Polyvore's Jess Lee: 'You Don't Have To Be Like Everyone Else To Succeed'

It’s 6am on a sunny Thursday autumn morning in Sydney, and despite the early start, Polyvore's CEO and co-founder Jess Lee is in good spirits.

In town to officially launch the fashion networking website into the Australian market in partnership with Yahoo7, Lee has agreed to participate in an exclusive fashion shoot alongside her colleague, Polyvore’s COO, Arnie Gullov-Singh.

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As the morning warms up and caffeine kicks in, the Silicon Valley techpreneurs chat easily with the crew while they’re snapped wearing several Australian designer looks. Switching between Ellery, Christopher Esber and Dion Lee, Lee tries out several Aussie euphemisms while Gullov-Singh – in MJ Bale – entertains by cracking jokes left and right. Admittedly Gullov-Singh has previous modelling experience, (“I suited up for GQ in 1995,” he tells us, laughing).

In person, Lee can only be described as the definition of ‘girl boss’. She comes across as approachable, friendly and good-humoured – traits you may not expect from a tech CEO. It’s clear the down-to-earth tech mogul hasn’t succumbed to the pressure of being in the top seat. This is why she’s the boss at Polyvore: she cares about the consumer, and she wants to empower them to hone their own style.

Since launching in 2007, Polyvore has rapidly expanded on a global scale. Last last year the business was acquired by Yahoo! and has quickly grown to become one of the most on-trend, fashion-forward tech companies on the web.

As one of the few female CEOs in Silicon Valley (89 per cent are male according to a 2014 study), Lee – who started her career at Google – believes it’s vital for women in tech to have role models they can trust and turn to if needed.

“I think it’s a necessity in this business,” she tells Yahoo7 Lifestyle.

“You need to find women who you feel a connection to, or are interested in following in a similar career path. Just being near them and observing or watching their behaviour can benefit your own growth.”

For Lee, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, is that person. When Lee was at a crossroads studying computer science at Stanford university, it was Mayer who offered her the advice she now lives by.

“I ended up interviewing for the associate manager program at Google with Marissa,” Lee explains. “I was still in college. I didn’t know how to interview properly so I just told her: ‘I don’t know if I want this job. I was thinking of being a software engineer, what should I do?’.

“She said ‘look, when I reflect on the decisions that I’ve made in the past, when I had to choose between two paths, I always tried to pick the more challenging route, because even if I failed, I knew that I would grow and I would learn.’”

This premise propelled Lee to make the leap from an internationally established company [Google] to Polyvore, then a start-up business just finding its feet. As a passionate Polyvore user, Lee emailed the team in 2008 with a detailed list of suggestions on how to improve the website.

Her two-page long document immediately sparked their interest and led to an invite to meet the Polyvore founders and discuss her ideas. That move later shaped the entire company and her career – and she’s never looked back.

“It’s crazy to be [in Australia] now going global. It feels very surreal,” Lee says on site at our photo shoot. “This is our first global market launch and I’m really excited about it.”

A self-confessed introvert and “comic book geek”, Lee admits she typically shies away from the spotlight – though the crew agrees she’s a natural on set. But Lee concedes she’s usually much happier for people on her team to get exposure, rather than be in front of the camera herself.

“I think one thing about introverts is that we don’t like the limelight as much – so as a leader I try to thrust my team into the spotlight instead,” she says.

“It’s a great opportunity for them as well, as opposed to working for an extrovert who wants all the spotlight.”

Lee brings up last month’s issue of US Vogue, in which she features alongside models Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid, shot by Mario Testino. While she was happy to appear in the high profile piece, she also describes it as “surreal” to have been included at all.

“They [Kendall and Gigi] came in for five minutes and I just sat there like what do I do?” Lee laughs. “Then they flipped their hair and did their thing and I was like a piece of furniture in the background. I’m not a model, what am I doing in the editorial with a bunch of models? The piece was about them coming to Silicon Valley and hitting up a bunch of tech companies. To be alongside supermodels is one thing – and then to be alongside other big tech companies – it was just a real honour.”

Though Lee definitely has a style of her own, (“minimalist and monochrome”) she concedes that she errs more on the tech side of things at Polyvore. She doesn’t go to fashion week, instead choosing to send community members to report from the front row as a way of thanking them.

“I’m not the world’s most stylish and influential person and I’m not supposed to be – the whole point of Polyvore is that it’s about what the community thinks and I’m just another member,” she explains. “So I have actually not been as deep in to the fashion industry because I’m so ingrained on the tech side.”

Despite the sentiment, Lee admits a few Australian designers have her attention.

“I love Quay sunglasses,” she says. “They’ve really blown up on Polyvore and Instagram. I now own four pairs! I also have my eye on Nicholas and Dion Lee – I really like their aesthetics.”

Later on in a boardroom meeting at Yahoo7, a passionate Lee lights up doing a live Polyvore set demonstration. She switches easily between talking shoes with editors to coding with the Product teams.

She’s fascinating to listen to: a wealth of knowledge, ideas and enthusiasm.

“What we want to do is empower the next generation of influencers, but it doesn’t have be one perspective on style, it’s many diverse perspectives on style,” she says. “They can be from anywhere around the world.”

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With this in mind, Lee jets off to yet another meeting.

Next stop? World domination.

Photographer: Rene Vaile (Union)
Hair and makeup: Kelly Tapp (Union)
Stylist: Megha Kapoor (Company 1)
Models: Jess Lee and Arnie Gullov-Singh
Editor: Mel Cornford

Shot on location at Pier One, Sydney.