Mentorship: How Sara Jonsdottir and Shirley Thompson got in the flow of doing business together

In 2015, Sara Jonsdottir was working two full-time jobs and pursuing a degree in fashion/apparel design at the Wilson School of Design at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. In the final year of the program, students had to present three ideas to their professor, one of which they would develop into a full business plan.

The professor was Shirley Thompson, a long-time retail executive who, before her 24-year stint at the university, had worked with brands like Calvin Klein Sport.

“I was one of the last people to go and she had approved a bunch of people ahead of me,” Jonsdottir recalls. “You couldn’t move forward with the project until you got approval. And I thought I was a shoo-in. I go to her and I present—one of my ideas was feminist lingerie. And she says, ‘No. I know you can do better.’ I remember being shocked.”

It was a Friday afternoon, and Jonsdottir spent the weekend doing a deep dive into alternative ideas and sectors. “I have a heavy flow so I honed in on period underwear,” she says. “There was a lack of innovation in the space. So I just came back Monday morning with…”

Thompson finishes her sentence: “Guns blazing. She was on fire.”

Jonsdottir eagerly laid out a pitch for leak-proof underwear that would essentially act as a menstrual product. It got Thompson’s approval: “I just said, ‘Run with it.’”

After she finished her schooling, Jonsdottir started an Etsy shop, which she eventually branded as Revol Cares. The business began to grow organically and so, to keep up with demand, she brought on her husband, Mayo Santos, along with a couple of employees. Thompson kept close tabs on Jonsdottir, checking in often and inviting her to speak at the university. “I was just so engaged with the process that she was going through and really excited to hear how she was sewing her own underwear and selling it on Etsy and that the demand was growing,” says Thompson.

Soon, Thompson found herself thinking about the next steps in her own career—and she couldn’t help wondering if she should take them with Revol. “Sara’s brand and what she was developing was aligned with everything that I have been educating myself and my students about—people, planet, profit,” she says. “I started to think, ‘What am I doing? This is a meaningful, purpose-driven brand.’”

At that point, Thompson had been mentoring Jonsdottir for about two years. Jonsdottir remembers the fateful exchange well: “She said to me, ‘You know, Sara, I’d like to leave my legacy somewhere where it’s going to be meaningful.’ And I said, ‘Wow, really? Where do you think that’s going to be?’ It was just going totally over my head. And she said, ‘I think it’s at Revol.’ I was extremely honoured.”

Thompson officially joined the company as vice-president of business development in the fall of 2022. Today, Revol has seven full-time staff and can be found in over 2,000 retailers, including London Drugs, Pharmasave and Save-On-Foods. In the last year, says Jonsdottir, Revol has quintupled its revenue. “A big component of Shirley coming on is that we wanted to see our products available in pharmacies, natural health food stores and grocers. She built out what that program would look like and spearheaded the mission to become the first medically recognized period underwear with the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada.”

Jonsdottir describes getting to that point as a major boost for the brand: “Shirley said that, if we were going into retail, we were going to do it right and show the customer that they can trust our products. It’s changed the trajectory of the business—our ability to get into these stores so quickly is because we’re trusted and vetted.”

The experience has convinced Jonsdottir of the value of mentorship. “Get yourself a Shirley—your life will change,” she advises, adding one caveat: “Just not my Shirley.”