Miranda Kerr on running a house full of boys, a business and a sparkling new role
The model, beauty entrepreneur and new mother feels ready to embrace being global ambassador for jewellery brand Michael Hill.
Miranda Kerr is in a newborn baby bubble. After welcoming her fourth son, Pierre, in February, she tells The Australian she’s feeling incredibly “blessed”.
“To have four healthy boys, I have to pinch myself,” she says during a phone call from the home in Los Angeles she shares with husband Evan Spiegel, the founder of Snapchat. Her three older boys, she adds, are in love with their baby brother. Though none is more besotted than four -year-old Miles.
“He keeps saying ‘Mum, the baby needs me’,” she says.
Keeping busy is in the DNA of the Gunnedah-raised model. Kerr is also the founder and chief executive of organic and natural skincare brand Kora Organics and on Monday she becomes the first global ambassador for jewellery brand Michael Hill.
The retailer, founded in New Zealand by Sir Michael Hill in 1979, has more than 270 stores across Australia, New Zealand and Canada and has been undergoing a significant brand elevation over the past three years. It will open its first global flagship, in Melbourne’s Chadstone, next month.
For Kerr it’s something akin to coming home.
“I just feel like there’s a lot that connects us … I first shot for Michael Hill about 20 years ago … to be asked to be their brand ambassador 20 years later is such an honour,” she says.
Kerr sees an affinity between Kora Organics, with its focus on organic ingredients and reducing carbon footprint where possible, and Michael Hill, which last year released its sustainably accredited lab-grown diamond range.
Earlier this year the jeweller launched the Michael Hill Foundation, which will benefit women and sustainability-focused charities and initiatives including Dress for Success, Women’s Refuge (NZ), the Collective Good Foundation (India) and One Tree Planted (global). The brand will donate a portion of sales from selected jewellery lines to its charity partners.
As for managing the juggle associated with a house full of boys and running her own company, Kerr says she probably has a colour code for that.
“For me, personally, my family comes first in all that I do. And I’m lucky to be in a position of owning my own business and having that flexibility and scheduling my meetings around this and around their schedule as much as possible.
“But what I find really helpful is just planning and having a colour-coded calendar that I have everything in, from school drop-offs to kids’ activities and dinner dates with my husband and my business meetings,” she says.
“I even have to put in there when to call my parents because they get so busy with life,” she adds. That’s not an issue at the moment: her parents have been staying with her in Los Angeles as the young family settles into the new rhythm.
For Kerr, family is her number one priority, and she says her own parents and grandparents have been influential in how she approaches her own business.
“They really have been so instrumental in helping shape who I am today. My mum, since I was a little girl, said two things to me. One was ‘shine your light’. She had that embroidered on a little pillow for me, shine your light, which is all about shining your heart. And the other thing that she grilled into me was, if you’re going to do something, give it 100 per cent or don’t bother doing it at all. And that has stuck with me, whether that’s changing a diaper or doing the P&L (profit & loss) … I just give my all in everything that I do because there’s no use half-heartedly doing anything,” she says.
The appointment of Kerr is one of the final pieces of the transformation Michael Hill has been undergoing the past three years.
The overhaul includes streamlined product offering, reduced focus on discounting, refreshed branding and the introduction of more elevated designs. This includes the brand’s first foray into “high” jewellery. The new premium flagship in Chadstone is the prototype for its future stores, says chief executive Daniel Bracken.
The project has faced some challenges. Following a boom in the post-Covid period, the cost-of-living crunch, interest rates and consumer caution have impacted the business. In January it reported a decline in revenue and flagged challenging conditions.
Still, Bracken is feeling bullish.
“I’m positive for the future. It’s still tough right now, but when you extrapolate the trends we’re seeing, certainly in Canada or Australia, we feel FY25 will be a reasonably good year for us,” he says.
The brand has succeeded in lifting the average transaction value by 30 per cent in the past three years.
“The whole aspirational journey that we’ve been on for the last three years has been about targeting a more aspirational customer … They’ve got a higher spending power. We’re capturing more of that segment of the market and we’re really happy with that, ” Bracken said.
