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Victoria's Secret announced a blowout. All nine directors were re-elected. Independent Chair Donna James back with 83% of votes cast. The company called it a "decisive statement of support." Read the fine print, and a different story shows up.

Start with that 83%. The press release leads with a bigger number: over 99% support for James, excluding votes cast by BBRC. Stop and think about what that phrasing means. You only carve one shareholder out of the math when that shareholder owns enough stock to move the result. BBRC, the Brett Blundy vehicle that has been circling this company since 2025, dragged James from 99% to 83% by itself. That is not a fringe holder throwing a tantrum. That is a large, motivated owner the board cannot vote away.

Now the part the headline buries. BBRC's proxy fight targeted two directors: James, for sitting too long, and Mariam Naficy, over the Adore Me acquisition and capital allocation. Naficy wasn't on the ballot. She decided not to stand for re-election, and the company is now searching to replace her. So before a single vote was tabulated, Blundy already had one of his two targets off the board. He didn't win the vote on Naficy. He didn't need to. She left.

That reframes the whole "decisive" narrative. The activist asked for two heads, got one without a contest, and lost the other by a margin that still required excluding his own block to look clean. Call that a defeat if you want. I'd call it a down payment.

Here's the tell that should worry the board more than the vote count. Blundy voted against every nominee except CEO Hillary Super. He went out of his way, in writing, to say Super is building a new Victoria's Secret and deserves a board built for her. An activist who endorses your CEO while knocking off your directors isn't trying to blow the company up. He's trying to reshape who sits around the CEO. That's a more patient game, and a harder one to defend against, because the board can't rally the protect-management coalition when the agitator is on management's side.

The 2025 poison pill tells you the board sees the threat clearly. You don't adopt a pill against a holder you think is going away.

So what actually happened on June 11? The company kept its slate, minus the one director the activist wanted gone. It logged a real win on James. And it handed Blundy proof that he can force change without winning a vote, while holding a stake big enough to bend the percentages and a CEO he's publicly backing. The numbers say the board won. The structure says BBRC is still in the building, and now it has a template.

Premium retail boards watching this should take one lesson. The modern activist doesn't need 50% if he owns enough, likes your CEO, and can wait. Victoria's Secret won the vote. Convince me it won the war.

Here is the question nobody asks before they sign the migration contract: Are we actually going to invest in design?

"Do we care about design?" is a useless question. Everyone says they care about design. The real question is whether the organization will put budget, decision rights, and leadership attention behind a brand experience that earns attention. Or whether you'll take all the flexibility Shopify hands you and build another website that looks like everyone else's.

Be honest about where we are. The era when being different with your eCommerce experience produced real business results, the headless-architecture, custom-everything, bleeding-edge front-end era, is mostly over for most brands. Conversion wins on UX best practices and consumer familiarity now. Ideally, for Shopify's sake, on that big purple Shop Pay button.

Customers are bored and savvy. Best practices are table stakes, not a moat. What actually separates you is storytelling, merchandising, and brand identity. So the real question isn't whether your tech is impressive. It's whether your setup enables that work or gets in the way.

Walk any of these keynotes, and you'll come away thinking Shopify fixes your

The Big Green Bag of Promise: Enterprise Shopify Webinar Series, sponsored by Avalara, Domaine, and Pattern, is designed to answer those questions rather than duck them.

So if you're weighing a move, stuck mid-migration, or already living with the decision and wondering whether you got the full story going in, register and show up. Bring your skepticism. We'll bring answers, and we won't pretend the thorns aren't there.

Elara Verret is Chief Digital and Customer Officer at Reitman's — 400 stores across Canada, 3 brands, real omnichannel complexity. She is 3 weeks post-launch.

Isaac Newton is the Co-Founder of Pattern, acquired by Domaine, a design-driven digital commerce agency helping brands rethink how their digital experience actually performs.

These webinars are not sponsored by Shopify but contain real talk by operators.

Register for the final webinar- if you can’t attend, we will send you a copy to watch on demand.

Date: June 18, 2026

Time: 12:30 PM ET

Host: Rick Watson