having broken the ice with a Beatles classic, James had some bridges to build. And he wasn’t going to be able to do that through a shared background.

James was a Harvard-educated Korean-American man with no retail experience and, by his own admission, no fashion sense, leading a brand built by and for Black women.

His tool for connection was his ability to listen.

And his ability to get a handle on the business didn’t come from his financial background. In fact, he was able to look beyond the numbers, the broken processes and the ageing systems.

Instead, he tuned in to the culture of community building: the fridge, the friendships, the daily acts of dignity and care.

Big P vs Little p Product

James made a powerful distinction early on. The company thought its product was fashion—the “little p” product. But what customers were really coming for was something else: community, celebration, identity.

That was the Big P Product.

This shift in perspective guided his transformation of the business. Marketing, operations, leadership—all were reoriented around the Big P, the real value being created: relationship.

Kindness as a Strategic Asset

Reminiscent of Bob Chapman‘s focus on care, for James, kindness wasn’t soft. It was operational. He defines it as “an investment in someone’s agency”—their capacity to choose, contribute and grow.

James didn’t micromanage. He trusted people. And because they were trusted, they took ownership. They became stewards of the brand, not just employees. Profitability was a by-product of this trust. Those closest to the needs of each store were able to make the appropriate decisions to drive revenue and reduce costs.

This echoes what we’ve found in all the accountability cultures we’ve encountered. Genuine accountability isn’t enforced—you don’t need to. People naturally want to step up as leaders when they feel trusted. And the ground for this is created through connection, straightforward communication, and a clear, compelling, shared vision.

Rewriting the Balance Sheet

James needed to find a way to have these critical assets of kindness, trust and connection recognised.

Conventional accounting couldn’t explain Ashley Stewart’s position.

Though the company appeared bankrupt on paper, it held immense latent value in its community relationships and loyal customer base—what James calls “social capital”.

So James reimagined the balance sheet.

James introduces the metaphor of a lemonade stand, to retrain how we think about assets and liabilities. He encourages leaders to swap accounting for maths, using plain old cash as the truest proxy for value. Rather than using accounting abstractions like EBITDA or net income, he advocates tracking real cash in and cash out – lemons paid for, lemonade sold – and pairing that with long-term indicators like actuarial data (e.g. insurance claims, worker’s comp incidents), as well as unspoken liabilities, like burnout, exhaustion, and cultural disconnection to assess the health of an organisation’s culture.

As he put it on our podcast:

As far as I can tell, most companies are still comprised of human beings, and most companies still provide a service to human beings… So why wouldn’t I measure that?

Systems Thinking: Loops, Not Lines

Rather than drive a linear turnaround, James conceived his mission as one of designing loops:

• Kindness leading to trust
• Trust leading to agency
• Agency leading to results
• Results reinforcing belief
• Belief sustaining momentum

These reinforcing loops were far more powerful than any top-down directive. They made for a thriving business from the inside out.

And again, the soul of the system was the community created around each Ashley Stewart venue with each store manager accountable for the overall health of their store.

Leadership as Counterpoint

Perhaps the most compelling idea of my conversation with James was his use of a musical simile.

James likens leadership to music. Specifically, counterpoint: two melodies played at once, creating a third. Think “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” when sung rounds, with each voice entering at a different time, and the overlapping lines creating a new harmony.

James’ melody was different from the women at Ashley Stewart. But when they played together—when both voices were heard—a third, richer sound emerged.

A sound that saved the business.