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Kate Swanson: the ‘Consciously Creative’ lawyer with a messy cupboard

Kate Swanson is a lawyer, and in her more recent history, an entrepreneur, as the Founder and CEO of ENSEMBL, a design-forward, modern housewares brand that has disrupted its category and received accolades from the likes of Architectural Digest. With her strong business acumen and background in corporate law, Kate literally bootstrapped ENSEMBL from concept to launch.

Before launching her own company, Kate worked as legal counsel and head of policy at FAIR Canada, an organization dedicated to protecting minority investor rights and addressing corporate governance matters of public interest; she also worked for a leading global law firm. Kate’s legal experience advising on both transactional and governance matters helped prepare her for her jump to entrepreneurship. The Brand is Female’s Eva Hartling spoke to Kate about her journey from advocacy, to entrepreneurship, and how she merges the experiences for ‘conscious creativity’.

Let’s take a step back in time for a moment. When you were growing up, what did you think you’d be doing as a career later in life?

Oh my gosh, that’s such a fun question to start out with. I did not think that I would be running a luxury home goods company! When I was really young, I think my first kind of dream job that I had was that I wanted to be a fashion designer. I used to love watching Jeanne Becker and Fashion Television, and so for a long time that was my dream. I think as I got a little bit older, my dreams became a bit more practical and I wanted to be a lawyer, which is ultimately what I ended up pursuing in terms of school.

You started a career in law, and I can see the connection between wanting to be a fashion designer and what you’re doing today. There is a very creative element that’s involved in your brand, so that’s not completely disconnected. So tell me about that first chapter in your career where you were working in law.
I went to law school in Toronto, and when I finished school, I started working with a large international law firm doing corporate and securities law. Honestly, law is such an interesting degree to have and such an interesting profession to pursue. I think a lot of times people get pigeonholed, and are told that lawyers only know how to be lawyers, but I really think that a law degree and the practice of law is this incredible opportunity to gain an in-depth understanding of anything and everything. You are trained how to read complex documents, how to make sense of incredibly complex texts, and then put a plan in motion and move forward with it. And that’s a lot of what day-to-day lawyering is. But it’s also what a lot of day-to-day entrepreneurship is as well. So while the two are, I would say pretty far apart in terms of career paths, I think the foundation for both of those are quite similar.
What was the inspiration behind starting ENSEMBL six years ago?

When I was starting out I definitely didn’t have a moment where I sat down and thought ‘I think I wanna start my own business’. I had a moment where I had come home from a really long day at work and wanted to make myself dinner and I went to open my cupboard and all of the lids came crashing down, and it was just like a really awful moment after a really long day where I thought this is not what I want to be dealing with while trying to take one pot out. And I thought, products shouldn’t be designed this way, and I sat there in my kitchen looking at it, looking at the way that all of my pots were stacked, looking at my cupboard and going, this is a, this is a design problem that we’re faced with here. These are products that are made for people that live in large suburban homes, people that have tons of storage space, and I’m living in a condo in the middle of the city and I don’t have that much additional space.

At the outset, the start of ENSEMBL was really just me trying to solve my own problem, which was how could I create cookware that could fit into my cupboard? Something that could be, you know, beautiful, sleek, and multifunctional.

How hard was it to launch a brand, to find the right supplier and get them to do exactly what you were trying to create?
It was very hard, there’s no way to sugarcoat it, it’s been extraordinarily challenging. At ENSEMBL, we created something that literally didn’t exist. We’re not taking somebody else’s cookware that they’ve manufactured and putting our logo on it. Everything about our product has been custom built from the ground up. I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve done, but at the same time it was incredibly difficult. I mean, especially as a woman by myself calling manufacturers saying ‘hey, I have this idea that I wanna make cookware with a removable handle’, and they would ask ‘what is the operating capacity of your factory? Do you work with outside clients?’ Many would say that they were not interested in innovating, not interested in working with outside parties. So it took a long time to find a manufacturer that was excited about innovating and that wanted to take a chance on us in order to create something.
After you finally got the product going and found the right manufacturers to work with, how was it, or what kind of feedback did you get when you first went to market with the new product?
At the time, we had rendered images of the product, so the vision of what we wanted to make, but they weren’t photos of the actual product that we had created because we hadn’t built it yet. So we took pre-orders and we sold an astonishing number of sets to people all around the world. It was a really exciting time to do all of that. And we thought, okay, we’ve got demand. And then Covid hit, we were midway through our first production and the world changed. We produce the majority of our products in China, and our factories were closed during those first few months of Covid. That was a really scary time. There was a ton of uncertainty because we didn’t know what was going to happen.
What kind of a network do you rely on? Are there partners or advisors that you can go to to help stay sane and for advice?
I’ve been really fortunate to have a core group of trusted advisors and investors that I can turn to for advice. They’re really great when I have questions, when I’m in general uncertain about a situation or how we should proceed. They’re people that I can go to. I also always find it really helpful to bounce ideas off of other founder friends. I think it’s sometimes comforting even though they might be a founder in a completely different industry working on projects that have nothing to do with what ENSEMBL is doing, it’s comforting to know that they also face the same kind of hurdles and the same kind of adversity in their business. And it’s nice to be able to get advice from them so I don’t feel like I’m alone.
What are the core values for you at ENSEMBL, what are the principles that really matter for the brand?
I think one of the most important pillars is this concept of “conscious creation”, and that’s a term that we’ve coined and we were trying to think of ways to touch on everything that we hoped to do as a brand. From making our products, to working with our investors, to working with our team, and dealing with our customers.
So what’s next for ENSEMBL? What’s on the agenda for 2023?
I am most excited about diversifying our sales channels, and that’s kind of a nerdy answer to your question! I think there is a lot of really cool work to be done for us as a brand, I’m in partnership with or working alongside incredible architects and interior designers, and I’m really excited about some of those partnerships that we have in the works and what that will look like for the company. I am also itching to get started on some new products, and so I hope that 2023 is going to be the year that we can pull the trigger on those and start to bring some more innovation into the kitchen and the home more broadly, because I think there are poorly designed products throughout our house, not just limited to the kitchen. I hope that ENSEMBL can be the brand to tackle this problem.

The Brand is Female Podcast, hosted by Eva Hartling, shares stories of women entrepreneurs, leaders and changemakers pushing boundaries in their industries. Every week, our guests share their businesses and life experiences to help and inspire other women.

 

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Kate Swanson: the ‘Consciously Creative’ lawyer with a messy cupboard

Kate Swanson is a lawyer, and in her more recent history, an entrepreneur, as the Founder and CEO of ENSEMBL, a design-forward, modern housewares brand that has disrupted its category and received accolades from the likes of Architectural Digest. With her strong business acumen and background in corporate law, Kate literally bootstrapped ENSEMBL from concept to launch.

Before launching her own company, Kate worked as legal counsel and head of policy at FAIR Canada, an organization dedicated to protecting minority investor rights and addressing corporate governance matters of public interest; she also worked for a leading global law firm. Kate’s legal experience advising on both transactional and governance matters helped prepare her for her jump to entrepreneurship. The Brand is Female’s Eva Hartling spoke to Kate about her journey from advocacy, to entrepreneurship, and how she merges the experiences for ‘conscious creativity’.

Let’s take a step back in time for a moment. When you were growing up, what did you think you’d be doing as a career later in life?

Oh my gosh, that’s such a fun question to start out with. I did not think that I would be running a luxury home goods company! When I was really young, I think my first kind of dream job that I had was that I wanted to be a fashion designer. I used to love watching Jeanne Becker and Fashion Television, and so for a long time that was my dream. I think as I got a little bit older, my dreams became a bit more practical and I wanted to be a lawyer, which is ultimately what I ended up pursuing in terms of school.

You started a career in law, and I can see the connection between wanting to be a fashion designer and what you’re doing today. There is a very creative element that’s involved in your brand, so that’s not completely disconnected. So tell me about that first chapter in your career where you were working in law.
I went to law school in Toronto, and when I finished school, I started working with a large international law firm doing corporate and securities law. Honestly, law is such an interesting degree to have and such an interesting profession to pursue. I think a lot of times people get pigeonholed, and are told that lawyers only know how to be lawyers, but I really think that a law degree and the practice of law is this incredible opportunity to gain an in-depth understanding of anything and everything. You are trained how to read complex documents, how to make sense of incredibly complex texts, and then put a plan in motion and move forward with it. And that’s a lot of what day-to-day lawyering is. But it’s also what a lot of day-to-day entrepreneurship is as well. So while the two are, I would say pretty far apart in terms of career paths, I think the foundation for both of those are quite similar.
What was the inspiration behind starting ENSEMBL six years ago?

When I was starting out I definitely didn’t have a moment where I sat down and thought ‘I think I wanna start my own business’. I had a moment where I had come home from a really long day at work and wanted to make myself dinner and I went to open my cupboard and all of the lids came crashing down, and it was just like a really awful moment after a really long day where I thought this is not what I want to be dealing with while trying to take one pot out. And I thought, products shouldn’t be designed this way, and I sat there in my kitchen looking at it, looking at the way that all of my pots were stacked, looking at my cupboard and going, this is a, this is a design problem that we’re faced with here. These are products that are made for people that live in large suburban homes, people that have tons of storage space, and I’m living in a condo in the middle of the city and I don’t have that much additional space.

At the outset, the start of ENSEMBL was really just me trying to solve my own problem, which was how could I create cookware that could fit into my cupboard? Something that could be, you know, beautiful, sleek, and multifunctional.

How hard was it to launch a brand, to find the right supplier and get them to do exactly what you were trying to create?
It was very hard, there’s no way to sugarcoat it, it’s been extraordinarily challenging. At ENSEMBL, we created something that literally didn’t exist. We’re not taking somebody else’s cookware that they’ve manufactured and putting our logo on it. Everything about our product has been custom built from the ground up. I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve done, but at the same time it was incredibly difficult. I mean, especially as a woman by myself calling manufacturers saying ‘hey, I have this idea that I wanna make cookware with a removable handle’, and they would ask ‘what is the operating capacity of your factory? Do you work with outside clients?’ Many would say that they were not interested in innovating, not interested in working with outside parties. So it took a long time to find a manufacturer that was excited about innovating and that wanted to take a chance on us in order to create something.
After you finally got the product going and found the right manufacturers to work with, how was it, or what kind of feedback did you get when you first went to market with the new product?
At the time, we had rendered images of the product, so the vision of what we wanted to make, but they weren’t photos of the actual product that we had created because we hadn’t built it yet. So we took pre-orders and we sold an astonishing number of sets to people all around the world. It was a really exciting time to do all of that. And we thought, okay, we’ve got demand. And then Covid hit, we were midway through our first production and the world changed. We produce the majority of our products in China, and our factories were closed during those first few months of Covid. That was a really scary time. There was a ton of uncertainty because we didn’t know what was going to happen.
What kind of a network do you rely on? Are there partners or advisors that you can go to to help stay sane and for advice?
I’ve been really fortunate to have a core group of trusted advisors and investors that I can turn to for advice. They’re really great when I have questions, when I’m in general uncertain about a situation or how we should proceed. They’re people that I can go to. I also always find it really helpful to bounce ideas off of other founder friends. I think it’s sometimes comforting even though they might be a founder in a completely different industry working on projects that have nothing to do with what ENSEMBL is doing, it’s comforting to know that they also face the same kind of hurdles and the same kind of adversity in their business. And it’s nice to be able to get advice from them so I don’t feel like I’m alone.
What are the core values for you at ENSEMBL, what are the principles that really matter for the brand?
I think one of the most important pillars is this concept of “conscious creation”, and that’s a term that we’ve coined and we were trying to think of ways to touch on everything that we hoped to do as a brand. From making our products, to working with our investors, to working with our team, and dealing with our customers.
So what’s next for ENSEMBL? What’s on the agenda for 2023?
I am most excited about diversifying our sales channels, and that’s kind of a nerdy answer to your question! I think there is a lot of really cool work to be done for us as a brand, I’m in partnership with or working alongside incredible architects and interior designers, and I’m really excited about some of those partnerships that we have in the works and what that will look like for the company. I am also itching to get started on some new products, and so I hope that 2023 is going to be the year that we can pull the trigger on those and start to bring some more innovation into the kitchen and the home more broadly, because I think there are poorly designed products throughout our house, not just limited to the kitchen. I hope that ENSEMBL can be the brand to tackle this problem.

The Brand is Female Podcast, hosted by Eva Hartling, shares stories of women entrepreneurs, leaders and changemakers pushing boundaries in their industries. Every week, our guests share their businesses and life experiences to help and inspire other women.

 

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