Hard work and a little fortune fuels Tracey Travis’ career

Imagine a woman sipping a Pepsi as she drives her Cadillac to the Victoria’s Secret Angels fashion show, sporting Ralph Lauren clothes and perfect Estée Lauder makeup. That woman just might be the personification of Tracey Travis’ career.

“I’ve enjoyed every place that I’ve worked, and they’ve all been very different experiences,” says Travis. “I have been very fortunate throughout my career in mostly consumer product companies, and I credit that, to a large degree, to the education that I received at Pitt.”

Travis (ENGR ’83) grew up in Rochester, New York, where, in a hint of the career to come, she was surrounded by Fortune 500 companies such as Xerox and General Motors (GM). By the age of 16, she was interning at Eastman Kodak. 

Having skipped a grade in elementary school, Travis arrived at Pitt just a year later to study industrial engineering. Despite her youth, she saw a clear road ahead.

“I loved the idea of process improvement and efficiency, and that’s what industrial engineering is all about,” Travis says. “Pitt had a progressive industrial engineering program, rich with computer simulation opportunities and professors who were experts in operations research. I even took an artificial intelligence class back then.” 

After graduating from Pitt, she landed a job at one of those hometown companies — GM. It was the first step in a career that put her in contact with iconic brands just when they were catching the world’s attention. 

While at GM, Travis earned her MBA and rose through the ranks to end up in the international product programs group. At the time, she was the only female engineer in her department, the only person of color and the youngest person by about 15 years.

“I was always very conscious of needing to be very, very good and very knowledgeable at what I did because, in some of the countries where I was representing General Motors, they weren’t used to dealing with women in business negotiations,” Travis says. “I always viewed that as an opportunity to really represent what a woman and a person of color was capable of. I took that responsibility very seriously and made sure I was extremely well prepared for meetings.”

In 1989, Travis moved to Pepsi as it was establishing itself as “the choice of a new generation.” The cola wars were intense, and Pepsi was diversifying into non-carbonated beverages, sports drinks and water in search of a greater “share of stomach.” It was at Pepsi that Travis moved from finance to strategy and eventually into a general management position. 

Her accomplishments drew the attention of Limited Brands, which wanted Travis to be the CFO of intimate brands, which included Bath and Body Works and Victoria’s Secret. The stores were mainstays in malls across America and were nearly as defining as Pepsi for the energy-packed generation coming of age in the 1990s. 

“It was 2001, and both chains were delivering strong returns on invested capital,” Travis says. “That was when Victoria’s Secret was at its peak with the Angels fashion shows.”

That led to a position at Ralph Lauren, where she served as chief financial officer with responsibilities for global finance, information technology and more. Travis helped the company move from being an American brand to a global icon — including its first contract to design the official apparel for the U.S. Olympic team.

For the past 13 years, Travis has expanded her international reach as executive vice president and chief financial officer of The Estée Lauder Companies. She will retire later this year, and she has spent time looking back on her impressive career and giving back to the place where it all started—the University of Pittsburgh.

She served on Pitt’s Board of Trustees from 2010 to 2015 and has been making financial contributions for nearly two decades. She recently created the Tracey T. Travis Endowed Scholarship in the Swanson School of Engineering. 

“I have been focused for some time on both the opportunity to and the responsibility of giving back,” Travis says. “The real benefit for me will be to see the students who receive the scholarship, and the ability for them to get their degree and have rewarding careers, as I have had.”

As she heads into retirement, Travis still has plenty to keep her busy. She serves on boards of multiple corporations and a long list of nonprofits, including Lincoln Center Theater in New York.

And, as for her career personified, Travis no longer hangs out with the Angels, but she says when she drinks a soda, it has to be Pepsi.