Introduction: Lynette Johnson is a former DFS senior executive, including spells as Senior Vice President Global Merchandising and finally Managing Director of the travel retailer’s Guam and Saipan operations. Later she spent almost three years at DFS sister company Starboard Cruise Services as Chief Merchant and Customer Experience Officer.
In late 2023, Lynette founded All Hands Alchemy, a transformational guide and leadership consultancy she describes as being at ‘the intersection of leadership, transformation and becoming’.
She is also a writer. A very good one. Late last year Lynette launched Grassroots Alchemy Letters, prompted by her learning that Friendship Cottage – the adult day service that cared for her mother – was at risk of closure.
Grassroots Alchemy Letters is a monthly storytelling offering created to support Friendship Cottage directly. “Its letters honour the devotion of caregivers, the humanity of elders, and the systems of care that too often go unseen,” writes Lynette.
Having read about the recent string of DFS closures – including Australia, Guam, Hawaii, Saipan, and New Zealand – and the weekend news of the sale of the key Hong Kong and Macau businesses to CDFG, she was prompted to write this outstanding piece, reproduced here with permission.
DFS Group has touched many of us around the globe with a complex mix of nostalgia, gratitude, reflection and sadness. For those of us who were part of each other’s lives for so long, this moment carries weight.
We didn’t just work together. We grew up together.
In many places, DFS was more than a company. It was a centre of livelihood and community, woven into the lives of grandparents, parents and children over a 62-year period. This chapter is now acknowledged not only as a business transition but also as the closing of a shared era that shaped countless families and lives.
I joined DFS when I was 27 years old.
At the time, I did not yet know the leader I would become. I knew how to work hard. I knew how to listen. I was curious and willing. What I did not yet understand was how profoundly a company could shape a career into a way of seeing the world.
I grew up in Minnesota. When I was finally able to make my first real choice, I moved to Arizona. I worked in retail for Diamonds, Dillard’s and Broadway Southwest Department Stores – roles that taught me buying, store operations and how business actually works on the ground.
I was living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, when a friend told me about a company she had joined called DFS. They were looking for a jewellery merchant. That part felt familiar. What intrigued me just as much was the idea of living in California.
So, I packed up my Jeep Wrangler and drove west from Santa Fe – into what I thought was a move across states, but what would turn out to be the move of a lifetime. I stepped into a world far larger than I could have imagined. It opened a way of seeing things that changed how I looked at everything.
Until then, my understanding of business, culture and leadership had been shaped largely by place – by what I had known and what I had seen close to home. DFS changed that immediately. It did not simply give me a job. It expanded my world view. It invited a much larger version of who I was becoming.
Over the years, I worked across countries, cultures and time zones, alongside teams and brand partners around the globe. These experiences were immersive and deeply formative. I learned that leadership does not live the same way everywhere, even when values are shared.
That alignment requires listening. That respect must be practiced, not assumed. And that relationships are not a ‘soft skill’. They are the work.
DFS was a very entrepreneurial company when I joined. It was fast-moving, demanding and very much alive. Responsibility arrived early. Learning happened in motion. You were trusted to lead, figure things out, and hold complexity as it unfolded.
You were often handed objectives that, on some days, seemed impossible. And almost immediately, you began to strategise how they might be done. The game of chess was exhilarating, challenging, frustrating and fun – often all at the same time.
Titles changed. Roles expanded. Expectations grew. And through it all, I grew too {main article continues following the panel below}.
Reaction to Lynette Johnson’s article from LinkedIn
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The projects were always compelling. A new country. An iconic location. A place where history lived, and where local influence could meaningfully shape global strategy. We took pride in the quality of execution and in the sincerity of the customer experience, all delivered with care by hands around the globe.
As the company grew, so did its reach. DFS became a global travel retail luxury powerhouse, operating across continents and cultures. From the inside, it felt dynamic and resilient – a living system built on trust, shared ambition and long-standing relationships. We were building something meaningful together, and it carried a sense of momentum that felt enduring.
What distinguished DFS was its belief in relationships.
With brand partners. With employees. With teams across continents and markets. We understood that growth emerged from collaboration. Alignment mattered. And when priorities conflicted, we would look for the third alternative – the path that honoured multiple perspectives and enabled forward movement together. This way of working shaped not only how we built the business but how we showed up for one another.
We were also intentional about culture.
Together, we defined what we valued and how we wanted to work. We were curious. We embraced change. We valued one another. We were collaborative. We demonstrated humanity. We acted with integrity. These were not just words on a wall. They were lived expectations, practiced as the business evolved.
Even now, years later, those values remain at the forefront of my mind.
The company grew by paying attention. Customers evolved. Markets shifted. Cultures changed. We learned to stay curious and responsive – to recognise that who we were serving and how we served would never remain static. The company grew up alongside its customers, adapting to changing interests, motivations and ways of moving through the world.
And over time, everything changes. We know this to be true but that doesn’t make it easier. When something we helped create – something built over decades – will no longer be what it once was, that is hard. The experience remains profoundly essential and relevant, even as the form changes.
Everything in life moves in cycles. Entire chapters come to a close. The experiences we grow up inside are no longer what they once were. Where we find ourselves now, together, is no different.
And yet, what I feel most strongly is gratitude.
Because what I gained will never disappear, even as the company has changed.
I carry a deep respect for relationships. A profound compassion for what makes us human. An understanding that alignment takes time and care. A belief that growth requires adaptability and responsibility.
And a lived awareness that impermanence deepens meaning.
I hold deep gratitude for the many mentors who shaped me along the way. Those who taught that trust must precede strategy. Those who could skilfully see around corners and help you understand what was happening, and also why.
Those who created stretch through belief and trusted me with responsibility before I felt ready. Expansive minds whose questions alone shifted perspective. Presence marked by grace in complexity and integrity in moments of conflict. Respect modelled authentically across cultures as practice, not theory. Brilliant minds that left you quietly wondering how they managed to do what they did. (You know who you are.)
And leadership shaped by a way of thinking that reached beyond personal success toward something greater and shared.
Fifteen years of my life were profoundly shaped by DFS. I can only imagine who I would be now if I had not been influenced by it.
DFS shaped how I lead and how I listen.
It taught me that business is always human first. That becoming is a shared process. And that some chapters, no matter how formative, are meant to be completed so that what was learned can be carried forward and dispersed exponentially through many hands.
I am grateful to have been part of DFS. Grateful for the people, the experiences, the challenges, and the world it opened to me. Grateful for the lifelong friendships. Grateful for the leader and the human I became there.
It was a masterpiece of time.
May this moment invite each of us to honour the spirit of DFS and what we built together. May we carry it forward as stewards of a remarkable, and once-in-a-lifetime, shared legacy.
With lifelong gratitude. ✈
