Leah Kats is our Woman of the Week. Nominated as “a remarkable woman of faith, strength, and service,” she has lived not one, but two extraordinary lives. A devoted Orthodox Christian, Leah spent decades at the pinnacle of the global fashion industry, serving as President and Chair of a multinational fashion house. Today, in what she calls her second chapter, she has redirected her leadership, discipline, and vision toward something even more meaningful: service to faith and community.
She now oversees the daily operations of two major institutions devoted to preserving and supporting the Orthodox Christian faith. Focusing now on purpose rather than glamour, she approaches her role with the same excellence that once guided her through Paris, Milan, and London.
As always, we asked Leah to tell us how it all began.
“I’m a California girl,” Leah says. “My family was in manufacturing—women’s shoes, specifically. My father started the business, and I grew up inside it.” While studying marketing and advertising at USC, Leah’s father exposed her to the basics of business early. “When I was little, we’d go shopping together, and he’d ask me, ‘Would you wear this? Would you buy it?’ That was the beginning of my training.”
As the business grew, so did her responsibilities, from office management to invoicing, and from strategy to execution. “Working for my parents was effectively graduate school,” she explains. “I learned how to take theory and apply it in practice. And my father? He was the toughest and greatest professor.”
When he passed away in 2008, Leah stepped into his role. Years later, when her son joined the company after graduating from USC, she found herself on the other side of the lesson. “There’s a Greek saying: the student becomes the teacher. Life really is cyclical.”
Despite its glossy reputation, fashion was anything but easy. “People think it’s glamorous,” Leah laughs. “But it’s exhausting.” Fashion weeks meant flying from California to Europe and racing through London, Paris, and Milan in just days. “This isn’t The Devil Wears Prada. It’s a grueling schedule—constant pressure, no room to slow down.” Back home, the pace only intensified: product development, creative teams, sales, marketing, supply chain management. Her clients ranged from luxury retailers to mainstream and digital giants. “It was demanding at every level.”
Eventually, the challenges of domestic manufacturing and the global shift toward multinational sourcing reshaped the industry. In 2019, Leah retired after a rewarding career—and at just the right time. “I truly believe it was God’s grace,” she reflects. “COVID was right around the corner and we didn’t even know. It would have been devastating for the workers who depended on that business. I believe I was guided exactly where I needed to be.”
Faith has always been central to Leah’s life—not as a last resort, but as a daily anchor. “Even on what felt like the worst days of my life, I could look back later and say, ‘That turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me,’” she says. “Faith gives you perspective. It keeps you from collapsing into ‘Why me?’ and pushes you move forward in hope.” Leah speaks candidly about motherhood, including caring for her disabled daughter. “As a mother, you don’t have the option to fall apart. You are the keeper of faith, the voice of hope, and the example of selfless love. But you can’t do it with your own strength, you lean on the example of Christ to understand what it means to love fiercely, follow the example of the Ultimate Mother to understand how to trust, surrender, and endure pain with grace. My faith has carried me through health, celebration, illness, loss, —all of it.”
Her philosophy is simple but profound: faith isn’t something you turn to only in crisis. “Faith is a way of life. When you’re in constant communication with God, you’re supported all the time—not just when you’re on your knees.”
In early 2020, Leah traveled from Los Angeles to New York for what was meant to be a short stay. Then the world shut down. “It was supposed to be a month,” she says. “I’m still here.” During lockdown, her spiritual father encouraged her to volunteer her time to support a newly formed foundation, The Patriarch Bartholomew Foundation, dedicated to supporting and strengthening the ministry of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. One opportunity led to another, and soon Leah found herself working with The Order of Saint Andrew Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, fully immersed in service to the church.
“I thought it would be six months,” she admits. “It’s been almost five years.” If you had asked her back then where she saw herself now, the answer would have looked very different. “I probably would have said traveling, consulting, maybe doing creative fashion ventures,” she says. “Instead, God provided me with something that feeds my soul.” Leah confesses that this turn was truly unexpected and unlike any work she’s ever done. “Serving others in this way has brought me a peace I’ve never known,” Leah says with a smile. “It almost felt like God said, ‘You need to come to my house for a little while.’”
“I get to go to church every day now!” Kats says. “But my faith didn’t start there—it started at home.” Growing up in California, Kats learned early that faith wasn’t just something you practiced on Sundays; it shaped how you lived and worked. Professionalism can be one of the biggest opportunities to express faith. Her father ran his business on a handshake. “He didn’t need contracts. His word was his bond,” she recalls. “I carried that same principle with me everywhere: my word is my word. Trust must be the foundation of all things.”
Of course, in the world of large corporations, contracts were unavoidable—but integrity still mattered. Kats worked closely with the Nordstrom family at a time when they, too, were still a family-run business. “We had honest conversations. We were transparent. They’d ask for something, and we’d say yes or no—and whatever we said, we honored it,” she explains. “Even if it meant taking a loss, which happened occasionally, we stood by our word.”
The consistency of integrity in practice, not just words, built trust. “They respected us because they knew exactly who we were—our integrity was what we did. It showed up in our products and in our promises. And they treated us the same way. There was mutual respect. No one tried to cheat or took advantage of anyone. Business isn’t just about products and profits—its a place where you nurture real human relationships and create community.”
Not every company operated that way. Kats contrasts that experience with working for large retailers where leadership constantly changed. “Your word didn’t mean much because the relationship reset every year. You were always rebuilding trust from scratch.” Family businesses were different. “They were generational,” she says. “Just as my father worked with one generation, I worked with the next. Within that continuity isn’t just the continuity of clients and growth of business, but the continuity of faithful relationships and a type of spiritual growth that comes with the practice of ethical, values-based professional practices.”
For Kats, those values were inseparable from her faith. “Religious teachings instruct you on ethics: not to steal, not to take advantage of anyone, to do the right thing—even when it’s hard,” she says. “And there were hard moments. Times when you’d quietly pray, ‘God, help me through this.’ Within those tough moments, that’s where you must do real spiritual work and lean into discomfort and into faith. And that’s where you grow as a professional and as a person. This is foundational—to practicing faith, integrity, and responsibility—it starts in the home-church of your parents and your grandparents, and it stays with you for life.”
As always, we asked Leah Kats, our Woman of the Week, about her morning routine:
“My morning routine is simple and grounding. I have three little pups. I was an only child, so I’ve always loved animals. I love my kids, and I love my pets.
“I wake up and begin the day with a short meditation. There’s a book I keep on my bedside table, The Book of Awakening, and every morning I read a small passage. It’s not long, but it sets the tone. It’s like a meditation.
“Going through a divorce, along with everything else, was very difficult. It’s hard to wake up one day and say, ‘What have I done? I can’t do this anymore.’ You begin asking philosophical questions—where am I going, why didn’t I see this, how did I get here? The whole foundation of what I thought my life was, the foundation of family, suddenly felt like it had fallen apart. You think, wait, how did this happen now? I’m smarter than this.
“That’s where my faith stepped in again. It helped steady me. One of the practices I turned to was meditation. Meditation is not easy. I couldn’t just sit down and be still—my mind kept buzzing. I had to learn how to stop, how to be quiet. So I do that in the morning. I also read a little, thoughtfully. And at night, I read the Bible—not ceremonially, but the way you read a book, because it is a book. I read it before I go to bed, the way some people read novels or thrillers. It’s a big book, and sometimes it’s hard to take in, but I’ll say to myself, okay, I’ll read another page.
“I pray in the morning, and I pray at night. It’s part of the rhythm of my day.
“Did you hear me say anything about exercise? No. I’m the poster child for no exercise. I do walk to work—that’s my commute.
“My days are full, and I like them that way. Having purpose, having somewhere to go, keeps my mind engaged. It’s good for me. I can’t imagine not living that way.”
Thank you, Leah!