SPOTLIGHT A business can build its success by embodying luxury and philanthropy at the same time. Just ask female entrepreneur Sandi Hendry. She is the CEO and founder of Minky Couture, a luxury designer blanket retailer beloved not only for its incredibly soft customized blankets but also for its generosity. Each blanket begins with the highestquality fabric that maintains its plush, soft feel for many years. The product is unique because the fabric is not something found at a local fabric store. Instead, it is handselected and carefully sourced to ensure a premium thread count and durability. Minky Couture also stands out from its competition through its extensive pattern selection, allowing customers to design their own customized blanket and feel a sense of collaboration and engagement in the process. In 2025 alone, Hendry launched the company’s Heart of Minky giving program, which resulted in the donation of more than 155,000 blankets, representing over $5.5 million in retail value, to families and organizations across the country. This includes a focused NICU donation program that has now reached all 50 states and more than 300 hospitals, many of which receive multiple deliveries throughout the year. Behind the scenes, Minky Couture has also positively affected the lives of many people throughout its home state of Utah and beyond. The company has created a flexible and family-friendly environment that extends across its workforce. Many local mothers have been given the opportunity to work as seamstresses from their own homes, allowing them to provide for their families while developing professional skills. This reinforces the company’s belief that women working together locally to provide luxury and comfort to one another is about more than manufacturing a product. It is a way of building community. While it is easy to see how Minky Couture achieved this level of success, continuing to scale in an ever-changing retail landscape is increasingly complex. Although the foundation remains the quality, look, and feel of the blankets paired with the company’s charitable mission, Hendry acknowledges that expanding the use of technology and data is essential to the brand’s next phase of growth. That realization led her to explore how artificial intelligence plays a role in managing many aspects of modern business. Like many business owners, Hendry understood the potential of AI but recognized the challenges involved in implementing the technology and turning data into meaningful business insights. Her search led her to Domo, an AI and data products platform that helps organizations of all sizes leverage data to drive value. Domo enables the Minky Couture team to centralize data from across the business, including inventory, supply chain, marketing, finance, logistics, and store operations. Bringing this information together in a single view provides actionable insights that support smarter planning, reduces manual work, and improves decision-making across the organization. “Our purpose has always been bigger than blankets,” said Hendry. “We exist to bring comfort to our customers, to families in hospitals, and to people going through difficult moments. Domo gives us the clarity and confidence we need to run our business efficiently so we can continue expanding our reach and giving back in even more meaningful ways.” Using Domo, Minky Couture tracks operational performance, optimizes inventory movement, improves forecasting accuracy, and streamlines decisionmaking, all while remaining focused on using AI responsibly and effectively. Hendry believes that surrounding herself with loyal, honest, creative, and dedicated employees is critical to accomplishing her mission to “blanket the world in Minky Couture” luxury. She is also focused on leaving a lasting legacy. While staying current with technology can feel intimidating, especially for smaller companies, Hendry understands that implementing the right tools can be transformative. Leveraging data and AI allows Minky Couture to continue improving how it serves its customers, supports its employees, and gives back to the community for years to come. Sandi Hendry Minky Couture How AI is helping Minky Couture scale a luxury brand built on giving enterprising Women 99
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