What It Actually Takes to Build an International Brand

An interview with Nima Zaribaf, SVP, Brand & Comms at AMIRI

Most people think building a brand is about product, distribution, timing, or capital. It is. But before any of that compounds into something real, there’s a more fundamental truth:

Either you grow as fast as your business—or it doesn’t grow at all.

There’s no third path where the brand expands while you stay the same.

I first met Nima Zaribaf two years ago in Tokyo—maybe the most fitting place to meet someone who has spent his career thinking seriously about what luxury actually means.

He’s been at AMIRI since the beginning. Employee number two. Back when it was just a basement studio in Hollywood—no AC, with chicken grease dripping down the walls from the restaurant above.

He watched the brand grow from an 80-person debut show in Paris to one of the top five shows in the city by EMV—the only independent brand reaching that level without financial backing.

By 30, he was SVP of Brand & Communications. Forbes 30 Under 30.

I wasn’t simply interested in what AMIRI has built. I wanted to understand what building AMIRI required Nima to become.

Because that’s the question no one answers honestly: how do you become the person your company needs?

People talk about strategy, product, timing. They rarely talk about the reality that growth will keep asking you to be someone you may not yet be ready to be—and that the only way forward is to go anyway.

Esteban: You were employee number two at AMIRI. What did that actually look like?

Nima: It was Mike, one sample sewer, a couple of people helping out, and me. We were in a basement studio underneath a Thai restaurant on Sunset Boulevard here in Hollywood. No AC. Chicken grease dripping from the ceiling. He had a few jackets on a rack and was already in early conversations with Maxfield, a specialty botique in Los Angeles, for the first order.

Esteban: Did you know what you were in?

Nima: I couldn't tell you I had the intuition that this was going to be a massive company and that I was witnessing the beginning stages. But Mike always had a very clear vision of where he wanted to go, and I fully bought into it, maybe naively, because I just didn't know better – I was 18. I was like, yeah, we're going from this basement to Rodeo Drive, sure. Let’s go. But more than the destination, what I felt was that everyone in that room had purpose. Everyone was so committed. The intuition wasn't that AMIRI would be big. It was that I was with the right people.

Esteban: How did you end up there?

Nima: Mike's wife is a family member of mine. He called me the Summer after I graduated high school. Like “Hey, I'm doing this thing, come help me a couple days a week if you have some time.” I went, and I just didn't want to leave. One week became two, two became three, and by the end of the third week I was begging to stay. The deal was: you can stay, but you have to keep going to community college, and I can’t pay you. 

Esteban: And?

Nima: I secretly dropped out. There was something about being in Hollywood surrounded by such historic creative energy, working on something that felt meaningful, at a moment in my life where I was desperate for direction. When I found it, I wasn't letting go. My family is Middle Eastern so it was a big drama. To this day my parents think I should have finished school.

Esteban: What did those early days actually teach you?

Nima: That hard work always wins. Watching Mike take that entrepreneurial risk up close, there's definitely a trickle-down effect on your own work ethic. But it was also a bit of the pressure of the circumstance. Everyone I knew was telling me I was making the biggest mistake of my life. So there was this drive to prove people wrong. And the way I chose to do that was simple: whatever small thing I was responsible for, I was going to do better than anyone. If it was sweeping the floor, I was sweeping it better than anyone. I took it personally. The mentality started from the most basic possible task.

Esteban: You go from intern to SVP over 12 years. What actually changed?

Nima: The scale. The same mentality, applied at a higher level each time. In the early days you wear every hat. You have no choice but to move fast, get through 50 things, and grab the next 50. That urgency became fundamental to how I operate. I like to think I can get through more in a couple of hours than most people can in a full day, and that's what allows me to have such a wide scope. 

Esteban: And when does it stop being about your own output?

Nima: The moment you enter management. That's the first real shift. Before that, you're only accountable for yourself. Work hard, stay flexible, show up, execute. Then suddenly you have a team, and you're thinking about delegation, leadership, KPIs, performance, and how to get the best out of others. I was 23. Some of the people I was managing were older than me, and it was a big step. 

Esteban: What made it difficult?

Nima: Letting go. I was so confident in my own ability to execute that handing the keys to someone else felt unnatural. And honestly, it still does sometimes. But clinging onto tasks, even if they’re tasks you may still be the best at, can actually be a detriment to you and the business. It can hinder you from doing everything else that actually requires your attention at that level. Even if someone else can't execute at your standard in the short term, the goal is to build them. The whole point is to develop them into someone who can.

Esteban: And then it happened again when you became SVP.

Nima: I inherited a team for the first time, and took on PR and Communications, a world I understood adjacently but wasn't an expert in. For the first time, the people reporting to me knew more than I did about their function. I had to learn from them. Branding & Image came naturally to me. I knew the photographers, the Art Directors, and how to run a set. PR is a completely different organism. People who are experts in that world are highly specialized. They know the journalists, the publications, the landscape in every market. I didn't. I had to figure it out fast and lean on the people who already knew. My job was to translate their expertise through my knowledge of the Brand. 

Esteban: Is that the pattern — AMIRI grows, and suddenly demands a version of you that doesn't exist yet?

Nima: You either become the person the company needs or the company will go and find that person. I've been fortunate to be in an organization that has always given people the opportunity to step up. Some people have been able to, some weren't. At the end of the day, it's a business and you have to be objective. 

Esteban: Give me a specific moment where you were genuinely put to the test.

Nima: Our first company town hall. Around 300 people, all-hands, different leaders presenting: Mike, Operations, HR, Finance. I was informed the day before that I was presenting for my department. Someone came to me casually like: Hey, are you ready for tomorrow? I said, what do you mean? They said, " Your presentation, you're presenting tomorrow. I remember thinking: What am I going to do?

I pulled our graphic designer into a conference room, and we worked on slides for the rest of the day. I remember sitting through the town hall the next morning, watching each person go up, and as it got closer to my turn, I kept getting more and more anxious. By the time they called my name and I was walking toward the microphone, I was genuinely still thinking: it might not be too late to walk straight past it. Go to the parking lot. Go home. Haha. 

Esteban: But you didn't.

Nima: I went for it. Was it perfect? No. Was it how I present today? Not even close. But that was the choice: you step into it and accept the fear, or you're probably not the right person for the job. And the question I kept coming back to was simple — how could you be an executive at an organization and not feel comfortable addressing it? Especially in Brand & Communications, where everything you do is so visible, and your output is, literally, your voice.

Esteban: Tell me about AMIRI's first Paris show.

Nima: We didn't know about carnets. A carnet is a document that tells customs you're traveling with samples for presentation, not for commercial sale. We didn't know this existed. So we just threw everything in suitcases and flew. And to save money, instead of flying direct from LA to Paris, we connected through New York. Our LA flight was delayed. We had to run through JFK to make the connection. We made it. High-fives everywhere. Alright, Paris, let's go.

We land. Go to baggage claim. Not a single bag. The entire collection. Gone. We had a showroom booked, a stylist in town, models confirmed, and invitations already out. AMIRI's debut Paris show had been announced, date and everything. And we're standing there with nothing.

Day one, nothing from Air France. Day two, nothing. Day three, nothing. We started to process the fact that we might actually have to cancel our first show. Day four, everything shows up. The show is the next morning.

We styled the entire first AMIRI show overnight. Pulling things out of suitcases, throwing looks on models, figuring it out as we went. And the show was actually really cool. Maybe 80,100 people there, and we celebrated like we had just produced the biggest show in Paris. I ran up to a buyer — someone who had attended Karl Lagerfeld at his peak, McQueen at his height — and I asked her what she thought. She said, yeah, it was nice.

Now our shows are 900-plus people. Ranked top five in Paris by EMV. The only independent brand without financial backing doing so. I don't think we'd be here without going through those moments.

Esteban: You're turning 30. Forbes 30 Under 30. Is achievement worth it?

Nima: It depends entirely on why you're chasing it. If it's ego, status, prestige, I don't think it ever feels like enough. But if there's a deeper reason behind it, achievement becomes a vehicle for something real. For me, it was a way to show the world I was a person of value. That my parents hadn't failed. That I wasn't wasting my life. And eventually it became the way I honor my late father. Every achievement now is a way to carry his legacy forward.

Esteban: What does Forbes make you reflect on?

Nima: You start asking different questions. How did I get here? Where do I go from here? What does this mean for my family? The answer it keeps giving me is that you can't let the recognition distract you from why you started in the first place. It should function as a reminder — stop, look at the big picture again, make sure the next ten years are going in the right direction. Not just the same direction.

Esteban: What would you have done differently?

Nima: My early days as a leader. The first teams I managed when I was still figuring out what management even meant. I look back and know I could have done better. Been more patient. Been a better listener. More empathetic. There's a certain generosity required to put someone else's growth ahead of your own, and when you're young and still forming yourself professionally, that's hard to see clearly. Someone on your team makes a mistake, and instead of guiding them through it, you're focused on how it reflects on you. That's the failure. Not the mistake itself, but your reaction to it.

Esteban: But you couldn't have known that then.

Nima: You can't look back on your youth and wish you had the knowledge of someone twice your age. You have the experience you have at the time. You grow, you accumulate more, and you hold yourself to a higher standard. That's the only way it works…

There is a line from this conversation that I keep going back to. Nima said: In order to become the next version of yourself, you have to be willing to say goodbye to the current one.

What he was describing is not a metaphor. It is literally what happens inside a growing company. A brand reaches a new level. That level requires a different kind of person. And you are the one who has to decide whether you are going to become that person, or accept that you never will be. That decision happens over and over. At 18, when you are just trying to prove you belong. At 23, when you have your first team and are learning how to lead one. At 26, when you inherit functions you have never run and people who know more than you do. It does not stop.

The moment that stayed with me was not the Paris disaster or the Forbes recognition. It was Nima walking toward that microphone at the town hall, still genuinely considering whether he could fake an emergency and get out of it. That is the real test. Not whether you are ready. You are never fully ready. The test is whether you go anyway.

Your business will always demand a version of you that does not yet exist. The gap between who you are and who the business needs is not a problem to solve once. It is the job. Forever. The founders who understand this build companies that keep growing. The ones who resist it plateau. And the ones who are honest about it, who can say “I am not this person yet, but I am going to figure it out”, those are the ones worth paying attention to.