Lisa Mandy Seskin, Founder of LMS Shoes, developed the brand, a direct to consumer women’s footwear brand that specialises in fashion forward, after identifying a gap in the market between low-quality, low-priced footwear and high-end designer footwear. 

After studying a Bachelor of Business and entering the workforce in her final year of university as a marketing assistant at Glue, Lisa moved into the buying department where she worked as a womenswear buyer for 5 years. This role gave her the opportunity to work with major international brands and she was also responsible for building and developing in-house brands. Here, she also built the brand Beyond Her, an in-house brand that grew from conception to become the top womenswear brand in the business. 

When reflecting on the evolution of LMS Shoes, Lisa has always been entrepreneurial but thinks it’s important to be honest with yourself and be true to whether you are on the path that you want to be on or not. Through her experience building Beyond Her in the previous role, Lisa grew the courage and confidence to step outside of her comfort zone and create LMS Shoes. Not afraid to admit that she wasn’t a designer or had any design experience, she was determined to succeed and eager to learn at any opportunity. For years she had been exposed to the gap in the market and is now overjoyed to be able to meet the demand and fill the gap in the footwear realm.

The growth of the business has been exponential since Bella Hadid wore LMS’ shoes.This was a pivotal moment for Lisa that really validated the hard work that she had put into building the brand. She admits that LMS Shoes is not the end of her career plans and that she certainly sees herself broadening the scope of her business ventures.

Like many other determined women, Lisa has endless ideas and is constantly thriving on being busy. Now, each day involves her being at the LMS Shoes store in Paddington where she is either on the floor or working from the office upstairs. As the business is in a start-up phase, Lisa is required to be across all facets of the business and her time is spent across customer service emails, managing order fulfilment, designing new collections, influencer outreach, among many other tasks of a small business. To keep her mind clear, at the end of each day, she’ll either do a spin class, coastal walk or Pilates.