Joanna Lord
Welcome to With Grace. This week, we feature Joanna Lord, Founder of Neon Palm. Joanna is a long-standing CMO of multi-billion dollar global businesses, including ClassPass, Spring Health, and Skyscanner. She’s an elite operator who continues to advise scaling companies, while also making a deliberate shift to build something personal. Fashion has been a constant alongside her career, studied closely, invested in, and returned to over time, before she decided to bet on herself and pursue it fully. Neon Palm reflects that decision: a women’s apparel brand built around everyday essentials for women who do it all, shaped by how women actually live, and by her willingness to be openly, unapologetically a beginner in a new craft. This is her first column since announcing the company. Her perspective: “Those things that light you up? They're not hobbies. They're not quirks. They might be the whole point. Let the whispers become screams. Then follow them.”
What’s a recent aha moment you’ve had?
I’m emerging from a really big year. I walked away from my role as CMO of a $2.5B healthtech company and decided - finally - to bet on myself. I've been working fractionally while launching my own company, NEON PALM, a women's apparel brand built around modern essentials for women who do it all.
I say all of that because the last year has been full of aha moments - ones that had honestly been simmering for decades. But one keeps rising to the top: that thing you've always loved is probably supposed to be a much bigger part of your life. Fashion. I have loved it, studied it, worshiped it for as long as I can remember. And for just as long, I dismissed it, because somewhere along the way, someone convinced me it was silly. So instead, I stayed adjacent. I advised. I invested. I spent late nights reading about other women who had the guts to build something in consumer or fashion, and I quietly, secretly wished that it was me. That was the aha. Not just that the things we love are actually our hearts trying to guide us home, but that sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is burn down every single "you should be" and finally, ruthlessly, focus on the "I want to be." Life is too short and too precious to spend it performing someone else's version of you. Those things that light you up? They're not hobbies. They're not quirks. They might be the whole point. Let the whispers become screams. Then follow them.
What’s a recent challenge you’ve tackled?
Honestly? I'm in a season that is deeply, uncomfortably outside my comfort zone - so take your pick, because I'm currently tackling about a half dozen big ones, ha. But the most present challenge right now is diving headfirst into the world of apparel production and development, and being the newbie for the first time in a long time. I hadn't fully appreciated how long it had been since I'd learned something entirely from scratch. The last decade of my career has been about building on a strong foundation, and mostly about deepening, broadening and sharpening. I've been the person with the answers. And now? I'm the person ChatGPT-ing basic definitions and making cold calls to industry veterans just hoping they'll spare me the 101 conversation. That's humbling in a way I didn't totally see coming. The real challenge isn't the learning curve itself; it’s embracing the Day 1 mentality. Being openly, unapologetically a beginner. Asking for help, then more help, then a little more after that. Absorbing everything while simultaneously feeling completely overwhelmed by it. Some days I end up exhausted, thoroughly humbled, and wondering what exactly I've gotten myself into. And honestly? I'm here for every bit of it.
What’s a trend in consumer behavior that excites you right now?
The push toward essential, intentional living, and I don't think we're anywhere near the peak of it. I've been obsessed with health and wellness my entire life. Dating back to my days as CMO of ClassPass, I could see it coming: the moment consumers would stop treating wellness as a category and start treating it as a way of life. That moment is now. People are stripping out what's depleting them (the plastics, the refined sugars, the noise) and deliberately replacing it with what actually fills them up. Meditation rituals. Simple luxuries. Things that are fewer, better, and more intentional. And candidly? This is exactly why I'm building NEON PALM right now. I believe there is a massive product-timing fit sitting right on top of this shift. Consumer behavior is moving fast from "be surrounded by more and buy all the things" to "cut through the noise and invest in essentials I can actually count on." And women, especially, are driving this. Women are exhausted by the cognitive load of modern life, and for the first time, they are loudly, unapologetically demanding better. Putting themselves first. Choosing quality over quantity and meaning over marketing. That is the most exciting consumer behavior I've seen in my career. The brands that win in this next era won't be the ones screaming the loudest. They'll be the ones that see women fully - their whole, complicated, beautiful lives and make those lives a little simpler, a little more elevated, and a lot more joyful. That's the opportunity. And it's a big one.
What’s a key quality or trait you believe is essential for leaders?
Two words: kindness and courage. And I mean both, because too much of either one will take you off course. Kindness in leadership isn't soft. It's actually one of the hardest things to do consistently. It means seeing your team deeply - not just what they produce, but what makes them them. Meeting people where they are. Letting them show up as their full selves without judgment, while still being honest, direct, and genuinely present for them. That last part is key. Kindness without honesty isn't kindness, it's just comfort. And courage? Courage is what makes the kindness mean something. It's making the hard call when everyone's hoping you won't. It's standing loudly and consistently for the right thing, even - especially - when it's inconvenient. It's holding the line on your values when the pressure is on to compromise them. And sometimes, courage means standing up to the wrong kind of leadership above you, even when that decision costs you something. Together, they define what I believe the job of a leader actually is: do what is right for the business while doing what is right for your team. That's it. That's the whole job. Your team is your business. Great leaders understand that. Bad leaders get it backwards; they put the business above the people who build it, and it never works out the way they think it will. Kindness and courage. You need both. Every single day.
What’s an inspiring book, podcast, or resource?
I love to read, so narrowing this down is genuinely tough, but if I had to point to the one book that most shifted my perspective, it's The Fire Starter Sessions by Danielle LaPorte. I read it over a decade ago, and I've gone back to it more times than I can count. It was well ahead of its time. At its core, the book is about creating success on your own terms, but what made it revolutionary was Danielle's central idea: stop chasing things and start chasing how you want to feel. That reframe hit me hard. At that point in my life, it was exactly the wake-up call I didn't know I needed - loud, clear, and impossible to ignore. Since then, I've bought this book for more people than I can remember - friends, colleagues, anyone navigating one of those big inflection moments where everything feels up for grabs. It always lands. And beyond the ideas, I just love her voice. She writes about deeply personal, high-stakes territory with this energy that's informal and motivational and completely her own. As a writer myself, I have a lot of respect for that. It's not easy to make the profound feel that accessible. Highly, highly recommend - especially if you're in a season of questioning what you actually want.
What’s a brand you admire right now, and why?
I could write pages on this, but for the sake of everyone's time, I'll go with Jones Road Beauty by Bobbi Brown. Jones Road is everything the traditional beauty industry isn't, and that's exactly the point. It rejects the decades-long push toward complicated routines, heavy glam, and an airbrushed standard of perfection and replaces all of it with something far more modern: ease, confidence, and real skin. It doesn't just sell makeup. It sells a feeling. You already look good. This just enhances it. I also love that it's led by a woman who already built and exited a billion-dollar brand, and chose to come back for a second chapter that's arguably more interesting than the first. The discipline it takes to do that, to build something intentionally smaller, tighter, and more focused, is not easy, and it shows in everything about the brand.
The point of view is razor-sharp. A tight edit of multi-use products. An aesthetic that is intentionally imperfect and human. An overall vibe that is quietly, confidently luxurious - almost "if you know, you know." It's not trying to be aspirational. It's trying to be relatable, which is so much harder and so much more powerful. At its core, Jones Road gives women permission to do less and still feel like their best, most confident selves. And as someone building NEON PALM around that exact same belief - that simplicity is the real luxury and it is a constant source of inspiration. I just adore everything it stands for.
What’s the best advice you’ve received, personally and professionally?
I've been lucky enough to have great mentors, coaches, and some genuinely exceptional bosses over the years. I love feedback especially the kind that's delivered with the real intention of moving you forward, not just making someone feel better for giving it. The best professional advice I ever received was this: "Sometimes the room isn't ready to hear what needs to be said." I know that might sound counterintuitive - especially with all the Founders Mode noise out there, which I'll be honest, I strongly disagree with for a number of reasons. But what this advice is really about is leading with emotional intelligence. It's about reading the room - understanding where people are, how they're feeling, what can land right now, what needs to be said differently, in a different setting, or maybe not at all. When one of my old bosses said this to me, it genuinely shifted something. Up until that point, I was on a tear. Running hard, saying exactly what I thought, at the exact moment I thought it - all in the spirit of intellectual honesty and relentlessness, two things high-growth companies absolutely need. But what I couldn't yet see was that I was sometimes showing up in a way that wasn't actually serving anyone. Here's what that advice taught me: the more senior you are, the more in service you are. Not the other way around. The room doesn't show up to serve the leader, the leader shows up to move the room forward. And a lot of founders, CEOs, and leaders get that completely backwards. It's become a pillar of how I lead and operate. And I'm genuinely grateful that someone cared enough to tell me, clearly and directly, how poorly I was showing up sometimes. You can't grow without that kind of honesty. You can't change what you can't see. That advice let me finally see it.
How can someone make you extremely happy?
I love this question because honestly, as a type-A, overachieving, high-performing woman, I have spent most of my career asking the opposite. How can I make that person happy? I think almost all of us have. And god, is it exhausting. It wasn't until I met my husband about seven years ago, and then had my daughter four years ago, that I really started asking: what actually makes me happy? And how do I protect that, invest in it, and create more of it? What I found surprised me a little. The things that make me the happiest are the simplest ones. I grew up in Vermont. A lot of time with family and friends, outdoors, sitting on porches, just taking it all in. Slow and unhurried and completely present. And as it turns out, that's still exactly it. That's the whole formula. Good music in the background, maybe a fire going, and time with the people you love most. No agenda. No goals. Just being together, simply. When life gets chaotic (and it does, constantly) that's what I find myself craving. It refuels me in a way that carries me for a long time. And the older I get, the more I realize how rare it actually is: to still have people in your life you can be completely yourself with. People you can just laugh with, sit with, slow down with. That's it. That's the whole thing.
