Gloria C. Hartley
President, Black Retail Action Group; Assistant Professor, Fashion Merchandising, Fashion Institute of Technology; President, CIDDA Inc. • New York, N.Y.
Gloria Hartley’s 30 years in the apparel industry covers management positions in sales, marketing, manufacturing, product development and retailing; private consulting to a client list that includes the U.S. and foreign governments and trade associations, private business organizations and manufacturers wishing to tap the U.S. market; and presentations at myriad domestic and international conferences and academic institutions. Hartley holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in psychology and education, respectively, from Fordham University, and certificates in real estate from New York University and in management through Bloomingdales’ executive programs.
An assistant professor and former coordinator of the international trade and marketing program at the world-renowned Fashion Institute of Technology with a citation in the 2004 edition of Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers, Hartley has also taught at the Parsons School of Design and at Brooklyn Technical College. She is former president of Minorities in International Trade and has served on the boards and commissions of several industry and educational groups. She has also volunteered for 11 years at Holy Trinity Soup Kitchen and for eight years at the church’s homeless shelter.
Where does she find the energy and motivation to do so much? “My brother Gerald Hartley taught me that there’s nothing you can’t do if you give it 100 percent and you want it,” she says. From Tom Fenlon, a friend, she learned patience, compassion, humility and the unconditional love of God. J.J. Thomas, a mentor, “believed in me and was instrumental in providing me with an opportunity to gain employment at an executive level that exposed me to world travel and culture.”
Calling herself “an incurable romantic,” Hartley says her favorite quote is “Come be my love, grow old with me, the best is yet to be,” by Victorian poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Given the time and money, she would “grow orchids, study the Bible and meditate, exercise, pray and become a folk storyteller for young children” she says.
— C.B.
