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" Marigay McKee is a firm believer in mantras. &amp;quot;I always keep a card with this one on my desk: &amp;#039;Be brave. No one remembers a coward,&amp;#039; &amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I also love Robert Kennedy&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.&amp;#039; &amp;quot; McKee&amp;#039;s conviction is precisely what brought her to Manhattan in 2013, when she moved from England with her two teenage kids to become president of the shiny retail giant, Saks Fifth Avenue. After 15 years working her way up from beauty buyer to chief merchant at the vaunted British luxury department store Harrods, McKee knew taking the job was a bold move\u2014and that&amp;#039;s exactly why she did it. &amp;quot;When it comes to making choices, you can either embrace an opportunity or be a nonparticipator,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;And I think embracing is really important.&amp;quot; Case in point: During her break between companies, she kicked off her Manolos and trekked more than 13,000 feet up Mount Everest. &amp;quot;I went with a few good friends who were experienced hikers,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;And five years ago I jumped out of a plane to raise funds for breast cancer! I will not be doing that again. But it&amp;#039;s nice to tick things off my life list.&amp;quot;  Pictured: On Marigay: Victoria Beckham dress. Bulgari bracelet and ring. Rolex watch. Manolo Blahnik for Carolina Herrera shoes. On Lydia: Alice and Olivia dress. Cartier ring and bracelet. Saint Laurent shoes. McKee, who was born and raised in London, took a similar bull-by-the-horns approach when she arrived in New York. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve adapted quite well,&amp;quot; she says brightly. &amp;quot;I have gone from scones to bagels, tea to coffee, jam to cream cheese.&amp;quot; Sitting in the living room of the Upper East Side home she shares with her fianc\u00E9 and their respective children, she is petite and kittenish, with doll-like eyelashes and honey-blonde hair. She also exudes the warm, polished confidence of a master marketer. Two minutes into a conversation, you not only want to buy anything she mentions but everything around her as well, including the couch she&amp;#039;s curled up on, the coaster for her water glass, and the potato chips on the coffee table next to her. Of course, it doesn&amp;#039;t hurt that the couch is covered in an impossibly soft fur throw by Yves Salomon and the coaster is a slice of amethyst crystal. (And the chips are, well, chips.)  In April, McKee left Saks and set up her own company, MM Luxe Consulting, which specializes in developing high-end branding strategies for clients ranging from real estate developers to startup fashion labels. She also joined the board of Violet Grey, the Los Angeles\u2013based beauty retailer. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s the first time in my life I&amp;#039;ve ever worked for myself. I&amp;#039;ve gone from drivers and assistants to Uber and getting my own Starbucks, and I love it!&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I never really saw myself as an entrepreneur before\u2014I always saw myself as a worker bee, although,&amp;quot; she deadpans, &amp;quot;some people might have called me the queen bee.&amp;quot;   Pictured: Valentino dress and pants.\u00A0Gem Palace\u00A0Jaipur earrings. Cartier watch\u00A0and ring. Manolo Blahnik shoes. Whatever kind of bee McKee is, she&amp;#039;s a busy one: Companies have been knocking down her door since day one, and she&amp;#039;s been getting her hands dirty\u2014literally. &amp;quot;In the world where everything is computer-generated, I am the last remaining person who makes their own mood boards for every project I work on,&amp;quot; McKee says, leading me into her home office and brandishing a stack of posters. &amp;quot;Some people think it&amp;#039;s old-fashioned, but I am very visual, and very OCD, and it really helps me organize my own thoughts. All you need is some cards and staples and glue.&amp;quot; She holds up a board she&amp;#039;s prepared for a beauty client, with photos snipped from magazines and keywords like &amp;quot;travel&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;philanthropy.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;This one looks at how women juggle beauty and work and family and giving back. When women get together, they talk about things like fashion and shopping, but they also talk about charity. It&amp;#039;s more important now than ever to find causes aligned to our lives and those of our friends,&amp;quot; explains McKee, who is herself an avid supporter of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and Autism Speaks, and has cohosted fund-raisers for both organizations (in addition to the aforementioned skydive). &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s all part of what&amp;#039;s relevant to women today, and the balancing act we do,&amp;quot; she continues. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve also got children and a partner to look after, dogs, a client meeting. I&amp;#039;ve got to help my son pack or help my daughter with her science test.&amp;quot; She smiles. &amp;quot;And on top of that, we all want to look good!&amp;quot;  Although McKee&amp;#039;s new business requires a lot of travel, her roots in New York are now stronger than ever. Last November, she became engaged to an American financier she had met just a few weeks after she arrived two years ago. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s like a modern Manhattan fairy tale,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I mean, what are the chances? I was divorced, I came here with my children to take on a big responsibility and attempt to run an iconic American brand\u2014the last thing that was on my mind was dating. And the odds of me meeting a finance guy were pretty low, because he was just not in my circles. But I can honestly say, I think I&amp;#039;ve found the nicest man in New York.&amp;quot;  That summer, the couple began shopping for a home where they could combine their families, which include his three adult children and border terrier, Sutter, as well as Marigay&amp;#039;s daughter, Lydia, 17; son, Alex, 19; and shih tzu, Coco. &amp;quot;We looked at apartments for a few months, but as soon as we walked in here, it felt like a happy place,&amp;quot; says McKee of the stone-ribbed townhouse built in 1884 by the prominent Gilded Age architects Douglas and John Jardine. &amp;quot;It had good karma. For us, it&amp;#039;s about having our children and dogs and friends around, having dinner parties\u2014we did not want a show house. We wanted a comfy house.&amp;quot; Two days after moving in, McKee climbed into bed to find an engagement ring in a small box on her pillow.&amp;quot; I didn&amp;#039;t have my glasses on, so at first I thought it was a box of chocolates!&amp;quot; she says, laughing. Yes, he picked out the ring himself, and, no, they don&amp;#039;t have a wedding date. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re not in any rush. It was more about making a commitment. Our children are a big priority, and we&amp;#039;re both Catholic. But we&amp;#039;ve each been married before, and it&amp;#039;s not about making a fuss.&amp;quot;  If the two dogs are any indication of the couple&amp;#039;s compatibility, then the partnership is one for the ages. As McKee clicks briskly up and down the stairs in her high heels, Sutter and Coco orbit her like two tiny adoring moons. When she settles onto the sofa, Sutter jumps up for a belly rub and dissolves into a blissful nap; Coco snoozes on a velvet chair nearby. &amp;quot;We made sure that the whole house is dogproof,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;They lie all over everything.&amp;quot; One can hardly blame them. The home&amp;#039;s interiors are finely calibrated to be inviting on every level, with lush fabrics, Feu de Bois candles from Diptyque, and music emanating faintly from speakers hidden somewhere in the woodwork. &amp;quot;I am very attuned to the senses,&amp;quot; says McKee. &amp;quot;When I walk into a room, I immediately notice how it looks and smells.&amp;quot; Never one to drag her feet, she decorated the entire 9,000-square-foot house in just four months, enlisting the help of designer Nicole Freezer Rubens. &amp;quot;We got Nicole&amp;#039;s name when we went to look at an apartment on Park Avenue,&amp;quot; McKee says. &amp;quot;Turns out we didn&amp;#039;t want the apartment, but we loved the interiors. So I called her up.&amp;quot; McKee met with Rubens once a week for two hours until the house was complete. &amp;quot;It was very easy. We&amp;#039;d review everything, and I&amp;#039;d just say, &amp;#039;yes, yes, yes,&amp;#039; or &amp;#039;no, no, no.&amp;#039; We never changed our mind once!&amp;quot; McKee knew exactly what she wanted. &amp;quot;With me, it&amp;#039;s always 50 shades of gray and beige, but there&amp;#039;s got to be lots of texture and accessories,&amp;quot; she explains. &amp;quot;The living areas are gray, the bedrooms are taupe or beige, and the bathrooms are very clean and white\u2014soothing and modern. And then the art, the accessories, the dogs, and the kids bring it all to life.&amp;quot;  Indeed, the art has a major presence. Two enormous Luc Tuymans paintings hang on facing walls in a living room, and Richard Prince pieces line the entrance hallway\u2014all courtesy of McKee&amp;#039;s fianc\u00E9, an avid collector for 25 years. &amp;quot;Art is a source of great pleasure for him. He gave me carte blanche on the decorating, but he organized all the art, the wine cellar, and the gym\u2014his major areas of expertise.&amp;quot; Meanwhile, McKee&amp;#039;s art collection is in her closet. &amp;quot;I like to call them &amp;#039;dream investments,&amp;#039; &amp;quot; she says of her trove of vintage Kelly bags, Birkins, and Chanel purses. Befitting its museum-quality contents, her wardrobe is meticulously organized, with stacks of Louis Vuitton Monogram trunks in one corner, shelves of Manolo Blahnik heels, and a whole rack devoted to her Ala\u00EFa dresses. Converted from a bedroom, her airy dressing space doubles as an office and also serves as a hangout spot for McKee and her daughter. &amp;quot;I often do work in here because it&amp;#039;s such a relaxing spot.&amp;quot;  Pictured: Michael Kors Collection\u00A0dress, Buccellati earrings, Rolex watch. Manolo Blahnik sandals.\u00A0 McKee&amp;#039;s business acumen is rooted in her preternatural understanding of what people want\u2014sometimes even before they know it themselves. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m always focused on what women desire versus what women need. What is a dream investment? If something is an object of beauty and desire, you find a way to buy it,&amp;quot; she explains, her eyes alight. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s like when you go past the flower store and you see these beautiful peonies that are just waiting to open, and you have to take them home. Or when the candy shop&amp;#039;s door is open and you can smell them making chocolate inside.&amp;quot; She&amp;#039;s passionate about delivering that special spark, the magic touch that transforms an object into an experience. &amp;quot;I look at a jar of cream and I think, That&amp;#039;s hope in a jar. I look at a bottle of fragrance and I think, It&amp;#039;s a dream in a bottle. It&amp;#039;s all about making life exciting, and I think the emotional connection is so important. It&amp;#039;s what guides our decisions,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;And like I always tell my children, life is all about choices. Make good choices.&amp;quot; This article originally appeared in the November 2015\u00A0issue of Harper&amp;#039;s BAZAAR.\u00A0    "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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