SCH's Founders and Leaders Series Hosts URBN Tech Chief Dave Hayne

SCH board member and parent Dave Hayne P’31, P’33, the chief technology officer of URBN (Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Free People) and the visionary president of Nuuly, spoke to Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) students as part of its Founders and Leaders Series on Thursday, November 13. His talk, “Finding the Innovative Edge at URBN,” offered a deep dive into how he and his team launched and scaled the successful clothing rental and resale brand, Nuuly, by applying startup principles within a large corporate structure.

Hayne, who started with URBN in 2001 and has overseen its digital transformation for decades, highlighted the concept of “intrapreneurship”—building a distinct, focused team within the larger organization. This approach allowed Nuuly to leverage URBN’s considerable assets—like its large customer database, deep design talent, expert shared service teams (tech, logistics, talent), and investment capital—while maintaining the agility of a new venture.

“This talk was especially useful for our CEL students pursuing retail or subscription ventures, but even more importantly, it offered a powerful blueprint for intrapreneurship, showing every student that even in big business, startup agility is an important skill,” said Ed Glassman, executive director of CEL.

The concept for Nuuly began in 2017 following extensive market research. Hayne and his team identified a changing consumer mindset—a desire for variety, newness, and the ability to try higher-end products without the commitment of purchase. Customers also valued sustainability and flexibility.

“You have to be comfortable cannibalizing your own business; we could do it, or someone else could do it,” Hayne noted on the strategic decision to disrupt URBN's existing brands.

The team chose to “build” Nuuly internally, securing complete control over its investment and growth path and focused on building a comprehensive team dedicated solely to the new brand—covering everything from merchandising and marketing to a complex logistics infrastructure for cleaning and inspection.

Looking ahead, Hayne touched upon the integration of technology, particularly AI. He explained how AI is being used in "greenfield" projects to speed up coding and is now actively used for concepting new merchandise, to shrink the concept-to-customer timeline to as little as 4 weeks.

He also offered his advice, speaking with many students after his talk, including CEL student Ayana Banks ’26.

“I was able to talk to Mr. Hayne about my venture, The Sweet Dream Project, and what it takes to become a corporate social responsibility partner with a larger company like his,” she said. “He also taught us about URBN and all the clothing brands under it, which really inspired me. Hearing how those companies are interconnected made me want to build a parent company someday, basically an entire ecosystem of brands and ventures that support each other.”