Meet Ronnie Lamb

We recently connected with Ronnie Lamb and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ronnie, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

My work ethic, I firmly believe, stems initially from my parents.
My mother and father were both deaf and grew up at a time when society didn’t know how to treat deaf people, unlike today where deaf people integrate into society much like anyone else.
I watched my parents having to struggle with people who could not communicate with them and of course the job market was not prepared for the likes of them and as a consequence they had to settle for relatively menial jobs.
My father was a shoemaker and my mother a seamstress.

Neither of my parents were born deaf and as deafness is usually hereditary this was not the case with my parents who had three sons all of whom could hear.
I was born in 1947 when the deaf community was largely isolated so watching my parents cope with the hearing world and the silent world showed me how characteristics like resilience, persistence and patience were essential.
These characteristics served me well at school and at work, my good fortune continued, and I had a succession of mentors who passed their invaluable knowledge down to me.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

My professional career began at Crombie who arguably made the best quality fabrics in cashmere and wool and were, luckily for me, a vertical processor.
They sent me on a three-year journey around each of the departments at the factory beginning with the sorting of the raw fibres and ending with the finishing processes of the famous Crombie cloth.

I ended up as Managing Director of Crombie before being head hunted to join a family-owned company, Amicale. in 1989, where I ran the operations side.
Their offices were based in Manhattan and their factories were located in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, again they were a vertical operation, so I learned so much about cashmere and camel hair processing.
In the year that I joined them they were invited by the Government of Mongolia to establish a joint venture company in Mongolia for processing camel hair and cashmere.
I was asked if I would build this factory, including the installation and commissioning of all the equipment, which I happily did.
I spent nearly 20 years in and out of Mongolia and was invited to be the of CEO of Gobi Cashmere that was originally state owned. I was approached by the Mongolian and Japanese investors who bought it to run it for them, I then went on to establish Blue Sky, another cashmere, company in Mongolia on behalf of a Russian banker.

My work ethic also enabled me to do development work in the field of cashmere for many of the government and donor agencies including USAID, European Union, EBRD, DCA, ADB (Dutch Aid), SDC (Swiss government) GTZ (German government) in the likes of Afghanistan and Mongolia.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

First, and foremost, is an intimate knowledge and appreciation of cashmere fibres, principally because of the cost of the cashmere. The customer is paying a heavy premium for a cashmere garment and is therefore entitled to expect the best.
Second would be technical proficiency, knowing the properties of cashmere in terms of quality is fundamental when sourcing the fibre but knowing the process techniques that convert these fibres into a luxury garment is absolutely essential.
The third quality, sustainable and ethical production, has become a necessary one particularly over the last few years as the consumer has become more environmentally conscious. This undoubtedly enhances the reputation of a brand especially if it meets all of the compliance standards that are demanded by the market.

Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?

You have to focus on your strengths, what ever they may be, sourcing, design, production, marketing, story telling or social media, in order to establish your brand on the market place, your strengths are effectively your brand’s USP.
However, you must be alert to any weaknesses or vulnerabilities that may manifest themselves, supply chain security, outside interference like the Trump tariffs, fiscal control, customer service, outdated or redundant operating systems.
The best example of vulnerability is the Trump tariffs especially on China where most brands source their cashmere from.
It therefore becomes necessary to move outside of your comfort zone and seek alternative sources of supply in countries where there is skills base and are not subject to the high tariffs imposed by Trump on China.

Contact Info:

• Linkedin: Ronnie Lamb also the Afghan Cashmere Project

Image Credits

Martin Middlebrook